186 BRITISH SHEEP AND SHEPHERDING. 



for its profitable utilisation, their successful management is an 

 important matter. The value of a good shepherd has been men- 

 tioned, and the necessity for maintaining a supply of these skilled 

 men is quite obvious. A shepherd is not like a mechanic, who can 

 be trained under cover and made into a handy man in the shops. 

 He must have a natural and instinctive love of animals ; and 

 experience has shown that an early training and association with 

 sheep is almost essential, for few become really skilled in the art 

 who have not taken up the work in their youth. It is unfortunate, 

 but no less the fact, that the modern form of education does not 

 encourage or befit boys for work on the farm ; and that by keeping 

 boys playing about on village greens instead of letting them get on 

 to the farms among animals and the other matters of interest 

 on the farm, at an age when they are receptive, is the great cause 

 of migration from country districts. Country boys, with days 

 broken by school hours, learn nothing of the pleasures and interests 

 of country life ; and by staying at school until they are fourteen 

 they get a distaste to country affairs. The half-time system, 

 with evening classes later on, turned out the best and most skilled 

 workmen on the land. If this cannot be provided for all, there 

 ought to be special provision for those who desire to take up 

 shepherding ; they are going to take up far more skilled and far 

 more useful work than an ordinary clerk, and they need to start 

 their technical education in it when the power of observation 

 is keen on it, and before they are dulled to the appreciation of the 

 attractions that country life affords. Those who enter their life's 

 work young get an interest in life and in useful occupation, but the 

 glamour of life in town appeals to those who have learned no real 

 interest in country life and they leave it at the first opportunity. 

 It is to the nation's interest to make provision to maintain a race 

 of shepherds, and it is necessary for educationists to recognise 

 that work among animals is in itself a great education, and to do 

 so without delay. 



