240 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



with the increasing prosperity that has come to the farmer of 

 late years, little or none of this has filtered through to the lab- 

 ourers, who are (with all the benefits that the State has tried to 

 shower upon them), little better off than twenty years ago." 1 



It is enough to make us as Englishmen blush for shame 

 when we compare our attitude with that of the French 

 nation, stricken sore by a remorseless enemy. Their cir- 

 cular to local authorities ran thus : 



" The existing laws on the attendance of boys at school must 

 be maintained this year with more strictness than ever. ... It 

 would be disgraceful to see children robbed of their education as 

 if the military service of their fathers had left them only the 

 choice between beggary and premature wage-labour." 



By the end of May the number of exemptions from 

 school attendance had increased to 5,ooo. 2 



An attempt was made in the Press by myself, the Coun- 

 tess of Warwick and others to get our large Public Schools to 

 show some sense of equality of sacrifice, but beyond the 

 formation of holiday camps little was done in this direction. 

 That the labourers felt that there was a class difference 

 involved here is evidenced by a statement made by a 

 Shropshire branch of a labourers' union. 



" We poor labourers have as much respect for our children as 

 the farmer, of whose sons there are some going to school in 

 Shropshire at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, and not 

 called on to do the least little job because they are farmers' sons, 

 and yet they are asking for ours without the parents' consent." 3 



To avoid misunderstanding, let me here say that I hold 

 no exalted ideas as to the value of the scraps of education 

 picked up at the village school (how could I, being a school 

 manager ?) ; but as every one knows it is the last year 

 spent at school the year between thirteen and fourteen 

 which counts so enormously in the educational life of a 

 poor boy. To rob him of this year, to say nothing of the 

 year before, is to rob him of a ripe apple after he has tasted 

 one bite. 



1 The Land Agent's Record, March 23, 1915. 



* Daily News, June 2, 1915. 



3 Village Trade Unions, by Ernest Selley. 



