CONCLUSION. 413 



knowledge of Nature's laws, as well as a know- 

 ledge, at once reasoned and practical, of the 

 technical methods of satisfying man's material 

 needs. Far from being inferior to the " special- 

 ised " young persons manufactured by our uni- 

 versities, the complete human being, trained to 

 use his brain and his hands, excels them, on the 

 contrary, in all respects, especially as an initiator 

 and an inventor in both science and technics. 



All this has been proved. It is an acquisition 

 of the times we live in an acquisition which has 

 been won despite the innumerable obstacles 

 always thrown in the way of every initiative 

 mind. It has been won by the obscure tillers of 

 the soil, from whose hands greedy States, land- 

 lords and middlemen snatch the fruit of their 

 labour even before it is ripe ; by obscure teachers 

 who only too often fall crushed under the weight 

 of Church, State, commercial competition, inertia 

 of mind and prejudice. 



And now, in the presence of all these con- 

 quests what is the reality of things ? 



Nine-tenths of the whole population of grain- 

 exporting countries like Russia, one-half of it 

 in countries like France which live on home- 

 grown food, work upon the land most of them 

 in the same way as the slaves of antiquity did, 

 only to obtain a meagre crop from a soil, and with 

 a machinery which they cannot improve, because 



