EDUCATION. 103 



once more, a good deal of difference between what is done 

 " on one side of the hedge and what is done on the other." 

 The leading points are bright. But they shine amid an 

 irresponsive atmosphere. They exercise but little diffusive, 

 propagating, leavening force. They dispel but little dark- 

 ness. We can trace the barrenness of the effort in all, let 

 us say three, grades of the agricultural or rural community, 

 the lowest, the middle, and the higher. We find it even 

 among farmers of the very highest local standing — men 

 who shine in practical farming, but who show themselves 

 perfectly indifferent to Education and to the value of 

 scientific knowledge. The average smaller farmer, used 

 to his " leather jacket " husbandry, inherited from his 

 father and grandfather, not only does not " believe in 

 education," as Mr. Middleton puts it, but he actually 

 nourishes something approaching to contempt for it, and 

 meets the tidings of progress with hermetically closed 

 ears. As the late Mr. Buckmaster, of the Education Depart- 

 ment, was wont to put it, in his homely way, his answer 

 to invitations to learn is : " What I know, I know ; and 

 what I don't know, I don't want you to teach me." 



And, stepping down to the lowest grade, the depleted 

 state of our villages, the general scarcity of, and the avowedly 

 poor quality of much of the work done, the backwardness 

 of the labouring population of our rural districts, in compari- 

 son with that of industrial centres, and our poverty in quali- 

 fied men to occupy the small holdings which we are eager 

 to create, and for the occupation of which we are now 

 impressing discharged soldiers, bear ample witness to the 

 prevailing defects in education in that quarter. Suitable 

 education— supplemented by other appropriate arrange- 

 ments — we may be sure, would keep much of the rural 

 population where it was reared, and faithful to its country 

 occupations. We shall have to " educate our masters " 

 in the country as we have done in towns, if we are to have 

 our countryside once more the little world that we should 

 like it to be, the " Sweet Auburn " of the past. We shall 

 have to open to " Hodge " the same path on which his 

 industrial brother has walked to knowledge, to the enjoy- 



