THE PLACE OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATION. 341 



do such things, it would not be necessary for the Yorkshire 

 College, our leading University College, to send out peripa- 

 tetic teachers to instruct dairymaids, or for County Councils 

 all over the country to do similar work, nor would the Duke 

 of Devonshire have been called on as he was a few weeks 

 ago to open a Midland Dairy Institute. In France they 

 have long known, not only how to make butter properly, 

 but what to do with it when they have made it, an impor- 

 tant art which we, from our inability to organise, have also 

 yet to learn. Let me recite my own experience in this 

 matter. 



My father was largely concerned with the Normandy 

 butter trade, and on one occasion, about thirty years ago 

 now, I visited France with him ; nothing I have since seen 

 has ever impressed me more. The morning after our ar- 

 rival we were driven out to a market town in the district, 

 where we found all the country folk collected together, each 

 having brought whatever produce they could command to 

 market ; our friend, and I should say that the active worker 

 was a woman, went rapidly round the market, tasting each 

 parcel of butter and offering what was thought to be its 

 value, which, of course, was not the retail price of best 

 fresh. If the bid was accepted note was taken by a clerk. 

 On our return, after dinner, in the evening, we found that 

 the butter had not only been collected and brought in, but 

 we actually saw it being carefully mixed and salted and 

 coloured to standard, so as to make it all of one uniform 

 quality, enough to fill a large number of casks being thus 

 dealt with ; the next morning it was on the rail and on its 

 way to England. No such thing, I believe, has ever yet 

 been done in this country. 



As to eggs coming from abroad, a recent remark made 

 by Sir J. B. Lawes occurs to me: "that it is not that we 

 do not produce them, but we eat them nearly all ourselves". 

 It may be well for us that we do, but the fact is none the 

 less an illustration of the absence from England of thrifty 

 habits such as characterise other nations. 



Again, to illustrate why we are beaten by others, let me 

 refer to the fate that has befallen what was formerly an 



