EDUCATION. 107 



of which the lowest has, by reason of its hopeless dependence 

 — so long as it remains on the land — not been able to march 

 abreast, in its social and intellectual advance, with its 

 sister class in towns, whereas the uppermost is in number 

 as nothing compared with the foreign squirearchies. Al- 

 though of course dependent upon Agriculture, the youth 

 of this select class of ours appears " above " making a 

 regular professional study of that calling. If a young man 

 of the " squire " class goes to Oxford or Cambridge, he 

 does not go as a student in the agricultural department, 

 but as a student of letters. That is altogether different 

 from what prevails abroad and from what would prevail 

 in this country had "S. G. O. " (the late Lord Sydney Godol- 

 phin Osborne) had his way of seeing the country parcelled 

 out among " £2,000 a year (in Ireland £1,000 a year) squires," 

 to whom their properties would have been not mere invest- 

 ments or country residences, but real bread-winning work- 

 shops, to be treated seriously, like a " business." There 

 being no upper stratum to " set the tune," the middle 

 stratum, that of intending tenant farmers, naturally gravi- 

 tates even more than it would do in any case to pure practice 

 — all the more since the large majority of our tenant holdings 

 are comparatively small. In that stratum accordingly the 

 rule of thumb necessarily dominates over the rule of brains, 

 and tradition prevails over new discovery. We have more 

 difficulties besides to contend with. But those other diffi- 

 culties are not insurmountable. And in spite of them 

 Agricultural Education will somehow, in the interest of the 

 Nation, have to be done justice to. The remarkable up- 

 shooting of industries in Germany, which has been one of 

 the wonders of the age, calling for hands and offering 

 tempting terms, while at the same time there are foreign 

 populations in close contiguity which have more hands to 

 offer for the rural employment to be given than their own 

 countries provide work for, fully explains rural depopulation 

 in Germany. In France it is the sparkle of the town, 

 with its estaminets and cafes and the national addiction to 

 fonctionnaris7ne (which yields a certain income at a very 

 modest expenditure of labour), which act as caiises. However, 



