CH. V] EDUCATION OF THE PEASANT 177 



or no use, but may lead to disaster if put into practice by 

 natives of the tropics, who are not good at adapting principles 

 to actual practical use in the field or elsewhere. 



There are many and great difficulties in the way of organising 

 such instruction. In the first place, as indicated above in con- 

 nection with nature study and school gardens, there is the 

 difficulty of getting good teachers. The ordinary teacher cannot 

 know about agricultural practice anything like so much as the 

 ordinary villager, and consequently, if he sets to work to teach 

 boys, will render himself liable to ridicule. It is better, as 

 pointed out above, that he should confine his teaching to culti- 

 vations not yet understood or practised in the village where he 

 has to teach. 



In the second place, practical outdoor teaching is required, 

 and this, apart from any difficulty in getting land, must often 

 present great obstacles. Unless the boys have been accustomed 

 to practical work out of doors by school garden work at the 

 elementary school, it will often be found very difficult to get 

 them to take part in it, especially in the more severe physical 

 labour, and yet, if they do not, they can never acquire a real 

 working knowledge of agricultural practice. 



In Indian countries, the caste difficulty sometimes stands 

 more or less in the way of successful practical work, especially 

 if the student who has been trained in agriculture is to be sent 

 to teach among the villagers. The higher the caste, the less 

 inclined, very often, is the man (if he has received an ordinary 

 " good " education) to do hard physical labour, and yet no man 

 but a high caste man can do much among the agricultural 

 villagers, who are very commonly of high caste themselves. 



On the whole, therefore, agricultural teaching in the high 

 schools should only be attempted in very favourable cases, and 

 attention should rather be directed to the working of school 

 gardens, which are to a large extent free from the great draw- 

 backs which have been pointed out. The instruction given 

 in these may become more and more directed to agricultural 

 practice as the boys get older. A boy is best kept clear of 

 direct technical instruction in agriculture, in the majority of 

 cases, until he is getting well up in the schools. 



w. 12 



