20 THE PLACE OF RURAL ECONOMY 



lord, actual or potential, acquires a fortuitous knowledge 

 of the rudiments of his business, either from observa- 

 tion combined with costly mistakes, or from association 

 with his father or friends. I will not deny that in a con- 

 siderable number of instances the results are fairly 

 satisfactory, but in any case the process is slow in its 

 operation, and uncertain in its incidence. It goes with- 

 out saying that class-room and laboratory instruction, 

 however valuable as an enunciation of principles, can 

 never displace experience gained by practice. The 

 University is well fitted to provide the one, but it is 

 powerless to supply the other. This point was clearly 

 recognized and specifically emphasized by the Com- 

 mittee of 1891, whose report contains the following 

 passage : ' It is obvious that the everyday manual opera- 

 tions of husbandry, the knowledge of which can only 

 be acquired upon the land itself, are not subjects for 

 University teaching. It is equally obvious that the 

 qualifications on which the successful prosecution of 

 agriculture as a branch of commerce mainly depends, 

 namely practical experience, quickness of observation, 

 knowledge of markets and prices, must be gained else- 

 where than at an University/ Personally I very much 

 question whether there is any compensating advantage 

 in the farmer or owner of a considerable area of land 

 being himself able to perform the ordinary manual pro- 

 cesses of agriculture. He can certainly be much more 

 usefully employed than in practising them. It is some- 

 times objected that a University such as this is no fit 

 place in which to encourage the study of Agriculture, 

 for the reason that this is a technical subject, and that 

 technical study is or should be discouraged. The force 

 of this contention seems to depend on the interpretation 

 that is placed upon the term ' technical '. The academic 



