442 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



so-called middle-class education, is i?carcely an agricultural subject at 

 all ; and the only remark I shall venture to make upon it, where it is 

 intended as an introduction to the agricultural profession, is that good 

 training in an ordinary school affords perhaps less scope for encou- 

 raging habits of observation than is desirable in the education of a boy 

 intended to be a farmer ; and also (to put it solely on professi(mal 

 grounds), considering the international relations which now obtain 

 amongst agriculturists, there is probably less attention generally paid 

 to learning French and German than tlierc ought to be. As to the 

 former point, I think it would be a useful sujiplcmeut to the ordinary 

 school exercises, if the study of Botany and Entomology were encou- 

 raged and directed from a pretty early ugc, and the practice of draw- 

 ing from Nature taught. A boy who, besides acqiiiring a certain 

 acquaiutance with the features, the history, the habits, and relations, 

 of certain plants and insects, has actually produced a series of draw- 

 ings of both from Nature in every stage of growth, from seed and egg 

 respectively, must have gone througli a verj^ useful— agriculturally 

 useful — training of his powers of observation. 



I leave, however, the subject of mere school training and come to 

 the question before us. And the first remark to be made is that agri- 

 cultural education to bo perfect must begin early on a fai*m. Let me 

 here say, by the way, that while there is doubtless some good done by 

 a discussion of this subject on a public occasion of tliis kind, yet I 

 believe it to be good chiefly as influencing the two or three per cent. — 

 a mere leaven, but still no doubt a leaven — who enter agricultm-e as a 

 profession from other walks of life. And, indeed, in my humble 

 opinion, the influence of the Royal Agricultural Society over this great 

 subject, as a whole, is most likely altogether overestimated. It will 

 certainly bo greater, Ibr example, in the case of the intelligent and 

 well-educated tenant than in that of the " smock-frock " farmer of fifty 

 ftcrcs, who is little more than a labourer ; but, taking the former 

 case, let us ask oiu'selves whether such a man, with the fourteen or 

 sixteen years' experience of what is necessary for agricultural 

 success, which he has had since his marriage, is likely to ask for 

 guidance or advice from any one whatever as to the education (I am 

 speaking now strictly of agricultm'al education) which lie shall get or 

 give his son whom he destines to succeed him, and whose require- 

 ments for such a position he must believe himself to know so much 

 better than any other person. 



The fact is, that in agriculture, far more than in any other trade or 

 occupation, the present generation of practitioners has been bred and 

 educated by the last, and is engaged in the education of the next. 

 There are more now probably than ever who are entering agriculture 

 as the business of their life from other ranks and occupations, but it 

 still is true, and probably will be always true, that the bulk of farmers 

 have been bred by farmers ; and whatever faults there may be in the 

 consequent upbringing of so large a portion of the middle-class popu- 

 lation in this country, I must confess my belief that it is a fortunate 

 thing for all who are dependent on the cultivation of the land for their 

 support that this is so. I would, indeed, state it as the keynote of 



