CHAPTER XIV. 

 RURAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



POPE, at the present time, is out of favour as a poet, but his 

 polished couplets are eminently quotable and many of his 

 platitudes embody permanent truths. His declaration that 

 " the proper study of mankind is man," expresses a sentiment 

 which is very generally accepted and practised. Whether the 

 study of human nature is " proper " or not, it is at any rate 

 engrossing, and an opportunity for its exercise was afforded 

 in the Chair of the Agricultural Club. It cannot be claimed 

 that the members of the Club were what statisticians term 

 " a random sample " of the agricultural community. By 

 the nature of the qualification each individual had attained 

 membership by some process of selection. In one way or 

 another he had secured the confidence of his fellows, which 

 after all is the highest distinction to which a man can aspire. 

 But if it was strictly speaking a " selected sample," it was 

 nevertheless very representative not only of rural England 

 in the topographical sense, but of the various elements which 

 go to make up the community of the country-side. The 

 habit of introspection is not a product of the open-air ; it is 

 usually engendered in the study or the cloister. It cannot 

 be said that any of those who introduced subjects or took 

 part in discussion consciously indulged in psychological 

 speculations. Perhaps Mr. Castell Wrey's paper on 

 " Suspicion " most nearly approached a deliberate attempt 

 to describe the mentality of the country-side, and there were 

 incidental allusions at various times which were illuminating. 

 Mr. Wrey described the three classes of the Agricultural 

 community and suggested that " suspicion was one of the 

 chief causes for the uneconomical position in which Agri- 

 culture stands to-day " i.e., in September, 1919 : 



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