LANDLOEDS A NATUKAL GROWTH 149 



of a small class of capitalist landlords. In Frajice the State 

 sacrificed the few to the many, and promoted the increase 

 of small owners standing on the border-line of pauperism. 

 In England the State has left agricultural improvement 

 to private enterprise ; in France she supplies out of the 

 pockets of the taxpayers the capital and direction in 

 which her land system is deficient. If the present system 

 is abolished in England, the State must not only undertake 

 the expenditure of the landlord, but make the outlay of 

 the tenant farmer. Peasant proprietors are, in fact, costly 

 exotics, which, in their present surroundings, can only be 

 reared with a certain loss to the community in the general 

 productiveness of the land, a deterioration in their own 

 standard of comfort, and a perpetual expense to the tax- 

 payer. 



A glance at some of the leading features of the French 

 system of State aid to agriculture will bring home the 

 difficulty of creating a peasant proprietary to the breeches- 

 pockets, if not the consciences, of legislators. 



Elementary agriculture is taught in primary schools, 

 where children learn to distinguish between plants, grasses, 

 and soils ; often a plot of ground is attached to the school 

 which serves as an experimental farm. The school teachers 

 are supplied with training in the subject by departmental 

 professors, who, under the direction of the Minister of 

 Education, give courses of lectures in the ecoles narmales 

 The rest of the system of agricultural education falls under 

 the department of the Minister of Agriculture. Three 

 classes of schools are provided: — (1) the fermes-ecoles ; 

 (2) the ecoles i^ratiques ; (3) the ecoles nationales. The 

 fennes-ecoles are numerous and useful ; among them 

 are those of Trois-Croix, near Rennes ; St.-Gauthier, at 

 Domfront ; St. -Mich el (Nievre) ; Nolhac (Haute-Loire). 



