Results of agricultural education as shown in graduates of the Central Luzon Agricultural School

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Part of The Philippine Craftsman

Title: Results of agricultural education as shown in graduates of the Central Luzon Agricultural School
Creator: Moe, Kilmer O.
Language: English
Year: 1916
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Fulltext: RESULTS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AS SHOWN IN GRAD UATES OF THE CENTRAL LUZON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. By Kilmer O. Moe. Proof of the fact that practical agricultural training is the proper course of instruction for students who are fitting them selves for agricultural positions, has been clearly demonstrated by the graduates from the Central Luzon Agricultural School. Some one has said that a man never accomplishes anything after he reaches maturity, unless because he did something when he was a boy. A boy who is continually pampered and allowed to be idle will likely be idle when he grows up. It is equally true that experience brings confidence and initiative and an attitude toward work which is essential to success. In adopting the var ious industrial courses the Bureau of Education is endeavoring to furnish the training necessary to fit individuals for service, and to give them the proper attitude toward the every-day prob lems of life. A great many students fail to succeed after leaving school because of a wrong attitude toward their duties. They have studied with a view to getting out of work, rather than with the idea of getting into it properly. Ordinary duties become drudgery to them, the tasks which should be undertaken with a feeling of responsibility, are too often slighted or passed by unnoticed. This attitude is due chiefly to wrong training. From childhood these students may have been permitted to slight their daily tasks and to follow the line of least resistance in the performance of duties. One great benefit derived from the course of instruction given* at the Central Luzon Agricultural School is the discipline of required work, not only in classroom tasks but in outside duties as well. A student who does riot realize that his daily tasks must be performed, or who tries to shift them to his companions, soon gets into bad repute with the students and teachers and will have to mend his ways or leave the community. If he is worth anything at all, pride will come to his assistance until he has undergone a course of discipline, after which he fills his place as a student citizen without further pressure from outside sources. That such training fits him for the duties which are sure to confront him later in life is shown by every student who has graduated from the school. This is well ex250 RESULTS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 251 pressed by one of these graduates who found himself under a teacher who had received only academic training. To quote from his letter: “The aim of this school is to grow fruit trees such as orange, lemon, langca, papaya, mango, chico and santol. We have a vaca, a plow, and several hoes and shovels and rakes, but we have no harrow. I have just sent my requisition for the neces sary tools. Now I am building roads, preparing drainage, and making lawns. I contracted to put walls under our schoolhouse, using the pupils as laborers; now it is finished at an expense of 1*4.75. The colony furnished me tools and boards. A laborer wished to contract this work for 1*40. The superintendent was about to agree, but I told him that I could do the work, using the boys as my laborers. It took only two weeks to finish the work. “There are two of us teachers in the school. My principal is a graduate from the Manila High School. He has had no ex perience in planting trees and making school-ground improve ments.” One of the greatest advantages a person can have over his competitors is the fact that he has had experience, while the other has not. The knowledge and confidence gained by coping successfully with difficult situations is an advantage which is not to be taken lightly in the struggles of later years. Because of the fact that students at the agricultural school are required to construct quarters, to clear land, lay out and construct irrigation canals, plant and harvest crops and improve and maintain school grounds, they are especially qualified to undertake similar activities after they graduate. For the past two years the Department of Mindanao and Sulu has offered positions to almost the entire student body.. The plan of using the graduates from the Central Luzon Agri cultural School for this work has met with exceptional success, due chiefly to the fact that the training which these young men have received eminently fits them for the work which they have to do. Reporting on the services of the first three to secure positions in the department, their superintendent expressed him self as follows: “I wish that all the teachers in the province were of this type. Nothing would then seem impossible.” In a requisition for more of these graduates the Superin tendent of Mindanao and Sulu has this to say: “Your big, energetic graduates who are not afraid to tackle a difficult job away back in the interior of the Moro and pagan country are just what we need. The combination of theory 252 THE PHILIPPINE CRAFTSMAN and practice which you give them at the Munoz school develops a very, satisfactory teacher for remote places where supervision necessarily is reduced to the minimum.” A great many of these graduates have received isolated sta tions far away from any organized community. They have had to build from the ground up. With no knowledge of the lan guage or customs of the people with whom they were placed, they have had to clear the land for a site on which to erect buildings and later have had to supervise their construction. To accom plish any results whatever, it was necessary to gain the good will of the ruling dato and to work through him. This was not always an easy task. The following is quoted from the letter of a student who recently secured a position with the department: “I am 50 kilometers from the capital of this province and far away from an organized municipality. It is one of the most desolate and dangerous places in this department. At present I am utilizing the experience I gained at the Central Luzon Agricultural School and it fits all right, especially as the soil is very fertile and the conditions are very favorable for the production of food crops.” To date about 150 graduates out of a possible 200 who have had the special work, have been given positions or are farming for themselves. At least 20 of the others have taken up higher courses at the College of Agriculture, while a dozen or so are being held for service in the Mountain Province at the request of the Department of the Interior. A large majority of the graduates who have secured positions are rendering good serv ice, and are a credit to the institution. While this excellent showing is due chiefly to the practical • nature of the training given, it is to some extent due to the sifting process which is constantly taking place from the first day of the school year. Only the strong and ambitious survive. The weak and the worthless fall out before many months are over. Long before Christmas the rolls are cleared of undesir ables, and the remaining ones make the best of their oppor tunities. Conducive to better results is the system under which no cer tificates are granted until at least a year of satisfactory service has been rendered. Reports on student graduates are furnished by employers at the request of the superintendent of the school. If these are satisfactory, certificates are granted to take the place of the provisional certificates previously held. Students from the school are sent to all parts of the Philip RESULTS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 253 pines. They serve as teachers, agricultural inspectors, foremen, and steam engineers. They have received special training to enable them to carry on practical work in agriculture. The success that the graduates have had demonstrates the principle that agricultural practice is more important at the present stage of development than is highly technical training. “The father in the city spends, on the average, a larger per centage of his income for the welfare of his children than does the father on the farm. The farmer, relatively, raises every thing else more carefully and, as a rule, more successfully, than his children.”—Thomas D. Wood, M. D. o o o With the consent of the Dutch authorities, several expert tile makers were recently brought from Java to Zamboanga. They have found the Mindanao clay very well adapted to their purposes, and it is now proposed to teach the potters of the Department the simple art of tile making. Brick clay being found in abundance in all parts of Mindanao and Sulu, it is hoped that in a few years the beautiful red tile roofs, such as are seen everywhere in Java, will have supplanted nipa entirely. o o o THE EXAMPLE OF SCHOOL GARDENING IN CATANAUAN, TAYABAS. The people generally are familiar with gardening, and they naturally take garden work as a standard by which to measure the efficiency of a school. A flourishing garden is to them the sign of success. School gardens in this district furnish vegetables for the com munity. The people expectantly await the harvest. They come to the gardens to make their purchases. What they see en courages many to take up horticulture to meet the increasing demand for vegetables. The first garden days held two years ago revealed the local limitations' in variety, quantity and quality of vegetables pro duced. Since then there have been sporadic but serious attempts on the part of the people to remedy the deficiencies. That there is now a daily increasing supply of fresh vegetables is the gratifying result. (P. M.)