West Australian Charms
Until large-scale land reclamation and homestead build- ing becomes economically possible, far the best method is child emigration, accompanied with a life that ensures the " rural bias," an ideal that altogether evades the mere educa- tionist. The farm school, as thought out by the founder, is a sovereign remedy for the urbanised mind which is the worst enemy of our civilisation. In Western Australia a small handful of people (if Perth is excepted) inhabit an immense country full of many forms of wealth. There are vast harbours with iron-stone cliffs; there are agreeable waters and magnifi- cent forests; there is wealth in the land and wealth in the sea; fruit and corn flourish in the South, not less than oysters in the North-West. A Western Australia fruit-orchard, backed by 2,000 acres of scrub slowly yielding to clearance, remains in my mind as a farmer's ideal. It was enjoyed, with infinite zest, by an urban family from Lancashire. Into such places some of these Fairbridge children will .in good season enter, getting good and giving- it. Those whose imagination can be at all touched by the wise patriotism of encouraging such settlement should keep in memory the Fairbridge Farm Schools, whose headquarters are at Savoy House in the Strand.
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