AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 355 



middle-class education is scarcely an agricultural subject 



at all, and that it still is true, and probably 



always will be true, that the bulk of farmers have been bred 



by farmers, and that it is a fortunate thing 



that the education of farmers from their childhood upwards is 

 almost entirely in the hands of farmers — that is, under their 

 direction." * Second, that the purchaser pays for the 

 analysis of his goods, while in France and Germany it is 

 distinctly the reverse. Third, that the great agricultural 

 societies are the pivots on which the whole system rests. 

 To their generous encouragement is largely due the advance 

 that has been made in British agriculture and agricultural 

 education. It is true, it may be said 



" We 've fallen on better times ; men read and think. 

 Our good forefathers used to fight and drink." 



But the societies have furnished facts to read and think 

 about. The investigations undertaken by them, the im- 

 proved methods introduced by them, have been just so 

 many object-lessons in the education of every farmer in the 

 neighborhood. 



We have now completed our survey of the system of agri- 

 cultural education in the three leadinsr countries of the 

 world, and we find the following features especially worthy 

 of consideration : — 



First. The greatest improvement has been made in those 

 countries w'here the graded sj^stem is most complete, — each 

 step complete in itself, yet absolutely necessary in passing 

 to the next higher. We are told that we have failed in our 

 efforts to civilize the Indian simply from neglect of the in- 

 tennediatc steps, — that " man in passing from a savage to a 

 civilized state passes through three stages : first, he is a 

 hunter, living by the chase ; second, he is a herdsman, living 

 by pasturage of goats, sheep, camels and kine ; third, he is a 

 husbandman, living by cultivation of corn and maize and 

 fmit and herbs," f and that it is utterly impossible for him 

 to pass from the condition of the huntsman to that of a hus- 

 bandman till he has first fulfilled the conditions of a nomadic 



* Morton — " Agricultural Education." 

 t llepworth-Dixon — " New America." 



