Afjricnitural Education. 443 



pretty nearly all I iiave to say upon this subject, that I believe it to be 

 a fortunate thing for landowners, a fortunate thing for labourers, and a 

 fortunate thing for the next generation of tenant-farmers, that the 

 education of farmers from childhood upwards is almost entirely in 

 the hands of farmers — that is, under their direction. 



There is, perhaps, no one who would hesitate — certainly none who 

 would hesitate less than I sliould — to accept the picture which any 

 large-hearted public-spirited owner of, say, half a county, might dravN^ 

 to himself of a model body of tenantry — I say few would hesitate to 

 accept such a pictui'e drawn by such a man as truly representing the 

 chief end and goal of real agricultural progress ; but even for him and 

 for the accomplishment of his benevolent desires I believe it to be a 

 fortunate thing that the education of the futui-e generation of his 

 tenantry, who are to be so many steps onwards in the progress to that 

 goal, is directed and determined not by himself, but by the present 

 generation of his tenantry, whom he may believe to be still far short 

 of the goal in question. For, before all things, it is necessary that 

 whatever education be adopted for them, it should, as its result, confer 

 professional ability and skill. The ediication he might desire for them 

 might turn out unselfish gentlemen, able, intelligent, courageous ; but 

 in addition to all this it must turn out farmers who can pay their rent, 

 and make their business answer also for themselves and for their 

 laboui'crs, or the whole thing will be a failure. And I, therefore, feel 

 certain that it is well that the education of the next generation of 

 farmers is almost entirely in the hands of, /. e., determined by, men 

 who must know better than any other class Mhat is needed for pro- 

 fessional success. It is of such men certainly that I would in the lii'st 

 place talce counsel in reference to the professional education of any 

 son of mine whom I destined for a farmer. It is their judgment that 

 should determine the time when he must close his school life and 

 begin his life upon a farm ; and all I should contend for (if necessary 

 against them, though I believe they would heartily acquiesce) would 

 be, first, such an arrangement of his school life as should, with a 

 certain degree of educational completeness (on the importance of 

 which Mr. Dyke Acland has rightly insisted), turn to the best account 

 the school term allowed him ; and, secondly, such an arrangement of 

 lis life upon the farm as should, without interfering with his acquire- 

 ment of habits of practical skill and judgment, leave room and time 

 for his acquirement of that larger, more liberal, and, in fact, scientific 

 mastery of the various subjects included in farm practice v/liich will 

 lift him from the rank of a mere jom-neyman cultivator to that of 

 a Master Agriculturist. 



It is to the second of these points that I have now to confine myself; 

 and, as I said, the life upon a farm needs to begin early in order to 

 perfect agricultm'al education. I do not attempt to prove this by an 

 induction of examples — for it is impossible to collect the 10,000 

 instances which woidd be necessary for this purpose — but the opinions 

 of experienced men are the result of just such an induction, however 

 unconsciously they may have been arrived at. And some such 

 opinions I proceed to quote. The It^te John Smith, of Bowidown 



