Rural Education in our Village Schools. 155 



It would be impossible for any one to say exactly how 

 much the third circumstance noted, namely, want of skilled 

 craftsmanship, is due to the second, that is, to rural depopula- 

 tion. This cannot, however, be the" sole cause if, as is 

 confidently averred by the employers, the very young men, of 

 whom a certain thoiigh very reduced number remain on the 

 land, are, making all due allowance for their want of experi- 

 ence, less skilful than their fathers, and still less so than their 

 gi-andfathers. 



Any one with an extensive and intimate acquaintance with 

 farmers, must necessarily have often heard opinions expressed 

 which imply a l)elief that rural depopulation has some con- 

 nection with compulsory schooling. The more large-minded of 

 the complainants averring that, while the whole of the 

 conditions of country life existing during the last thirty years 

 necessarily led to a certain amount of emigration from the 

 country to the towns, the exodus had been greatly increased 

 owing to the education given in the elementary schools. With 

 regard to the question of skill in farm handicraft or the 

 cultivation of intelligence among those working the land, 

 opinions are no more favourable in upholding the value, from 

 the farmer's point of view, of schooling than they are to its 

 efficiency in checking rural depopulation. Some of our 

 practical agriculturists hold that the "atmosphere" of the 

 schoolrooms rather stimulates a desire on the part of our 

 country lads, to become messenger-boys, shop assistants, or 

 junior clerks, and that the training they there receive is much 

 more likely to make them successful in such avocations than to 

 help them on to become good cowmen, waggoners, shepherds, 

 or " skilled " labourers. 



No one, we venture to assume, will deny that these com- 

 plaints have some justification. Compared with the life of 

 husbandry itself, that of compulsory education is still in its first 

 infancy. If, however, after allowing for the imperfections of 

 the period of transition which must always occur at the start 

 of any great national movement, it is found that the complaints 

 mentioned above are generally well founded, then the public 

 in general, and the farmei- in particular, have grave cause for 

 complaint. The public, although it may believe it necessary to 

 uphold an economic system unfavourable to the existence of 

 the largest possible agricultural population, has nevertheless a 

 right to complain if the education given in the village schools 

 tends to still further reduce the number of those who find 

 a home and reproduce themselves on the land. For obvious 

 reasons such members of the community are a most valuable 

 national asset, to say nothing of the fact that it is only too 

 probable that a reduction of the numbers employed on the 



