20 FISHING IN EDEN 



lads do, knowing something of foreign parts, but 

 still unable to convince old Matt that the sea was 

 more than twice as big as Sunbiggin Tarn. 



Whether, however, we finally went up to the 

 University or not we all made our first educational 

 start at the village school, and I remember that few 

 of us cared for the ordinary subjects of elementary 

 education. But the schoolmaster was in advance of 

 his time, and many of the practical things he then 

 taught us are at the present time being advocated 

 as something quite new. The red letter days of 

 real interest were when the top class was taken out 

 to measure fields, stone heaps, haystacks, and 

 occasionally, for the local plasterer, the walls of 

 cottages and farmhouses. Country lads in West- 

 morland always started to do practical things as 

 soon as they could walk. Practice, in conse- 

 quence, made a stronger appeal than theory. 



Our lives were brimful of interest, and what we 

 lacked in school education was made up for us to 

 a great extent by a practical and useful knowledge, 

 gained outside, of Nature's ways and doings. As 

 farm lads, we were never allowed to be idle if 

 we kept anywhere about the homestead. Every 

 season that came round had its particular form of 

 useful work to be done, and there were always 

 plenty of jobs that lads could do after the age of 



