THE FARMER^S MAGAZINE. 



541 



superior education which was accorded to them at 

 the present day, compared with that which they 

 once received ; but he on the contrary was prepared 

 to prove that if the present amount of instruction 

 produced ill effects, it was owing to its being so 

 very little, andthat the remedy was'nottobe found 

 in depriving them of it, but in giving them much 

 more. There never was a more truthful adage than 

 " a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." The 

 slight smattering of instruction which the Sunday 

 school and other institutions had hitherto given the 

 labouring classes had not been productive of the 

 good anticipated, because it was so scanty; and if 

 ill effects had arisen from it, they too were to be 

 attributed to the same cause. He would now briefly 

 consider the arguments on which the objection to 

 the better education of the labouring classes rested. 

 In the first place it had been stated that education 

 unfitted the mind for the performance of menial 

 duties ; but he confessed himself unable to see the 

 force of this objection, inasmuch as many of the 

 greatest and noblest characters which history had 

 handed down to them, had exemplified a peculiar 

 fondness for labour, and of that too which was 

 connected with rural pursuits. There was the 

 Roman patriot Cincinnatus, for instance, of whom it 

 was recorded that when the senate of his country, 

 being in despair of their aflFairs, and knowing of no 

 other man who could save the state, sent in search 

 of him, he was found holding the plough on his 

 little farm of four acres which he was in the habit 

 of cultivating entirely with his own hands. It was 

 moreover recorded of him that after conquering the 

 enemies of Rome and bringing back the state of 

 public affairs to its pristine order, he returned con- 

 tentedly to the cultivation of his little farm again. 

 Then again there was in proof the conduct of the 

 greatest man of the present age, the noble Garibaldi; 

 he too was very fond of rural labours, and probably 

 many of them had seen it recorded in the public 

 papers that one of the correspondents to the daily 

 press recently accompanied him on a visit to his 

 farm, when, although at that period he had the 

 entire salvation of Italy on his shoulders, he entered 

 with great zest into the consideration of agricultural 

 aflfairs with his labourers, and thereby displayed 

 the great fondness which he had for all rural pur- 

 suits. He could allude to the poet Burns, and to 

 many others, who while the mind was lit up with 

 the fire of genius had performed cheerfully services 

 which were positively menial. But he would pass 

 on to the consideration of another objection, which 

 was that education was calculated to make the 

 labourer feel too independent, and to give him 

 notions unfitted for his station ; but here again he 

 would remark that it was not those who were 

 thoroughly imbued with knowledge who were found 

 to be puffed up with their own importance ; besides 

 which, there were many other agencies at work in 

 the social developments of the age, to which the 

 lax principle of bad conduct of the labouring classes 

 might with more show of reason be attributed. It 

 had been also said that owing to being better in- 

 formed than their forefathers the labourers of the 

 present day grew discontented, and that the far- 

 mer's interest suffered materially by so many of 

 them leaving their native neighbourhoods to 



emigrate or otherwise to better their condition. 

 Now he would not deny that the farmer in the 

 present day sometimes suffered from want of hands, 

 and it was certainly a fact that he was obhged to 

 give higher wages, owing to scarcity in the labour 

 market ; but were they desirous of going back to 

 the old state of things, when pauperism so generally 

 prevailed, and on almost every day in the week 

 some of the unemployed waited on them to beg for 

 work ? No ! He was certain that even if they felt 

 that their interests in this particular had been 

 slightly damaged, their generosity would cause 

 them to rejoice at the removal of so much misery 

 and abject want from the class beneath them. But 

 it was far belter to be inconvenienced through a 

 scarcity of hands occasionally, than to experience 

 an increase of poor rates and pauperism . According 

 to the poor law statistics, the amount actually ex- 

 pended in the relief of the poor had very much 

 diminished during recent years ; it was true that 

 they had not derived the advantage in full, in the 

 shape of a diminution in the rates, as they ought. 

 But why was that ? The money collected was 

 now applied to other purposes, in the payment of 

 officials, and in meeting the enormous expenditure 

 of the county rates (Hear, hear.) He would now 

 proceed to the consideration of the advantages 

 which they were at present receiving and were likely 

 to receive from the better education of the labourers, 

 and he felt quite convinced that these far out- 

 weighed in amount and character any evils detri- 

 mental to their interest which could be traced to 

 the spread of popular enhghtenmentand the increase 

 of knowledge. Farming was a different matter 

 now to what it was fifty, twenty, or even ten years 

 ago, and much more intelligence and skill were re- 

 quired not only on the part of the farm occupier 

 himself, but also on that of the labourers. In the 

 management of their flocks and herds, now that 

 they were become so valuable and so much capital 

 was expended on them, it was highly necessary that 

 those servants who had the care and superintendence 

 of them should be possessed of a great deal of 

 practical and even of scientific knowledge. Valua- 

 ble animals were often lost owing to the stupidity 

 and thoughtlessness of those who tended them. ^ In 

 this particular consequently they all benefited 

 largely by the growing intelligence of the age. 

 There was a still more important sphere however 

 for the skilled workman on the farm, in the manage- 

 ment of its machinery. Every year witnessed some 

 new introduction of machinery in the performance 

 of the most toilsome duties of the farm, and conse- 

 quently every year brought with it a greater demand 

 for skilled labour. He would maintain that even 

 now its supply was very inadequate to the demand, 

 and unless they all exerted themselves to their 

 utmost in procuring the better education of the 

 labouring classes, they would find themselves by- 

 and-bye unable to avail themselves of the noble in- 

 ventions of the mechanic, for the reason that the 

 men about them would not be skilful and intelligent 

 enough to have the management of them. Did not 

 the steam thrashing machine require considerable 

 skill on the part of those who had the charge of it ? 

 and did they not hear occasionally of an awful ex- 

 plosion which was alone attributable to the want of 



