The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-09-27 00:00:00

THE EDUCATION OF AGRICULTURAL

CHILDREN.
On the above sublect The Times has published the fol-
lowing letters :
Sir,—lt may be interesting to those who have lately
opened a discussion in The Times on the education of
children employed in agriculture to know how the
matter is dealt with in Switzerland. I have often
made inquiries on the subject while travelling in that
country, and have found that the following is the
general rule :
During the spring and winter months—i.e., from
October 1 to June 1 (in some places May 1)—all the
children have to attend school regularly, and the age
up to which they have to attend school is 15, in some
ewes 16. In the months of July and August the
schools are closed. In June and September only two
attendances a week of three hours each, on Sunday
and Wednesday (lifitivork) are required at a sort of
" Repetition School,"as it is called—a school, i.e., in
which the children go over again and repeat what they
have learnt during the regular school season,
The above is the rule in the Engadine; in other
parts of Switzerland so many days' attendance are
required (in addition to the winter attendance) in the
summer; but these need not, I believe, be necessarily
on the Sunday and Wednesday.
The. Sunday•school instruction is not religious in-
strnction in the summer months; it is religious in the
winter months.

The above arrangement suits the rural Swiss very
well, whose children, as your readers are aware, are
withdrawn more and more to the mountains, and are
more and more devoted to the care of goats and cows,
as the summer draws on but who in the winter and
Ppring months live in the villages and small towns and
have plenty of time then to attend school. A person
in the Engadine with whom I was talking the other
day on the subject told me that the young people avail
themselves very well of their opportunities, and that,
though there is a compulsory law, it has not often to
be put in force. In most of the Swiss cities—except,
I think, in some of the Roman Catholic cantons—the
age up to which school attendance is obligatory is 15,
but in the cities the poorer children from 12 years of
age to 15 have only to attend school one day a week,
At Zurich, I was teld, an effort is being made to have
this time (one day a week) extended.
The Swiss, in my opinion, show their wisdom in
secering the attendance of their children, if it be only
a partial attendance, up to a good age. There is
hardly any more mischievous delusion on the subject
of education than that which has sprung up of late
years in this country, and which some of our enact-
ments on the subject seem, I am sorry to say, encour-
age—viz., that children can he really educated—ic ,
have their characters formed or their minds developed
—if their education ceases at ten or eleven years of
age. Because, by a system of perpetual grinding
and premature forcing, you have managed to make a
child read, write, and work sums at ten years of age,
it does not in the least follow that education has any
real bold on him, or that the impression made by it
will be, in any degree, permahent. Nor is there any
neon why, it Borne arraegenagut like the Swims, but

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more adapted to their special circumstances, were
made, children should not be kept under school in.
fluence up to a good age even in our rural districts.
—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A SCHOOL INSPECTOR.
September 17.

Sir,—There have been some very good remarks upon
the education €.. f agricultural children in The Times
of late—Home by correspondents, others in one of
your own articles. The gist of them all has been to
show that half-times of attendance should, in certain
circumstances, be allowed to such children, or, at any
rate, to boys, one writer advocating half of each day,
another half of each week; but it seems to me that
it should be half of each year. It so happens that
I have had a considerable experience both of urban and
rural populations, and starting from this point, I am
quite sure that in the Education Act sufficient atten-
tion has not been paid to the distinction always and
necessarily existing between the two. In towns work
for boys is very much the same, as to demand upon
time, all the year round; but in agricultural districts
the case is very different. From the first day of Oc-
tober to the last day of March there is, as a general
rule, very little, it anything, for a boy of 10 or 11
years of age to do in the way of field labour,
while from about the first day of April to,
say, the last day of September, every lad that
can pull a weed, hanole a spade, or tend a
horse is wanted. I contend, therefore, that
both for the sake of the land which has to be cul-
tivated, as well as for the sake of the technical
education of the child—which, if the land is to be pro-
perly cultivated, should not be checked—the solution
of the effication difficulty in agricultural districts is
this—from October to March inclusive each boy up to
11 years of age should be compelled to attend school
every day the school is open, unless absolutely pre-
vented ; but from April to September inclusive all boys
above 10 should be let go free. Thus and thus only, I
am of opinion each boy would bring freshness to each
work, and gain two kinds of education, the value of
neither of which can be overrated.-1 am, Sir, your
obedient servant, CHAS. J. D'Ormr.
Great Chart Rectory, Sept. 15.