PRESIDENT S ADDRESS— SECTION K. 245 



It may perhaps- be objected that, given the subject, there wa? 

 little call for a display of special claims to co«ipetency ; that after 

 all, like the weather, education, and particularly agricultural 

 education, is one of those topics concerning which everybody feels 

 naturally competent to express an opinion, and if so>, why not I ? 

 There is the rub; it is all so beguilingly simple. We see around 

 us carpenters, doctors, blacksmiths, lawyers, chemists, farmers, 

 &c. — we feel that in the world there must be a constant demand 

 for them, or, at all events, for some of them. Statisticians will 

 even go to the length of telling us the ideal proportion which each 

 one of these callings should bear to the population as a whole. 

 Hence, the apparently logical inference that all education and 

 training should be so managed and directed as to satisfy these 

 material wants of thei community, and the natural corollary that 

 the shoemaker need not be given ideas above his last, nor the 

 farmer above his plough. Again, apart from, innate gifts, we 

 -know competency in any art or vocation tO' come to the individual 

 as the result only of long personal application and experience ; 

 and that life-time is usually tcoi brief a span for perfection, if 

 such can exist, in any one of them. And, in the circumstances, 

 will not competency, if not perfection, be attained soonest and with 

 the least waste ol" energy, if all those foredoomed by bii'th and 

 statistics to carpentry, law, or farming, be seized upon in their 

 tender years, and given by early education and training, that 

 special twist which leads ultimatelv tO' competence' in carpentry, 

 law, or farming ? And thus by a flawless line of argument we 

 are led unerringly to the avowed gfial of our cradle-specialists, and 

 of those who pin their faith to the superior educational value of 

 exclusive and intensive training in single utilitarian subjects. 



Does this logical conclusion satisfy our native instincts as to 

 what is meet and right? Much, I suppose, depends on our mental 

 attitude towards life; happiness, as such, may not form an essen- 

 tial feature in life, nor with any degree of plausibility can it be' 

 described as its main objective. Happiness, nevertheless, is a 

 good thing, and surely not to be despised by wracked humanity. 

 There may be, or probably one should say there unquestionably 

 are, ample grounds for rational happiness in the contemplation of 

 a task well and faithfully done, and quite as much again in the 

 actual doing of it. Nevertheless, here, as well as elsewhere, 

 monotony can kill happiness quite as effectively as hostile intent; 

 and however great the measure of his success, no- man is soi con- 

 stituted as to be able to repeat unintermittedly the same task 

 without loss of zest. He must relax at regular intervals, or fail 

 in his mission in life; and has it not been well said that the true 

 test of the value of education is not so much to be seen in 

 working hours a>^ in those of leisure? If, then, an early course 



