154 president's address — section g. 



allow the young folk a fair leisure for their own pursuits ; will 

 encourage their children to study books that refer to their special 

 calling ; and will direct their attention to the praiseworthy examples 

 of men who have raised themselves to the most honorable positions 

 in the State, and have advanced the best interests of their country 

 by their success in agricultural pursuits. 



There are doubtless many disadvantages inseparable from a 

 country life, more especially in newly-settled districts and during 

 the early struggles ; but these should be minimised as much as 

 possible, while the advantages of the freedom, the healthiness, 

 and independence of farm life, with its delights of overcoming 

 difficulties, its ever-changing pleasui'es and its noble influence on 

 their country's destiny, should be kept constantly before the minds 

 of our boys and girls when at their most impressionable age, 

 instead of holding up to their envy the circumstances of those in 

 city occupations whose genteel clothes, clean hands, and generally 

 more luxurious mode of living, place them in the opinion of some 

 silly parents on a higher plane of "respectability" than their 

 rough-spun cousins in the country. 



When our country buys and girls start out fi-om home to go to 

 the nearest school they should do so with the feeling that their 

 father's occupation is as honorable as any other, and has its own 

 peculiar attractions, pleasures, and good prospects. They should 

 not start their school life with the idea that the ultimate object of 

 their education is to learn a little Latin, a little al.eebra, a little 

 Euclid, a little French, and a little of many other subjects which 

 will have but slight influence on their after life. They should 

 start with the definite idea that they are going to be agriculturists 

 in one branch or another, and that they must give their special 

 attention to the different branches of study that will fit them for 

 their future calling. As one who has gone through the full 

 classical course of our own university, I may be permitted to 

 indorse most strongly the continental views rapidly gaining ground 

 amongst Englishmen, that education as such can be given quite as 

 effectively through the medium of sciences, including those bear- 

 ing upon agriculture, as through the exclusive medium of dead 

 languages and pure mathematics. I would also express my belief 

 in teaching facts before abstract principles, and in educating by 

 means of objects rather than by means of symbols. The instruc- 

 tions to teachers in French elementary schools say: — "They should 

 commence by employing visible and tangible objects, which they 

 should make the children see and feel . . . then by degrees 

 they can exercise them by obtaining from these objects abstract 

 ideas, by comparison and generalisation, and by use of the reasoning 

 faculties." 



In other countries of the world at the present time great atten- 

 tion is being paid to agricultural education in the primary schools. 

 The reading books have judicious selections appealing to the 



