RURAL EDUCATION 103 



the well-known schoolmaster of Bicester, regu- 

 larly led off his pupils to a neighbouring allot- 

 ment for lessons in elementary horticulture. 

 The knowledge of arithmetic is also an asset of 

 great practical value in the country. Old 

 labourers constantly tell you how in days of 

 old when they did piecework at so much an 

 acre, their employer frequently took advantage 

 of their ignorance to underpay them. Simple 

 book-keeping, again, is of the greatest possible 

 utility to a small holder. 



The hostile critics of our present system 

 frequently point to the meagre results secured 

 by our primary education as an argument 

 hi favour of substituting more practical 

 instruction. We are reminded of the fact 

 that many young labourers and servant girls 

 of twenty-five can just manage to spell out a 

 newspaper paragraph or scrawl a mis-spelt 

 letter. But even if this be the case and the 

 number of our illiterate voters decreases year 

 by year there is nothing very surprising 

 about it. How much Latin or Greek is 

 remembered at the age of forty by the Uni- 

 versity pass-man who began his school life, 

 instead of ending it, at thirteen and continued 

 his studies of these languages till twenty-one ? 

 " This glib talk of over-educating the rural 

 children," writes my friend, Mr. Warren, a 



