The history of agricultural education in this country begins a long time back: it could be claimed — indeed it has been claimed — that it began when Marsden and the first missionaries brought implements, seeds, and domestic animals to New Zealand and instructed the Maoris of North Auckland in their cultivation and use. The intention in this article, however, is to consider only formal instruction given in educational institutions.
Instruction has always been available at three levels (clear-cut in organisation if vague in intention and content) in the primary and post-primary schools, and for a long time at the higher level provided only at the Lincoln School of Agriculture. Today, however, well-organised agricultural education is provided at university level in Lincoln College and the Faculty of Agriculture of Massey University of Manawatu, while other post-school training, formal and informal, is offered by a wide variety of educational agencies.
Provision for elementary education in private schools and in those established by the Provincial Councils was concerned chiefly with the three R's, nor did the Education Act of 1877 consider necessary the introduction of agriculture into a national system. Under regulations, however, and on the recommendation of the Otago Educational Institute, an elementary science syllabus was gazetted embracing “some elementary chemistry, elementary mechanics, and elementary physiology … to illustrate laws of health, the structure and operation of the simpler processes of agriculture …”
Agricultural and pastoral associations up and down the country, which by 1892 had organised an annual conference on a colonial basis, kept on pressing for elementary instruction in agriculture, mainly because of the simple faith that farmers — or some farmers — had in agricultural science and in the ‘scientific farming’ that it heralded. Said one such, in 1902: “A lot of boys who have passed all the standards are not able to answer correctly many questions asked by an ordinary farmer who has not passed any standard at all …”
Not much, however, was done last century in teaching agriculture in schools, partly because of a lack of trained teachers, and partly because the majority of children completed their education at the primary school stage.
Nevertheless, the advocates of reform persisted and by 1910, thanks in large part to the enthusiastic interest of George Hogben, the Inspector-General of Schools, education boards were beginning to appoint itinerant agricultural instructors — by 1920 there were 20 – and much inspiration was given to the pupils, especially those in district high schools. With this went the creation of school gardens, and the formation of boys' and girls' agricultural clubs.
Such activity was in line with the report of the Mark Cohen Commission (1912) which recommended that every effort should be made to create and foster in the child a lively interest in his environment, and to direct his attention to the land and its products.
The general policy thus enunciated was also regularly advocated by conferences of agricultural and pastoral associations, and by the Board of Agriculture and the Council of Education (established 1913 and both now defunct); but the chief brake on progress was still the lack of trained teachers.
The Atmore Report (1930) may be regarded as expressing public opinion of the time in its principal recommendation that “the curriculum of our public schools must include adequate practical instruction in agriculture”. But with the depression of the early thirties and the defeat of the Government in which Atmore was Minister of Education, no great changes in administrative action took place till 1946, when the primary school syllabus that had been in use since 1929 came under complete revision. The policy then adopted and still followed is expressed in the evidence submitted to the Consultative Committee on Agricultural Education (1958) by the Chief Inspector of Primary Schools: “The schools are concerned to teach agriculture on a broad basis through the subjects of nature study and social studies. Nature study aims to foster an interest in all living things, and to study farming in its broadest aspects…. Apart from nature study instruction there is a strong farm theme running through the social studies syllabus”.
In accordance with this policy the appointment of agricultural instructors by education boards has been abandoned, their place being taken by nature study specialists.
Up till the turn of the century most post-primary schools were under the control of independent boards, and they were steeped in the grammar school tradition. The advent of George Hogben as Inspector-General of Schools in 1899 brought about some important changes. He gradually forced the schools to open their doors to more free-place pupils, and he encouraged them to add practical subjects to their rather bookish curriculum. He also encouraged the establishment of district high schools in the hope that they would develop courses of direct interest to the farming community round them. Yet Hogben's valiant efforts achieved surprisingly little; some secondary schools started agricultural courses; some education boards appointed itinerant agricultural instructors; but the new district high schools tended to follow the academic pattern, which offered the definite objective of success in the public examinations, and — what many country people wanted for their children — the chance of a job in the city. Hogben had, in theory at least, the backing of the representatives of the farmers. The chief handicap to the extension of his ideas was the lack of trained teachers; the only place capable of giving higher education in agriculture — Lincoln College — was interested only in its original objective — training practical farmers. Most agricultural instructors, whether for schools or for the then limited requirements of the Department of Agriculture, had to be imported.
In the 1920s, developments that affected agricultural teaching both in the schools and on the farms took place in many directions. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was established; Massey Agricultural College was founded; Lincoln College was revitalised and its objectives enlarged; the college courses for university degrees were revised; the extension service of the Department of Agriculture was enlarged; and two post-primary schools — Rangiora and Feilding — with economic farm units under their own control, were developed. From that decade forward, progress in the postprimary schools has been steady, but except in a few places never spectacular, and that mainly, but not entirely, for the reason that the supply of competent teachers has never been adequate. In earlier years agriculture was included in the optional subjects for the University Entrance examination; it has for long been excluded, a condition that makes it a less attractive subject to teachers who look for a share of work in the upper school as a means of proving their worth.
Some schools merely offer one or more phases of agricultural instruction as subjects, a line of action that is simplified by the fact that the syllabus for the School Certificate examination includes four such subjects — namely, general agriculture, animal husbandry, dairying, and horticulture. Such schools usually have a suitably equipped laboratory, and some of them a small area of land for demonstration plots, though others rely on visits to neighbouring farms. A few schools, such as Feilding and Northland College have large and efficiently managed farms and make a feature of their integrated agricultural courses.
The situation in 1964 may be summarised. The table below shows the number of schools offering one or more of the agricultural subjects as at 1 July 1964. The number in brackets gives the total number of all schools in each category in the Dominion.
| Public post-primary schools, boys and co-educational | 48 | (157) |
| District high schools | 17 | (81) |
| Private post-primary schools, boys and co-educational | 12 | (48) |
| Correspondence school, Education Department | 1 | (1) |
The next table shows the number of boys who are taking one or more agricultural subjects, and, in brackets, the total enrolment of boys as at 1 July 1964.
| Public post-primary schools, boys and co-educational | 3,137 | (64,505) |
| District high schools | 465 | (3,505) |
| Private post-primary schools, boys and coeducational | 545 | (12,131) |
| Correspondence school, Education Department | 29 | (169) |
The relatively small proportion of pupils taking an agricultural subject is due mainly to the following considerations: many farmers prefer their sons who intend to be farmers to take a general course at school, and a more specialised course later, after experience on the farm; few parents not engaged in farming wish their sons to take an agricultural course because of the restricted opportunities for boys without financial resources to become farmers; boys wishing to qualify themselves for teaching or research in agriculture must later take a degree course for which the best school preparation is basic training in the pure sciences; agricultural courses in schools vary greatly in efficiency, and some still tend to attract the “weaker brethren”, thus weakening the course; school courses in agriculture yield no credits towards employment as is the case with those whose school course is followed by apprenticeship to a trade.
The work of the two agricultural colleges, their courses leading to degrees, and those of sub-university level are described in the following section.
There are other educational agencies catering for prospective young farmers, some of them formally organised, others of an informal nature. Among the latter are the Auckland Youths' Farm Settlement Scheme and the Canterbury Farm Training Scheme. Both of these take care of boys after an adequate school education, place them on selected farms where they will get a variety of experience, and enter into an arrangement with the boys that will encourage saving.
Organised centres of training are the Salvation Army Training Farm, the Maori Boys' Training Farm at Te Whaiti, both run for special purposes, the Smedley Training Farm in Hawke's Bay, the Wairarapa Training Farm, and Flock House near Bulls. Smedley and the Wairarapa Farm are mainly under local control, and district applicants get preference for the eight or ten places available each year. Flock House is under the Department of Agriculture. It can take 50 students for the course of one year. In each of these centres trainees learn by doing — there is little theoretical instruction. A new centre — the Telford Farm Training Institute — was opened in 1965 at Balclutha. It was established by an enabling Act of Parliament, and on a farm given by the trustees of the Telford Estate. It will provide a one-year course for about 80 students.
Among other informal agencies that contribute to the education of the young farmer are Young Farmers' Clubs, the National Council of Adult Education, the Broadcasting Service, and the extension services of the Department of Agriculture, and the Dairy Board. The role of the press is also significant. Most of the newspapers carry pages of instruction as well as of news. The New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, a Government publication, carries many instructional articles, as also do Straight Furrow, the New Zealand Farmer, and Meat and Wool. Each of the three major parts of the farming industry — dairying, meat production, and wool production — has its own special paper, named respectively the New Zealand Dairy Exporter, the New Zealand Meat Producer, and the Wool Digest.
by Leonard John Wild, C.B.E., M.A., B.SC.(HON.), D.SC., formerly Pro-Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, Otaki.
There are two agricultural colleges — Lincoln College (formerly known as Canterbury Agricultural College) situated at Lincoln about 13 miles south-west of Christchurch, and Massey University of Manawatu (formerly known as Massey Agricultural College) at Palmerston North. Lincoln has residential accommodation for 300 students, a modern library (George Forbes Memorial), a variety of buildings for teaching, research, and social purposes, a new block of laboratories in course of construction, and ample playing fields. Surrounding the college are farm lands aggregating 1,342 acres on which arable, dairy, and sheep farming are practised, while 6 miles away, on light land, is “Ashley Dene”, a sheep farm of 878 acres. Massey University has residential accommodation for over 300 men and 30 women students, ample lecture rooms and laboratories, a library, a building specially for wool-classing instruction, and well-equipped buildings for the Faculties of Veterinary Science and Food Technology, besides other amenities for the social and physical well-being of students. New buildings for arts and general studies and for biological sciences are in course of construction as well as buildings for the Veterinary Science Faculty. The farms include three properties: an area of 1,250 acres of heavy clay upland and light loam river flats surrounding the college; a hill farm, “Tuapaka”, of 1,050 acres eight miles distant on the lower slopes of the ranges; and an area of 1,900 acres of hard high country, 64 miles distant in Southern Hawke's Bay.
At both agricultural colleges the farm livestock include the principal breeds of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry characteristic of their respective districts. But because in the Manawatu area and in the North Island generally dairy farming is extensively practised, Massey University has more specialised equipment in that field, including a modern dairy factory and a herd of about 160 dairy cows. Massey University, therefore, provides the option dairy technology (now food technology) in its degree courses, as well as diploma courses in dairying and in dairy manufactures. It offers also a diploma in sheep farming, courses for certificates in wool-classing and in poultry, and some short courses.
Both institutions have university status, and both were recognised as professional schools of the University of New Zealand until the dissolution of that body at the end of 1961. Their matriculated students could pursue courses for degrees of that University: a three-year course for the degree of B.Ag. or B.Ag. (Hort.), and thereafter, if they so elected, to continue for a fourth year to the degree of B.Ag.Sc. or B.Ag.Sc. (Hort.), or at Massey Agricultural College to the degree of B.Ag.Sc. (Food Tech). The first part of the course for each of these degrees comprises the fundamental sciences — physics, chemistry, botany, zoology. Students who have taken any one of the four-year degrees may then proceed to the corresponding degree of M.Ag.Sc., while those with the necessary qualifications may further pursue research in appropriate topics for the degree of Ph.D.
Lincoln College is now, academically, an integral part of the University of Canterbury, and its students read for degrees of that University. Massey Agricultural College, for academic purposes, was affiliated with the Victoria University of Wellington, but in 1963 was raised to the status of a University College and in 1964 to that of an autonomous university. Students therefore read for degrees of one or other of these universities. Both, as university institutions, rely for financial support mainly on Government grants received through the University Grants Committee. Each has an academic head or principal — vice-chancellor in the case of Massey University of Manawatu — and an adequate range of professors and lecturers as well as ancillary technical staff.
Lincoln College is the older institution: it is, in fact, the oldest agricultural college in the Southern Hemisphere and yields priority in the Commonwealth only to the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester in England and to the college in Ontario. Founded with an endowment of 100,000 acres of pastoral land set aside in 1873 by the Provincial Council of Canterbury, and under W. E. Ivey who had been appointed as first director in 1878, the “Lincoln School of Agriculture” was opened in 1880 with the declared object of “providing a practical education in colonial farming at moderate cost and of affording facilities for the study of related sciences.” After a good start and an increase of accommodation to provide for 30 students in addition to the original 20, the school lost prestige, partly owing to the economic depression of the 1880s, partly because of maladministration of its endowment funds by the governing body, the Board of Canterbury College (now University), and partly because of the weak organisation (though he was a good lecturer) of John Bayne who became director on the death of W. E. Ivey in 1893. In 1896 the school was placed under its own board of governors and has so continued, for, notwithstanding the academic link with the University of Canterbury, renewed and strengthened by the Act of 1961, the board has retained control of its staff and buildings and of its considerable area of farming land.
Bayne had been succeeded in 1901 by William Lowrie, and he in turn by R. E. Alexander (1909–35). Lowrie was a very strong and capable administrator who fully restored the prestige of the school or college, as it came to be recognised, and broadened its educational objectives. At first it had offered only a Diploma in Agriculture, but as more advanced instruction came to be provided, the college was recognised by the University of New Zealand and, in 1913, for the first time a student qualified for a degree in agriculture. The middle and later parts of the long reign of Alexander, overshadowed to an extent by the war and its aftermath, became again a period of stagnation. The college failed to respond to the increasing demand for more varied courses and for the greater number of the graduates needed to lead the way in agricultural teaching, research, and extension; and, mainly as a result of Lincoln's unimaginative policy, Massey College came into being. The advent of Professor E. R. Hudson (1936–52) brought new life and vigour, a great expansion of activities, and progress in every direction. In more recent years, under Dr M. M. Burns, and in part because of statutes that permit the whole course of study to be done in the college, the proportion of students reading for university degrees has greatly increased and study at university level, as well as research, has come to be of first importance. The college, however, still offers some courses of sub-university status for diplomas in agriculture, in horticulture, in valuation and farm management, and in agricultural engineering. It also gives an intensive course of eight months, open to young men with approved farming experience, and various shorter courses. College teachers and instructors also participate in a great variety of extension work among farming communities in various parts of the South Island. Farmers' field days and conferences, the publication of bulletins, broadcasting, and the writing of articles for the press are other activities of the staff.
Research is always in progress covering a range of fields that includes animal and plant nutrition, the breeding of improved crops, pasture, plants, and stock, wool production, soil science, agricultural economics, the control of plant and animal diseases, and horticultural problems. Research is supported both from college funds, and by sums provided by Departments of State, and by producer boards. Particular mention may be made of the introduction of subterranean clover by E. R. Hudson, of the demonstration of the value of lime on the light lands of Canterbury by M. M. Burns, of the trials of rams of various breeds as fat-lamb sires by I. E. Coop and others, of the cross-breeding experiments, especially Romney × Corriedale, of I. E. Coop, and the researches into some aspects of animal reproduction by D. S. Hart. But it should not be forgotten that the first director, W. E. Ivey, demonstrated the use of artificial fertilisers, especially superphosphate, while the second, J. Bayne, first demonstrated the Southdown ram as a sire of fat-lambs. The work of F. W. Hilgendorf in type selection and early cross-breeding among wheats has been widely acclaimed.
Located on, or on land adjacent to, Lincoln properties are the Crop Research Division and the Botany Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the headquarters of the Tussock Grassland and Mountain Land Institute.
Massey Agricultural College was founded in 1926. It has already been said that in those days there was an insistent demand for something better than the training Lincoln College was offering, a demand which found expression in agitation for a college in the North Island. With a subsidised bequest from Sir Walter Buchanan, Victoria University College had in 1924 established a Chair and appointed G. S. Peren as professor, and next year Auckland University College, with a bequest from Sir John Logan Campbell, had followed suit, appointing Professor W. Riddet. Peren and Riddet, each with a Chair and a few students but without farm or equipment, got together and persuaded their respective councils to combine their resources to promote one college at a central site. The Government of the day supported the scheme and, after thorough investigation, purchased the necessary land, and the College was established in fine new buildings in beautiful grounds across the Manawatu river from Palmerston North. Professor Peren (now Sir Geoffrey Peren) was appointed principal, and Professor Riddet vice-principal, dean of dairying, and director of the independent Dairy Research Institute which was founded about the same time under the auspices of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and supported by funds contributed by Government and by the dairy industry. From small beginnings the college grew rapidly. A laboratory for food technology is built and also buildings for the Faculty of Veterinary Science were opened in March 1964. Besides this the Arts Faculty, formerly organised by the Victoria University of Wellington, in Palmerston North, has been absorbed in the new University as a Faculty of General Studies.
Massey University teachers in the Faculty of Agriculture are also continually engaged in research. In earlier days F. W. Dry's investigations into the inheritance of wool characteristics attracted wide attention. More recently J. H. Tetley's work on animal parasites, C. R. Barnicoat's investigations on the structure of teeth of the sheep and the milk yield of ewes, W. M. Webster's work on Leptospira, R. A. Barton's on meat carcasses, the crossbreeding trials (Cheviot × Romney) of A. L. Rae and others, and I. L. Campbell's work on the feeding of dairying cattle, have contributed to fundamental knowledge on these matters, and in many cases to practical applications.
Separated only by a road from Massey University are the buildings and trial grounds of the Grasslands Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. As is the case at Lincoln, there is close cooperation between the State Departments and the College, and several distinguished scientists employed in the Departments have appointments as honorary lecturers in the colleges.
Both colleges receive many students from other parts of the British Commonwealth, and both take a large and important part in training students from South-East Asia under the Colombo Plan.
by Leonard John Wild, C.B.E., M.A., B.SC.(HON.), D.SC., formerly Pro-Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, Otaki.