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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



vate, at the same time, that indispensable guide in all 

 the business transactions of life, viz., a thoroughly well- 

 balanced jadijment. Now, gentlemen, what do the 

 dead languages effect ? They simply train to a word- 

 research, to the cultivation of the memory, and they 

 teach the derivation of words. Too often the dead 

 languages, indirectly, have even an injurious influence: 

 they erect a wrong standard in the minds of youth; 

 boys view a high attainment in the classics as far tran 

 Bcending a common scientific knowledge of common 

 things ; they despise the useful ; and that acquisition of 

 the languages, which you intend as discipline and as a 

 means to an end, they cling to and believe to be the end 

 itself. When I turn to my own experience I can plainly 

 perceive that two years' study of the sciences have 

 proved of more benefit to me than many a year's grind- 

 ing at Latin : in my education every one pound's worth 

 of scieuce has yielded a larger return than each ten 

 pounds expended in the classics. In the sciences 1 was 

 interested, I could understand their usefulness, and, 

 upon leaving school, it aflforded me pleasure to prose- 

 cute my studies, and each day in the agricultural world 

 I find something to observe and learn and turn to prac- 

 tical usefulness. Upon the scholastic studies generally, 

 I would observe, it is highly desirable every boy should 

 be able to read clearly and fluently, without hesitation 

 and stammering; it is equally desirable he should be 

 taught to write a good, plain, legible hand, apart from 

 all curvilinear flourishes, rectangular excrescences, and 

 the complete ambiguity which characterises the writing 

 of the present day. Let each boy, too, be especially 

 ■well-grounded in arithmetic ; by some means implant a 

 taste for figures ; for the system of good and correct 

 accounts, in every matter of business, is one of the 

 grand secrets of success in life. Of course there 

 are grammar, spelling, and history to be learned ; 

 but T am convinced upon these subjects there is 

 much time wasted. I forget how many works on 

 grammatical rectitude I succeeded in wearing up. I 

 know several ; and that, too, in learning by rote rules 

 which I never knew how to apply, and in attempting to 

 rectify sentences wl.ich were designedly made wrong. 

 In spelling, the same : it was my duty to correct misspelt 

 words; but I candidly believe it would have been infi- 

 nitely more to my advantage that I should never have 

 seen the grammatical and orthographical mistakes, as the 

 eye and the ear became habituated to and familiar with 

 error. I am convinced I not only wasted time, but 

 that I received a positive harm from the process. 

 Again, let a knowledge of sacred and profane history be 

 acquired; but 1 must confess I could not, nor can I 

 even now, see the utility of learning by rote the dates of 

 the ascension and death of every monarch who has oc- 

 cupied the English throne. A knowledge of geography 

 is, of course, desirable; also a knowledge of mathematics. 

 I believe the plans of theme-writing and of close verbal 

 questioning, upon every study, arc m ist desirable, as 

 ensuring a thorough grounding, which ia the ba^is of 

 accuracy, self-reliance, and after self-development. To 

 me it appears, too, most desirable that the parent, if 

 competent, should regularly and carefully examine his 



son, and thereby note his progress ; but for general, 

 everyday, local schools to be useful, we require rtform. 

 We require a public board of agricultural examiners, who 

 shall duly examine each candidate, in the first instance, 

 at sixtCi-n years of age, in all that constitutes a sound 

 agricultural education; we should thereby introduce 

 competition and a standard of merit, and the most 

 meritorious, painstaking, competent master would have 

 the largest proportionate number of successful boys. I 

 advocate such reform, to lid us of incompetent masters — 

 to secure patronage to the deserving ; and the mere fact 

 of such an examination would excite a spirit of emula- 

 tion amongst the boys themselves; and often, in their 

 hours of wished-for idleness, would they remember they 

 must render an a'jcouut some day ; and that the fruits of 

 indolence wou'd be exposure and disgrace. Such a 

 public system of examination would ensure the general 

 adoption of the most desirable course of study, and 

 force up schools to the necessary standard of proficiency. 

 At the same time, such a system would embrace agri- 

 cultural schools of every standing — the small as well as 

 the large — and have a general influence for good. In 

 ten years, so radical would be the change, that Dickens 

 — who, in "Nicholas Nickleby" justly caricatured the 

 old system of education — wouldsee an almost undreamed- 

 of reformation. Further : upon a youth leaving school, 

 the necessity is obvious for continued intellectual dis- 

 cipline; and how requisite it is for a young man to have 

 continually some intellectual object of attainment before 

 him ! I note the present system : a boy leaves school 

 at sixteen years of age ; he throws up his hat, and con- 

 cludes his education finithed, when, in reality, it is but 

 just commencing. More than half the young men 

 destined for agriculture in England actually waste, and 

 worse than waste, the first four or five years of their 

 freedom from scholastic restraint. Theirs is a thorough 

 desultory life ; they throw up all intellectual culture, 

 and they have no intellectual standard of attainment to 

 which to strive to attain. They probably assist in the 

 farm- management ; but as they have no responsibility, 

 the farm occupies but little of their thoughts ; as they 

 feel but little interest, they observe but little ; and the 

 rat-hunt, the cricket-match, the run with ihe harriers 

 or fox-hounds, the quadrille-party, the shooting exploit, 

 svith other amusements, combined with a profusion of 

 tobacco, are their real employments — their true business 

 of thought and occupation. How are the evenings 

 spent? Often in a desultory, do-nothing industry, or 

 in card-playing and smoking — in colouring a clay or an 

 idolized meerschaum — or, if in literature, in perusing 

 some trashy love-tale novel, in studying " Blaine's 

 Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports," or in reading the last 

 number of the " London Journal." I speak, gentlemen, 

 from facts, from my own observation; and only in ridi- 

 cule, I fear, can it be said that such training will create 

 promisinir candidates for future agricultural honours! 

 This is not a desirable course of discipline : reared in a 

 desultory manner to sport and to spend, to study their 

 own pleasure and indulgence rather than their interest 

 and advantage, it will be no matter of wonder or surprise 

 if pleasure is their chief engrossment in after-life, and if 



