THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



349 



business, at the commencement of their career of re- 

 sponsibility, finds them deficient in knowledge and 

 judgment. Such, gentlemen, is literally the case. I 

 have seen young men make f^vand mistakes upon their 

 first start in life, from absolute incompetency — especially 

 upon clay-farms ; and I as;ree with the observation of 

 an old friend of mine, that it would well answer the pur- 

 pose of many a young man, upon commencing business, 

 to pay an elder to superintend and direct him in his 

 management and supervision for the first two or three 

 years. I am in no way averse to a reasonable amount 

 of spoi t and amusement ; I have had my share, and 

 that a large one, of hunting, coursing, shooting, and the 

 like, and I believe, too, without detriment; but let it 

 be the condition that whilst sport is sport in reality and 

 in earnest — whilst a young man rides across country 

 with courage and judgment, and sports as a sportsman — 

 that business and study are equally pursued with the 

 same spirit of indomitable energy and perseverance. 

 We hear a great deal too much, now-a-days, of the old 

 tale that " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." 

 The truth is, that more work and less play would make 

 Jack a bright boy, a business youth, and a thriving, suc- 

 cessful man. I am for pleasure in reason, but for busi- 

 ness in earnest ; and in every case I desire to put aside 

 the dreary, indolent, listless nonentity spirit which cha- 

 racterises young men, both in their intellectual improve- 

 ment and in their business attainment and attention. I 

 want to see young men fresh from school, not only 

 breathing, but really living — living for an object — living 

 for an end, and actually using the means to attain that 

 end. I want diligence, and not a passive indifference, to 

 govern their conduct. I want them to feel that time is 

 a talent not to be wasted and squandered, but a talent 

 to be used and improved ; that they have much to do, 

 and but little time to do it in. I want to see minutes 

 more valued than hours now are. Life is a race, and, 

 all else equal, the best training will make the best man, 

 and secure the best place ; and I know well that the idle 

 brain is, most surely, the devil's best workshop. What, 

 then, is to be done ? Is it not desirable to adopt some 

 course ? Is it not necessary to act ? Is it not essential 

 to induce young men to cultivate habits of self-culture 

 and of self-development? It is most necessary — most 

 desirable ; and it is a positive duty, on our part, to act 

 to ensure it. What man was ever a man worth calling 

 a man without such self-culture ? Rely upon it, such is 

 the upward educational movement that we positively 

 cannot stand still. I even see it imperative upon us 

 that we combine to co-operate; and as every agricultural 

 society in England looks to the Royal Agricultural 

 Society as its agricultural father, it is for us to take 

 steps to induce our parent to act for the better education 

 of her agricultural children. I believe farmers' clubs 

 generally, and every agricultural society throughout the 

 kingdom, would gladly combine to facilitate such a 

 movement ; and I know of no course so effectual as the 

 establishment of a public board of Agricultural Examiners. 

 I strongly recommend two examinations : one for junior 

 candidates not exceeding sixteen years of age (as before 

 alluded to), and one for senior candidates not exceeding 



twenty-one years of age. I would certainly throw the 

 examinations open to all candidates, as the only object 

 would be to excite competition ; and to grant an agri- 

 cultural diploma to those competitors having attained to 

 the necessary standard of intellectual acquirement. It 

 could be a matter of no moment whether the knowledge 

 of the senior candidates was attained by study in the 

 privacy of their own homes, or by attending a course of 

 agricultural lectures. It would be for the board of 

 examiners to recommend the best works extant upon the 

 various subjects and sciences for examination in the 

 senior class ; and it is highly necessary so to act as to 

 ensure general competition. The standard of merit may 

 not be set too high. Even the young man missing bis 

 mark and losing his diploma would in reality be a 

 gainer — and a very great gainer, notwithstanding — from 

 the habits of study and of mental discipline to which he 

 had cultured himself in his attempts to secure the distinc 

 tion of the diploma. I am well aware that such a board 

 of examiners would have been of essential service to me ; 

 for though I continued to study chemistry, geology, and 

 some other sciences, after leaving school, without the 

 slightest incitation from those around me, yet I feel that 

 the fact of a public examination would have been a 

 sufficient inducement for me to have worked with re- 

 doubled diligence, preventing a foolish waste of time, 

 training me in habits of mental and physical industi y, 

 and resulting in redoubled success. I do not think 

 the middle - class Oxford University examinations 

 meet our requirements ; the whole matter will be 

 far better in our own bands; the whole scheme 

 may be self-supporting. We must carefully avoid 

 the error into which the Highland and Agricultural 

 Society of Scotland has fallen. That society re- 

 quired candidates to attend, for a period of two years, 

 classes in five or six of the different sciences prior to 

 examination. Such a requirement, of course, nullified 

 the general usefulness of the scheme. The mistake is 

 now rectified. In England or Scotland it must take a 

 time for the competition to be great, or for the attendarjce 

 to be large at the examinations, from the simple fact 

 that the education of young men has been grossly 

 neglected, especially after leaving school; and it rat^st 

 take a time to rear any number of young men, intellec- 

 tually cultured and qualified to come forward for 

 examination, or to compete for the honours of 

 the certificate or diploma. With the existence of 

 such a board of examiners, how far more pow- 

 erfully could a parent stimulate his son to do 

 his utmost, and to how much better account could the 

 present system of agricultural pupilage be turned ! la 

 my own case, it would afford me pleasure to use my 

 most strenuous exertions so to assist those gentlemen, 

 at any future time resident with me, in their studies and 

 preparation for examination, that they should pass with 

 credit and eclat. How far more gratifying too, to pa- 

 rents and friends, to see each hour both usefully and pro- 

 fitably employed, instead of having to contend with the 

 natural fireside habits of indolence, with habits of late 

 rising, with general frivolity, and a thorough indifference 

 to mental culture and business proficiency ! Seeing the 



