122 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



able, always the prospect of future self-employment before 

 it. There must be practical training as well, though it 

 be not in a school. We know the value of " school-gardens " 

 and endeavour to increase their number. But the school- 

 ing there given is little in comparison with that obtained 

 where parents at home have their own free garden and 

 allotment or small holding, in which the child may exercise 

 its head and hand at all free hours, under a parent's tuition, 

 with the lively interest evoked by working for itself, or for 

 its family to stimulate it. 



" In the house and on the soil belonging to their parents," 

 so writes Mr. Prothero, " children might gain that love of 

 country pursuits which is rarely acquired in later years, 

 and that practical handiness in all details of management 

 of land, without which they cannot become effective 

 workers." It is a thousand pities that we have not more 

 such gardens and such small holdings, independent of an 

 employer's capricious notice, in our country. It is not 

 " the " garden, generally speaking, which creates the liveliest 

 interest, apt to shape intellect and to incite to good thinking 

 work, but " our " garden, " our " field — something that 

 is our own, that will remain our own, on which the work 

 of future years may be bestowed, and in which the effects 

 of continued good work may be watched in the progress 

 made. Such work is in itself more than half an agricul- 

 tural education. And it does not strain the child. One 

 cannot help thinking, in this connection, that the jealous 

 solicitude exhibited by our urban educationalists for non- 

 employment of children in paid work is, in respect of the 

 country, carried a little too far. Such work, practised in 

 moderation, may temporarily fatigue, but it does not wear. 

 It is a form of exercise — educating exercise. It affords 

 enjoyment, as well as toil, by the interest which it evokes, 

 and a sense of pride in what infant faculty sees that it may 

 accomplish. The children whom I employed every autumn, 

 as did every landowner in the country, in Germany, in 

 " helping mother " to lift potatoes, tumbled about merrily, 

 Hke hoppickers in Kent. There was fun in the thing. It 

 always happened at the time of the kinness (fete pair on ale), 



