AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 69 



recipient, and on the other begin to qualify him for his 

 position in the State. In the critical years of the next 

 generation the landowners of this country and the 

 system they represent must expect a searching and 

 even a hostile trial ; it is for the Universities to en- 

 lighten them on the opportunities and the obligations 

 that are bound up with the possession of land. 



It has already been stated that the country, prior to 

 the war, was being provided with a fairly complete 

 organization of agricultural research and education. 

 The skeleton of the system existed, though in many 

 cases, especially in the purely rural counties where the 

 education is most needed, the local authorities were slow 

 to take advantage of the opportunities provided for 

 them. What is needed is that the Board of Agriculture 

 should be given power to insist that a backward 

 authority shall bring its educational work up to a 

 certain standard. The Board of Education possesses 

 this power with regard to the provision of primary and 

 other forms of technical education ; the Board of 

 Agriculture can only advise and assist. Grants-in-aid 

 alone are not sufficient to convince the farmer who sits 

 on County Councils of the value of education, the 

 county rate is a more substantial argument. There 

 would seem to be room for the introduction of a new 

 type of instruction in business methods by the setting 

 up of demonstration farms run solely for profit, but 

 which keep a strict set of accounts and make public the 

 costs and results of every part of their work. Such 

 farms are particularly needed in districts where it is 

 desirable to bring about a change in the current routine 

 of farming, for example where men are dairying upon 

 grass land, but where better results can be obtained by 

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