EDUCATION. 135 



versationally by the knowing upon the less cultured, which 

 has done so much to raise German Agriculture to its present 

 high average level. Men of the same class as the humbler 

 farmers attending such meetings among ourselves would 

 for the most part either shyly hold back, being too timid 

 to take active part in the discussion, or else would condemn 

 the whole discussion as unpractical " rot." 



The mention of demonstration stations naturally suggests 

 the thought : Is it not a mistake that in the teaching of 

 Agriculture the appeal to the ear is not far more fully sup- 

 ported by appeals to the eye, in the shape of demonstration ? 

 That was one main point in Pestalozzi's peculiar system 

 of instruction, which has proved so successful in Switzer- 

 land. The eye takes in knowledge far more readily, and 

 more effectually too, than the ear. The word addressed to 

 the ear — or else to the eye merely in print — only too often 

 among our " not-reading " farmers falls upon a non- 

 receptive tympanum or retina. The eye grasps the pith 

 of a matter at a glance. That is why in the early 'seventies 

 I tried to set the example of eye-teaching in chemistry by 

 preparing coloured tables ^ to indicate the chemical com- 

 position of feeding stuffs, manures and crops — quantitative 

 as well as qualitative — under three heads : flesh-forming, 

 fat-forming and collective, in feeding stuffs ; nitrogen, 

 phosphates and potash in crops and manures. The idea 

 governing the publication was, to make farmers understand 

 what in respect of the main chemical constituents they take 

 out of the soil by an average crop and in what form they 

 may restore it in the shape of fertilisers, so as to make 

 them appreciate the respective value of various fertilisers, 

 and keep their land in good heart. The table showing the 

 proportions of flesh-forming and fat-forming constituents 

 in feeding stuffs was supplemented by another, indicating, 



^ Those tables were first published in the Agricultural Economist 

 in 1 871 to 1873, under the title of " A Handy Chemistry of Farm 

 Crops," "A Handy Chemistry of Manures," and "The Pro- 

 portionate Fattening Qualities, etc., of Feeding Substances." They 

 were subseqviently issued collectively in a little volume entitled 

 " Agricultural Economy," published by the " Agricultural and 

 Horticultural (Co-operative) Association," now of Long Acre, London. 



