RURAL EDUCATION 99 



unsuitable. This view has been ably main- 

 tained by that sincere friend of the poor 

 villagers, Mr. Jesse Ceilings. He goes so far 

 as to believe that " the direct tendency of 

 the (present) education is to create a distaste 

 for manual labour of all sorts and a dis- 

 satisfaction with country life generally. By 

 it new ideas, totally dissociated from the 

 localities in which they live, are instilled in 

 the minds of the young, who believe that 

 such ideas can only be realized elsewhere." 



Here again the argument rests on the 

 assumption that the village child is predes- 

 tined to live and die as a quasi-serf on low 

 wages. Well-to-do parents may select careers 

 for their children ; not so the agricultural 

 labourer. To make anything of him, the 

 villager, like Dr. Johnson's Scotchman, must 

 be caught young, and carefully instructed in 

 " Fruit-, flower-, and vegetable-growing ; 

 poultry and bee-keeping ; budding, pruning 

 and grafting ; cow and pig-keeping ; milking ; 

 rotation of garden crops ; nature and choice of 

 seeds ; structure, life and food of plants ; 

 action of birds and insects on crops ; use of 

 manures ; use of simple tools ; packing fruit, 

 vegetables and other produce for market." * 



1 See Schedule to " Agricultural Education in Elemen- 

 tary Schools Bill," presented March 9, 1905. 



