V. 



Agricultural Museums. 



''PHE good old days, when it was thought sufficient if a man were 

 1 able to do his work in a rough and unintelligent way, are passing 

 by. The mere acquaintance with routine and practical details, which 

 served the fathers, will no longer do for the children, and the head 

 must be brought into play as well as the hands. The apprenticeship, 

 which used to be everything, is only a part of the training for the 

 various branches of industry. The advance of Science, and the wider 

 application of scientific methods, together with foreign competition, 

 are responsible for much of this. Be the cause what it may, we are 

 entering on a new era ; and the change is little short of a revolution. 

 Mechanics' and technical institutes are being opened in all the large 

 centres, where the youth of the place may go in the evening and, 

 under skilled instructors, learn something about the tools they work 

 with and the forces they use. And the movement has excited 

 considerable interest, and is likely to be increasingly taken 

 advantage of. 



This is in the right direction, competition or no competition. 

 It will not only produce better results, but also give the workman 

 more pleasure in his work. Probably the time is not far distant 

 when it will be insisted upon as a necessary part of a man's training, 

 and when the apprentice will be released for part of the day in order 

 that he may acquire it. This will come about in quite a natural way 

 when it is found out that the man who knows what he is about has an 

 advantage over the rest. Such institutions are only possible where 

 the population is concentrated, and in such places they will doubtless 

 soon be put on the safe basis of permanent endowment or assured 

 annual income from some public source. 



The County Councils have taken up the idea, and are applying 

 it as far as it can be carried out in outlying districts. These bodies 

 are wisely seeking to bring within reach of the ploughman, and even 

 of the farmer himself, a more intimate and scientific acquaintance 

 with field and farmyard. Perhaps nothing has advanced more 

 rapidly in recent years than the Science of Agriculture, or rather the 

 application of the sciences to agriculture. We are already in the 

 habit of talking of the farmer of the old school as a being very much 

 behind the times. The treatment of the soil and the raising of 



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