Page image
Page image

E.—lα.:

6

that is really technical education in the sense that it has a direct effect on industrial efficiency. The course should centre round the trade interest, but provide a continuation of general education. *^ The end of all education is not merely technically L competent workman, but the citizen State, who not only seeks k to L advance his ownwelfare i through his work, but also consciously places his work at the service of the community. The essential of the continuation school is, therefore, the attitude of regarding this stage of technical education as a means for mental and moral training. The idea is to give these youths a pleasure in receiving instruction in their trade, and to make them good at their trade ; not to educate t them out trade into a higher one, but to t make them good in the trade they are already engaged in, and good citizens. , • O »mM. wfnid ■KM.'Employers would, of course, need to co-operate by necessary facilities to their junior workers. £_ . (4.) The Country Course.- —ln the country secondary fc course the curriculum should include the ordinary subj of secondary instruction as specified in the general secondary course The main difference would-be in regard to the material on which the instruction would be based. - . :: , Between a ruralized secondary school and a secondary school of the ordinary type the difference should be one not of aim, Jout of teaching-material. They shoulu both aim at furnishing their pupils with the general intellectual equipment (as distinct from specialized knowledge) which is needful if they are to pursue with interest and intelligence any avocation, either in town or country, which they may be expected to follow. The rural bias to be given to the curriculum is not intended to supply a course of work which will be useful only to intending farmers. On the contrary, it aims at making the curriculum really more suitable in many rural schools than one of the ordinary type, both for those who intend to pursue rural industries and for the majority of those who do not. It would have a certain obvious appropriateness for the former class, but it should be capable also of supplying, in its own way, and with all the more effect because of its essentially practical character, a kind of education which would to the pupils, whatever their subsequent occupations might fc be. , , It is important, and, indeed, vital, that the work in each subj should, so far as possible, be illustrated by, and even based upon, the facts open to the pupils' own observation ; but this does not mean that the attempt should be made to substitute illustrations from everyday life for the principles which they illustrate. Just because it draws its illustrations from the environment with which the pupils are in some degree familiar, and rehes more on actual practice in the garden, the workshop, or the laboratory, than on theoretical instruction, from books, it may be expected in proper hands to stimulate interest and encourage mental alertness. From this point of view, then, the test which should be applied to each portion of the detailed schemes of work is not whether it has an obvious vocational utility, but whether it has purpose and value as a part of a sound secondary education conducted on practical fines. The Place of " Agriculture " in a Rural Course. —It has already been pointed out that even in the interests of the future farmer too much stress should not be laid on the purely vocational aspect of the work. A ruralized school should not attempt to give formal instruction in " agriculture "as a separate subject. Technical matters of purely professional interest to the farmer should, as a rule, be omitted from the course. This does not exclude the possibility of a good deal of incidental reference to agricultural subjects. No hard-and-fast line can be drawn between science and its applications ; and a teacher of rural science should be as free to deal with matters of agricultural interest as the teacher of physics should be to deal with matters which interest the engineer. In a school a large proportion of whose pupils will gain their livehhoods as farmers or in other occupations connected with the land, it would be natural and not improper to give a certain vocational trend to the instruction provided; but careful discrimination, will always be necessary in regard to what should be included, and, in particular, care must be taken to ensure that the work shall not be unprofitable to pupils who will not enter rural industries. The course would provide for a far better educational training for a a country boy who wishes to take up a town occupation than does the present academic preumversity course.

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert