48 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



service. It is not only that seeing, as we know, generates believing. 

 I have observed something of that sort in Alsace — a very agri- 

 cultural country, blessed by Providence with a fruitful soil and a 

 propitious climate, wealthy generally, and by no means backward 

 in agriculture. However, after the German annexation, when the 

 alien authorities, being particularly anxious to gain over the native 

 opinion by paternal care for its material interest — as was evidenced 

 by its favouring the Alsatian and Lorrain railways to the rather 

 serious detriment of those of Baden and Hesse — introduced a number 

 of rather valuable improvements benefiting both agriculture and 

 industry, without stint of money, such as magnificent storages of 

 water for power and irrigating purposes, the farmers or peasantry, 

 hostile to the Government and sulking, would not be persuaded to 

 take advantage of what came to their eyes from a contaminated 

 source. It is Alsatian farmers, French to the core in their senti- 

 ments, who have told me this. For a long time the new improve- 

 ments went a-begging so far as practical use was concerned. How- 

 ever, farmers could not close their eyes permanently to what was 

 really to their material benefit, and with an es isch dock guet they 

 would at length relent and condescend to accept the uncoveted boon. 

 In the case of the young folk, boys and young chaps playing the 

 part of instructors to their fathers, there is more than this. Boys 

 are as constitutionally anxious to learn as older men are sometimes 

 unwilling. Everything that is new has a charm for them. They 

 open their eyes and their ears to what they see and are told, and 

 keep their understanding agog to take in every particle of instruction 

 that is offered to them on any point which directly interests them ; 

 and, indeed, their interest becomes keen. And their young mind is 

 receptive and also retentive, just as their hand is pliant and adapt- 

 able. They have the chance given them of doing something by 

 themselves, of distinguishing themselves, rearing the biggest pig or 

 the heaviest crop of this or the other variety of plants, and showing 

 their mettle and their skill. No tuition, down to the smallest 

 detail, is lost upon them. Be their fathers ever so sceptical, ever so 

 averse to innovations, on their own plot, or in their own stye or 

 hencoop, they will do as so-and-so — being their accredited teacher 

 — advises them, especially if there is a prize to win, as, of course, 

 it is advisable to offer. But even the mere distinction to be gained 

 acts as a powerful stimulus. And then the old man not only sees 

 and comes to the conclusion that " after all the thing is good " — as 

 the Alsatians put it — but he also feels shamed at seeing " the young 

 'un " doing so much better than himself, growing — as has happened 



