CHAPTER III 



Education 



The very first need to be satisfied, if we are in future 

 to have our Agriculture in harmony with the wishes and 

 requirements of the Nation, is a revision of our educational 

 apparatus, so far as it relates to Agriculture and country 

 life. For without Education carried up to the full height 

 of modern knowledge we can have no successful husbandry. 

 We are planning educational reforms in other quarters. 

 We appear to have a period of vigorous educational action 

 before us. At more points than one has it been found that 

 our educational system needs recasting. However, in this 

 matter Agriculture stands on a different footing from all 

 other studies. Inquiry all round — also special inquiry 

 by a Departmental Committee in 1907-8 — has shown 

 educational reform to be nowhere more urgent. And yet 

 on this very point the wants of Agriculture appear in danger 

 of being scarcely done justice to. We complain of the rural 

 population turning away from Agriculture. To make it 

 take to it once more we shall have to begin by employing 

 our efforts upon the rural child, so as to attune it to the con- 

 ditions of its intended life. The child is proverbially the 

 father of the man. And if we want to have a good stable 

 country population, we shall have to begin by training 

 country children to country habits and country pursuits. 



Hitherto our action has been all the other way. We 

 have had education for the young — scarcely any for the 

 adult. But, if anything, that education has been shaped 

 on too general lines, with a strongly urban flavour about 

 it. In has in truth tended to train children away from a 



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