Agricultural Education. 463 



iu short, tliey corJd dispense Mdtli practical industry by setting up 

 scientific inquiry as the p-'imum mobile, or cardinal feature, of the 

 whole system. In his view farming was not to be considered as a 

 science, but rather as an industry. Therefore, the greatest practical 

 intelligence must be essential to carrying it on. How did they gene- 

 rally regard the operations of a gentleman farmer ? Why nine times 

 out of ten as a complete failure. And why? Because from his 

 birth and his habits he did not possess the practical experience which 

 the common farmer possessed in an eminent degree. Persons em- 

 ployed in the useful arts and purposes of life were by no means the 

 better for the knowledso of either the use of the globes, or trigono- 

 metry, or the higher departments of science. On the contrary, we 

 knew they were the worse for these ; inasmuch as such acquirements 

 gave them a vast amount of conceit and pretension, which rather inter- 

 fered vvith their practical intelligence and their ability to achieve 

 success in the particular profession they might have embraced. It 

 was the same v/ith regard to manufactm-es. The successful manufac- 

 tiu'er, say the calico-printer, had but a very small knowledge of the 

 analysis of coloui', or understood mauve or magenta, chemically 

 speaking. Most likely he made his fortune by not knowing thorn. 

 Of this they had a recent example in that great and clever man, whom 

 all must remember vvdth respect and reverence, he meant Mr. Cobden. 

 He was a failure in his own profession : at all events he did not 

 acquire a fortune as a cotton-manufacturer — and most likely it was 

 owing to the circumstance, viz., that his ideas soared above the 

 technical requirements of his original occupation — were too high, and 

 his education superficial. 



Mr. Holland, M.P., alluding to the remarks of Mr. Moore on the 

 subject of libraries, suggested that it would be a great advantage if in 

 circulating the books they were accom2:)anied by a brief synopsis cf 

 their contents. 



The Chairman said, the subject of agi-icultm-al education had become 

 one of real national importance. There was a Eoyal Commission 

 inquiring into middle-class education, and of course that would include 

 an inquiry into the position of the farmer so far as his education was 

 concerned. He could not agree with Dr. Crisp that the best thing to 

 do woidd be to establish an Agricultural College and Museum sup- 

 ported by the State, or that the State should interfere in the matter in 

 any way whatever. They might rely upon it that the best museuni 

 that a farmer's son could have was the farm itself, where he was to 

 learn his business practically. He concmTcd with Mr. Morton, then 

 that it was upon the farm that the boy must learn his work ; a farm, 

 moreover, at some distance from the locality in which he would after- 

 wards reside. But Mr. Morton had scarcely allowed sufficient time 

 for the boy's early education, and seemed to think that he ought to 

 leave school or college early to go to the farm. Unless he got a good 

 education, and thereby awakened in his mind the desire to obtain 

 further knowledge on subjects connected with the employment of his 

 after life, unless he was interested in various ways in education gene- 

 rally, there was little in the life of a farm.er's son to encourage liim to 



VOL. I. — S. S. 2 H 



