EDUCATION 195 



is felt. lu rural districts boys lose practical training to 

 gain the three R's, and acquire in the process a distaste 

 for farming occupations. Thus farmers suffer in two ways : 

 they pay men's wages for boys' work, and labour is less 

 efficient. Elementary education in the first principles of 

 agriculture would go far to mitigate these evils. At the 

 present day children in rural schools learn to read from 

 books which are useless; their object lessons are polar 

 bears or creatures with which they are equally unfamiliar ; 

 the natural history of horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and 

 poultry, or insects and birds, is entirely neglected ; they 

 know more of glacial action than they do of air and water ; 

 their minds are stuffed with historical facts, but of the 

 nature of soils, seeds, grasses, or trees they are probably 

 entirely ignorant. If after passing a certain standard, 

 say the third, they received technical education in the 

 work of their future lives, practically illustrated from a 

 few acres attached, as is often the case on the Continent, to 

 the school itself, they would be better equipped as labourers, 

 and would take intelligent interest in work which to them 

 is now dreary routine. 



Hitherto agricultural progress has, in this country, de- 

 pended entirely upon private enterprise. But as agriculture 

 grows more scientific and landlords more impoverished, the 

 need of a State Department of Agriculture is urged upon 

 Government with increased force. Something is already 

 done in this direction, but much remains. The Agricultural 

 Department of the Privy Council, which already commands 

 the services of Professor Brown, has been recently strength- 

 ened by the appointment of Mr. Whitehead as agricultural 

 adviser. State aid is also given to horse-breeding. The 

 Government devoted 5,000^. for this purpose in 1888, and 

 appointed a committee to frame a scheme for its distribu- 



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