54 My Little Farm 



the peasant mind, and these two facts I can 

 affirm of it :i (i) It makes waste of the Depart- 

 ment's expenditure ; and (2) it cannot but do so 

 while primary education is directed and financed 

 against mental freedom. 



I knew these facts (and much else like them) 

 from the start. That was the reason I had no 

 faith in abstract teaching among peasants, and 

 decided to put my own " demonstration " in 

 concrete form, so that it could be seen as plainly 

 and calculated as easily as the results of a chemical 

 experiment. I thought then that I was right ; 

 now I know it. Every day of my life makes it 

 plainer to me that the peasant must be mentally 

 liberated before he can be industrially redeemed ; 

 that his mind must be restored to the service of his 

 body before his energies can react reproductively 

 in a higher standard of either work or life. The 

 best men in the Department know this as well as 

 I do, but they are paid for the silence of their 

 failure rather than for the success of their service. 

 Speaking the truth, they would be dismissed. 

 They have to do their work and take their pay in 

 the conditions imposed on them, and it is the 

 nation's business, not theirs, to find out what it is 

 that keeps them useless. In spite of the agrarian 

 mind, they have done something to improve 

 agrarian conditions, or at least to create the oppor- 

 tunity ; but their results remain necessarily small 

 in proportion to the cost, and impossible where 

 most required. 



