90 



The Conferences 



I think, therefore, it will be unnecessary for me to 

 attempt to explain at any length to you what will be 

 so much more completely and adequately explained 

 in the course of these conferences. I shall, however, 

 have a few words to say upon the subject of the con- 

 nection of this exhibition with this new educational 

 departure. 



But perhaps my chief business to-day as President 

 of the Board of Education is to speak as to the man- 

 ner in which this movement is regarded by that de- 

 partment. I need hardly tell you that it has our 

 very warmest sympathy. It is frequently said, and 

 I am afraid with a certain amount of truth, that 

 education is at present not so fully appreciated in the 

 rural districts as I am happy to say it has come to be 

 in the great towns and urban districts. If there is 

 any truth in this statement, the cause is, that we have 

 not succeeded in bringing education in the rural dis- 

 tricts into the same relation with rural life and occu- 

 pations as it has been brought in the case of the 

 towns and the urban districts. If the agricultural 

 labourer does value education for his children at all, 

 I am afraid it is only too often with the object of 

 enabling him to escape from the country and from 

 the drudgery of his own existence into the more 

 excited atmosphere of the towns; and if that feeling 

 has had any such effect upon the agricultural labourer, 

 I do not think that we can wonder very much if some 

 of the country gentlemen and many of the class of 

 farmers have not hitherto viewed education, and edu- 

 cational progress, with any very great enthusiasm. 

 We at the Board of Education have long felt con- 

 scious of the difficulty, which we have too often en- 



