FIFTH CONFERENCE, 



Friday, August i 



CHAIRMAN: THE RIGHT HON. SIR W. HART-DYKE, 



BART., M.P. 



SIR W. HART-DYKE said: It gives me sincere 

 pleasure to take part in your proceedings to-day, 

 and preside over your last conference, representing 

 as it does the final stage in a great and exception- 

 ally successful effort for the sake of education. 

 Some years have elapsed since the formation of our 

 Agricultural Education Committee, and considering 

 all the success we have achieved, I am even now 

 astonished to find the number of persons in all 

 stations of life who have still a fixed idea that the 

 sole object of educationists is book-learning, and that 

 our only dream of success is to cram the unfortunate 

 children in our rural schools with all the ologies, and 

 with information and training which can only have 

 the result of making them totally unfit for country 

 life and occupations. The great interest which this 

 exhibition has excited, its pronounced success, and 

 the various conferences which have been held, have 

 had a twofold result, each of which will make a grave 

 impress upon education in the future in our rural 

 schools. First, we have secured once and for all the 

 sympathy, support, and adhesion of the Board of 

 Education, so emphatically declared by the Lord 



246 



