82 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



condition is usually made absolute in these cases that the land 

 should be cultivated with a spade, and not with a plough. The 

 results therefore become the more interesting. 



I shall give here an account of a successful attempt at the 

 improvement of the condition of the poor rural laborers by allot 

 ments of land, cultivated by the spade, uniting with these allot 

 ments, at the same time, a provision for the education of the poor 

 children by whose labor these grounds are cultivated. The 

 accounts have a twofold value, in showing the practicableness 

 of meeting the expenses of education by the labor of the pupils, 

 and the increased and extraordinary product which may be ob 

 tained from land under the spade husbandry. 



&quot;A friend to the more general diffusion of a sound education 

 amongst the peasantry of the United Kingdom, who has long 

 witnessed the success with which education may be, without cost, 

 combined with instruction, in the best modes of cultivating the 

 soil, begs to submit to those who are impressed with the impor 

 tance of the effort, the few following facts : 



&quot; A landed proprietor has established what are termed : Agricul 

 tural Schools, upon the principle of uniting our present national 

 with agricultural instruction, by making the labor of the little 

 scholars,* while under tuition in the art of husbandry in the after 

 noon, to compensate the master, in the way of salary, for the 

 instruction they receive from him, in the usual course of our 

 national education in the morning. Schools have already been 

 established upon this plan at the villages of East Dean and Wil- 

 lingdon, and they are attended with the happiest results. The 

 usual quantity of land required for the purpose does not exceed 

 five acres ; and for this the master pays a rent, certainly equal to, 

 and in most cases beyond, that of the adjoining land, occupied 

 by farmers. In the case of the Willingdon school, there is an 

 appropriate house, for which the master pays an additional rent. 

 The only payment in money to the master is the usual penny a 

 week from each scholar. 



&quot;Nor can any reasonable objection be made to this plan on 

 the ground of so employing the boys in the afternoon. The 

 girls in our national schools are taught, and for the same number 

 of hours, to work with the needle, the use of which is not more 

 important to them than that of the spade and the hoe to the 

 boys. 



