Ayricultural Education. 453 



At least so it was with the dwellers on the Borders, the cultivation of whose 

 fields and stock is now thought to he somewhat exemplary." 



Veiy many more testimonies of equal authority raitl identical cha- 

 racter cciild be quoted to jjrove that the farmers of this country have 

 put, and still i^lace, the greatest value upon a good school education, 

 and want no guidance or incentive on that point at all. Only let their 

 business be profitable, enabling them to obtain for their sons the 

 education they would gladly give them, and the next generation of 

 tenant-farmers will be still better educated than the present, without 

 any external help. It is for this reason that I believe the owner of 

 any large estate has the best secui'ity for the character of the next 

 generation of his tenantry, both for general intelligence and for pro- 

 fessional ability, in the fact that their education is in general almost 

 entirely in the hands of the present generation of his tenantry, who 

 know better than anybody else what is best for the circumstances in 

 which they are placed. And it is for this reason, too, that I firmly 

 believe the promotion of good general and liberal j)reliminary educa- 

 tion for farmers' sons to be best served by those who are m-ging 

 increased attention to that professional agricultural education on 

 which farm profits depend. Make these certain, and there need be no 

 fear of a school-bill being grudged. 



If, however, there is ample testimony to the fact that the general 

 education of the present generation of farmers and their sons is higher 

 than that of the preceding generation, there is no such universal 

 belief that professional education is being equally attended to. On 

 the contrary, it would appear that there is a great and growing lack of 

 practical and professional knowledge in young farmers or young men 

 who are to become farmers. They are very apt to take to their horse, 

 and dog, and gun, and to the pleasures of a country life, and shirk the 

 practical apprenticeship to it which used to be more generally in- 

 sisted on, 



■■ Thus Mr. Dudding, of Wragby, Lincolnshire, who believes in the 

 superior intelligence of the present generation, adds : — 



" That the practical part of the business of a farmer is in advance, I do not 

 believe. The young men of ray fother's time, forty or fifty years ago, Avere 

 accustomed to ploughing, grooming their own horse, and attending to a certain 

 quantity of stock — in fact, taking part in any of the practical work on the 

 farm. Now this is very different : not one in ten of the higher class of farmers 

 would he capable upon commencing business, of directing from his own prac- 

 tical experience the various operations on his farm." 



Mr. Euston, of Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, says : — 

 "As far as my own observation enables me to form an opinion, I should say 

 farmers' sons are far better versed in mathematics, in mental and moral 

 philosophy, and the higher departments of a good general education, than they 

 are in the scientific branches of agriculture. I consider the requirement of the 

 present day is professional education, and it needs to be thorough. A farmer 

 ought to have an intelligent reason I'or everything he does, and not, as is often 

 the case, ' leap in the dark.' To possess this he must be educated accord- 

 ingly." 



Mr. Clare Sev/ell Read, of Norfolk, comparing the younger of the 

 present generation with the past, says : — 



