WORKSHOP PLUS LAND. 219 



ploughman thus marks out his broad Hne of 

 perspective with that simple instrument which 

 has been the agricultural craftsman's chief 

 tool for so many centuries, and with it he 

 draws line after line until the field of mottled 

 o-reen and pale yellow is transformed into rich 

 shining Vandyke -browns. . . . There is 

 beauty in his work, creative and scenic beauty 

 such as falls to the lot of very few of his 

 brother-craftsmen in towns. But no Ruskin 

 has ever taught him to see clouds. Pan has 

 never piped to him. In his conditions of 

 labour, in his home, in his dwarfed, toil-smitten 

 figure there is little else but soul-destroying 

 sordidness. Yet when he comes to sow the 

 golden grain over every particle of the pre- 

 pared soil, the life of the multitude lies in the 

 palm of his hand. And this, I have written as 

 a field worker, and not as a man of the study. 

 But the ordinary boy on leaving school has 

 been so taught that he sees no beauty in the 

 work of the fields, and to prevent him from 

 drifting into a town something more than 

 village halls with entertainments, given by a 

 class other than his own, is wanted. He needs 

 some other interest in life besides that of 

 working the land : something that will satisfy 



