CONCLUSION 425 



soil could be rooted there, others who have left it 

 could be sent " back to the land " by methods such as 

 have been described. No matter how poor and 

 deteriorated these latter may be now, we are assured 

 on good authority that a generation spent in agricul- 

 tural pursuits would restore what has been lost. 

 These men (and women), if placed on the land with 

 the same tenures and conditions under which their 

 forefathers lived, would, by an atavistic law, quickly 

 reproduce the same strength, health, and other quali- 

 ties which then existed, and which are inherent in the 

 race.^ 



Here this book ends as far as its subiect-matter is 

 concerned, but an after-word might be spoken, and 

 possibly be of some use. Past centuries are foolishly 

 called the "dark ages," but the doings and writings 

 of those who lived therein must be studied if the 

 problems of present-day life are to be understood, and 

 if future action with regard to them is to be rightly 

 guided. Young men — and it is with them the future 

 lies — would be fortunate were they to receive a sys- 

 tematic training in the knowledge of our priceless old 

 English literature, the rich storehouse of wisdom. 

 They would be assured of a full measure of the 

 pleasure, not to say profit, of which the present writer 

 has secured but a small share by his desultory and 

 self-helped study. The thought-breeding utterances 

 of the old writers, from earliest times, who had ever 



the engineer ; Captain Cook, the naval discoverer, and Alexander Balfour 

 the novelist, were all either farm labourers or the sons of farm labourers. 

 These are but a few examples of the great number of eminent men who 

 have sprung from the classes named ; indeed it may be said that the 

 greatest men in art, literature, and science came from the lower and not 

 from the so-called "upper" classes. 

 ^ See pp. .101-2. Evidence given by Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Malins. 



