72 THE RURAL PROBLEM 



promising ones who want to go on to the land. The course 

 at sueh a school should last two years and should include 

 drawing, mathematics, bookkeeping, and the chemistry of 

 farming, besides the practical work of ploughing, hedging, etc. 

 These small-holders' schools exist in Denmark and provide 

 full maintenance for the poorer children. They are sup- 

 ported by Government grants and local county council 

 scholarships, they charge fees to some of the students, and 

 they make a considerable profit per acre out of the farm land 

 attached to the school — in the case of the Karehave School 

 the profit is about £7 per acre. 



(3) The educational results that might be expected from 

 the visits of travelling instructors in each district have been 

 obtained in several counties, such as Lincolnshire, where 

 such officers already exist ; and young lads who otherwise 

 would remain in the lowest ranks of labour learn the more 

 difficult forms of work on the farm. But with the establish- 

 ment of small holdings the sphere of the county council 

 instructor will be enlarged and the work become immensely 

 more important. 



Two thousand acres has been suggested as the area 

 necessary to give groups of small holdings their best chance. 

 The holdings should be grouped round a farm belonging to 

 the local authority, which should be the centre of instruc- 

 tion, experiment and organisation. This is not the place to 

 describe in detail the work that would develop round such a 

 centre, but in all that follows on the subject of agricultural 

 development, the idea to be borne in mind is not that of 

 scattered individuals, each keeping a precarious foothold on 

 his own account, but rather that of a busy group of men and 

 women organising themselves, with the help and encourage- 

 ment of the State, into definite parts of one organic whole. 



