120 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



is as distinctively rural. And you see the effect in the bear- 

 ing of the agricultural calling and agricultural Labour. 

 There is no suggestion there of social or intellectual inferior- 

 ity. If anything there is the reverse. The rural population 

 stick to their rural pursuits, are proud of them and carry 

 their heads high. And they exhibit distinct eagerness for 

 further learning. They do not require to be coaxed and 

 almost inveigled into more learning like our labourers and 

 farmers, who " do not believe in education." With some 

 difference, due to local surroundings, it is the same in France 

 and in Germany. With regard to France I can only 

 speak from the observation of results. But with regard 

 to Germany I can speak with some confidence, as having 

 been, during the six years of my residence in Germany as 

 a landed proprietor, patron of a village school, for the 

 passing of whose annual report my " discharge " was required. 

 Hence I could not avoid looking into the doings in it with 

 some little care. It is not that in those countries essentially 

 different matter is taught. The teaching is not of Agricul- 

 ture but of Alderman Curtis's famous " Three R's " and 

 what pertains to them. But all is put into a rural and 

 agricultural garb. All through the children are taught to 

 understand and realise that they are rural children, growing 

 up amid rural surroundings and destined prima facie for 

 callings more or less connected with Agriculture. They 

 are not led to look down upon their parents' position and 

 occupation. They are as much led to look forward to 

 agricultural pursuits as an English boy is taught to look 

 forward to his living upon British soil. For purposes of 

 illustration rural subjects and rural occupations are called 

 in, so that the child grows up breathing, as it were, in its 

 education a rural and agricultural air. 



And with very marked effect is such practice carried higher 

 up. In Belgium, in Germany, in Denmark, it is in great 

 part to rural continuation schools, existing there under differ- 

 ent names, — still for general teaching — that the high stand- 

 ing of national Agriculture is attributable. The rightly 

 famed Danish Folkshoejskoler are schools for general educa- 

 tion. Only a few teach Agriculture as an additional by- 



