THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



which arose in carrying oa education after the children 

 had left school; but this kind of difficulty was not con- 

 fined to the rural population. They all knew that, 

 wherever education had been obtained, if young men 

 ceased to do anything to improve themselves after leaving 

 school, they soon became very ignorant (Hear, hear). 

 The difficulty in the case of young persons in the rural 

 districts was certainly very great. It was, however, 

 owing in a great degree to the want of evening- schools ; 

 and nothing, he thought, would be more conducive to 

 the well-being of the younger portion of the labouring 

 population than the establishment of good schools of 

 that description (Hear, hear). 



A vote of thanks having been passed to the intro- 

 ducer of the subject, 



The Rev. C. James replied. He congratulated 

 the meeting on the fact that this was the second 

 occasion, during the year, on which the Club had dis- 

 cussed the means of improving the condition of the 

 labourer. A gentleman had been pleased to express 

 some strong sentiments and doubts in reference to the 

 self-denying sacrifices and aid which he maintained had 

 been given by the clergy to the cause of education, the 

 truth of which the country was well aware of, and the 

 award of the Government capitation grants, to which 

 he referred them, fully corroborated. And though Mr. 

 Tatam might feel aggrieved as to the supposed exclu- 

 siveness of the character of education in some school or 

 schools in his own vicinity in Lincolnshire, he (Mr. 



James) maintained that such instances were the excep- 

 tion and not the rule, and that the greatness of the cause 

 should set aside the littleness of personality. And 

 whilst acknowledging their appreciation, and vote of 

 thanks, for the remarks which he had made, he would 

 only ask them practically to carry out his suggestions in 

 their own respective districts, and ever to show, in all 

 their transactions through life, that the British farmer 

 knows no party but his country. 



Mr. Tatam explained that he had not spoken of a 

 district, but of parishes, 



Mr. J. N. Lee, in supporting the motion, urged the 

 necessity of individual exertion. No man, until he him- 

 self put forth his own efforts, could tell the amount of 

 good he might be the means of accomplishing. 



On the motion of the Rev. T. C. James, seconded 

 by Mr. B. Webster, the following resolution was 

 unanimously adopted : 



" That industrial training in things suited to the dis- 

 trict, and by the use of which the children of the working 

 classes are afterwards to live, should form a part of all 

 school teaching. 



" And, that the progress in mechanism, science, and the 

 arts renders an improved judicious education essential to 

 the labourers, while it would be highly advantageous to 

 the farmers." 



A vote of thanks to the Chairman terminated the 

 proceedings. 



SKILLED LABOUR AS A NECESSITY IN THE ADVANCE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Popular a thesis as education has been of late, 

 it has rarely commanded more general attention 

 than it did during the first week in November. 

 Everybody would seem to have been thinking and 

 talking of it. It is a matter that has fairly rivalled 

 in interest the taking of Delhi, and the launching 

 of the Leviathan. On the Tuesday Lord Brougham, 

 hale, hearty, and energetic as ever, delivers one of 

 his comprehensive and suggestive addresses to the 

 members of the Leeds Mechanical Institution. His 

 Lordship's text-word is Popular Education. On the 

 Wednesday the Bishop of Manchester, Sir John Kay 

 Shuttleworth, Sir John Pakington, and others, discuss 

 the same subject in Lancashire. The Times follows in 

 due course with a leader ; while not to be behindhand, 

 but ratlier opening the business of the week, the London 

 Farmer's Club ushers in its Winter Session, on the 

 Monday, with Education once more as the point for 

 consideration. 



It must be understood that the Club discusses 

 Education very much in the same way as does 

 the world at large. That is to say, it takes counsel, 

 advises, and resolves far more for the proper 

 training of the working classes than for any 

 other. For once that any such improvement in the 

 farmer himself has been selected as the topic here, that 

 of his labourer has been entertained ten times over. 



To be sure, the employer is just now beginning to feel 

 his own wants and rights in the development of the 

 middle-class education scheme. As a rule, however, 

 as with all the rest of us, when master and man have 

 been thus associated together, it has been to consider 

 the position and the requirements of the latter. Seldom, 

 in fact, has the improvement of the one class been 

 brought to bear so directly on the interest of the 

 other, as in the wording, at least, of the Club 

 subject. Of course everybody knew that the better 

 brought up a servant had been, the better 

 servant was he likely to make . That is, his con- 

 duct, manner, and habits would all promise some- 

 thing more than what we could expect from the 

 thoroughly ignorant, and unenlightened boor. But 

 still the common effect of such schooling has been 

 rather to turn out a i-espectable man than a skil- 

 led workman. Indeed, it has been by no means an 

 unusual complaint that some labourers have been too 

 much educated. Their "book larning," insteiid of 

 fitting them for the duties they have been called upon 

 to fill, has often tended to a precisely contrary result. 

 In place of steady hard-working men, the schools have 

 furnished us with conceited dissatisfied " fiddlers." 



A becoming education, in short, is rather a difficult 

 thing to define. It may be simply cramming a man 

 with reading, writing, and arithmetic, or it may be 



