IV.] KEEPING COWS. 65 



but it was something. His father set him into the 

 ridge at a great distance before him ; and when he 

 came up to the place, he found a sheaf cut ; and, thfcse 

 who know what it is to reap, know how pleasant it 

 is to find now and then a sheaf cut ready to their 

 hand. It was no small thing to see a boy fit to be 

 trusted with so dangerous a thing as a reap-hook in 

 his hands, at an age when "young masters" have 

 nursery-maids to cut their victuals for them, and to 

 see that they do not fall out of the window, tumble 

 down stairs, or run under carriage-wheels or horses' 

 bellies. Was not this father discharging his duty 

 by this boy much better than he would have been by 

 sending him to a place. called a school? The boy is 

 in a school here, and an excellent school too : the 

 school of useful labour. I must hear a great deal 

 more than I ever have heard, to convince me, that 

 teaching children to read tends so much to their hap- 

 piness, their independence of spirit, their manliness 

 of character, as teaching them to reap. The crea- 

 ture that is in want must be a slave ; and to be ha- 

 bituated to labour cheerfully is the only means of pre- 

 venting nineteen-twentieths of mankind from being 

 in want. I have digressed here ; but observations of 

 this sort can, in my opinion, never be too often re- 

 peated; especially at a time when all sorts of mad 

 projects are on foot, for what is falsely called edu- 

 cating" the people, and when some would do this by 

 a tax that would compel the single man to give part 

 of his earnings to teach the married man's children 

 to read and write. 



113. Before I quit the uses to which milk may be 

 put, let me mention, that, as mere drink, it is, unless 

 perhaps in case of heavy labour, better, in my opinion, 

 than any beer, however good. I have drinked little else 

 for the last five years, at any time of the day. Skim- 

 milk I mean. If you have not milk enough to wet 

 up your bread with (for a bushel of flour requires 

 about 16 to 18 pints,) you make up the quantity with 

 water, of course ; or, which is a very good way, with 

 water that has been put, boiling hot, upon bran, and 

 6* 



