446 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



Lastly, Mr. Clare Sewcll Read, t\-liosc name is well known in this 

 room, says : — 



" My individual cxpcnence is sinijily this: I was sent for six years to a 

 common commercial school at Norl'olk, and when I was just fifteen I left 

 school, and passed the next live years in learning; farming at home. From 

 twenty to twenty- eight, I was engaged in managing farms and estates in 

 various parts of the country, and 1 fancy in those ei<:ht years 1 gained more 

 information, and a better knowledge of practical agriculture, than 1 should if 1 

 had passed my whole life in Norfolk." 



And similar testimony to any extent could be quoted from every 

 county in the kingdom ; but, indeed, it is not wanted, for sui-ely it 

 must be easy to convince a man that a sound agricultural education 

 not only includes, but is instruction in tlie art and business of agri- 

 culture. 



Of course this is not all that is desirable, but it is the thing that is 

 required. And if there be auy displeasure at my occujiying the time 

 of this meeting with the assertion of a truth so obvious as tliis, I must 

 say that, obvious as it is, it has seemed to me as if it were sometimes 

 in danger of being forgotten. I ventiu'c therefore to submit to those 

 who arc interested in this subject of agricultural education, that the 

 young men whom tlicy are anxious to equip aright for their agri- 

 cultural career have to gain their living by it ; and that therefore the- 

 aim and end of agricultural education must be professional ability. 

 I picture tu myself the case of a young man with the 2000/, or 3000/. 

 on which he is to depend as a farmer, well educated — guaranteed as 

 such by all the distinctions that the Universities can award him, a 

 proficient even in the various sciences vn^h which agriculture is 

 directly connected : — He must be uj^wards of twenty years of age, but he 

 is not yet a farmer, and taking him, as for tlio purposes of this argu- 

 ment I am entitled to do, to be an average specimen of human nature, 

 I venture with some confidence to tell him that a thorough good 

 farmer he never will be. For agricultui'C is an art and not a science, 

 and the years he has spent till now on schooling, chemistry, and 

 botany, ought most of them to have been devoted to his apprenticeship 

 to the business by which his 3000/. arc to maintain him and his future 

 family. A large and liberal education is, doubtless, an immcasm-able 

 benefit to any man ; but it is simply mischievous and cruel — and will 

 ultimately come to be so judged by the young man whose case I have 

 suj)posed — to attach to the words " agi'icultural education," as a pro- 

 fessional guidance for him and such as he is, any other than the 

 simply professional meaning which they bear. I entirely agree, there- 

 fore, -with the authorities already quoted, in insisting on tJic need of 

 an early apprenticeship to fiirming, as being the essential substanc3 

 of an agricultural education. 



The testimonies I have quoted ai*e, however, mere extracts from 

 fuller statements, and the writers would, I believe, all agree with mc 

 in adding a good deal to the bare assertion of such a truism as this ; 

 and perhajis the best way of making such additions will be to point out 

 the difference between the Norfolk and the Kentish correspondents last 

 quoted. The latter would send his boy into the district where, he is 



