TRAINING FOR COUNTRY LIFE 19 



his field well in the consciousness of his being free. He votes, takes 

 a full part in the settlement of both local and national affairs, with 

 the same independence as his more affluent neighbour, meets his 

 wealthier ie\low-proprietaire as an equal in the cantonal and national 

 " councils," and revels in the sense of such equality. His tilling is 

 good, because he has carried it on in a sense since he was a toddling 

 infant. He loves his village because its life is part of himself, and 

 he is in it every bit as good as any one else, be he ever so rich or so 

 blue-blooded. He is, in short, in perfect harmony with his sur- 

 roundings. 



Does not the difference in circumstances affecting the rural denizen 

 here and there to a great extent account for the difference in the 

 bearing severally of the baiter and our " Hodge " ? And does not 

 the social classification, which we have forced upon the village, 

 explain much of that distinct disharmony, glumness and want of 

 mutual confidence and happy feeling that we observe with regret 

 among ourselves ? We have in truth taken away from the small 

 villager everything that makes self-respecting life in the country 

 possible. We have given him the vote, of course tardily — even the 

 vote for the parish council in which alone he had a chance of asserting 

 himself. However, the vote by itself is worth as little to our English 

 rustics as was emancipation without land and without property to 

 the Russian serf of the emancipating Czar's days. There was 

 nothing there on which to turn emancipation to account. And to 

 our houseless, homeless, fieldless rustic, kept in dependence, like less 

 than a half-citizen, the mere vote is as barren of benefit. 



However, there is more besides. The Swiss bauer is happy and 

 contented, not only because he is free and has his own home and 

 field and so on. He also has a very good education, designed specifi- 

 cally for the life and calling to which Providence had called him. 

 We have been busy in the matter of popular education, as nobody 

 surely can deny, ever since we took the venturesome " leap in the 

 dark," and thereupon felt it to be incumbent upon us to " educate 

 our masters." We have addressed ourselves to the job in good 

 earnest. And we have been adding new touches to the work ever 

 since. We see the results very plainly in our towns and among our 

 industrial workmen. Where is the despised " factory hand " of fifty 

 years ago ? Some of his class have sat on the Treasury or the Front 

 Opposition Bench in Parliament. Many of the same class administer 

 justice as justices of the peace. In the shape of co-operative 

 societies that same class conducts with admirable judgment and 

 success the largest trading business in the world. In the shape of 



02 



