AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS AND ESTATE SCHOOLS. 289 



having a tendency to improve the minds of the readers, and to make 

 them more valuable workmen to their employers. I know, also, of some 

 farmers who supply their workmen with newspapers and periodicals, 

 as well as with books of a useful kind. In all these cases the men are 

 more intelligent and superior as workmen, besides more civil and oblig- 

 ing to those who have to deal with them, than men are generally found 

 where no such attention is paid to them, and where no such advantages 

 are bestowed on them. It is to be hoped, therefore, that such examples 

 as these will have the effect of stimulating other proprietors and farmers 

 to do likewise ; and that ere long, from the attention of landed pro- 

 prietors and farmers to the improvement of the workmen they employ, 

 we shall see farm-labourers as intelligent and skilful in their business as 

 workmen are in any other profession. No doubt the more intelligent 

 and skilful that workmen are in carrying out the details of their parti- 

 cular profession, the higher remuneration they require ; but, on the other 

 hand, it must be taken into account that the greater the skill and intelli- 

 gence which a workman can bring to bear upon his work, the more 

 profitable he is to his employer. This is a fact now recognised and acted 

 on by all men engaged in business ; for in few occupations, except iu 

 rural labour, do we find unskilled men employed. 



It may be useful to many of my readers if I detail the way in which we 

 manage our reading-room and library on this estate. A few years ago, the 

 proprietor, Major Stapylton, found that the chief portion of the labourers 

 and cottagers on his estates could not read nor write, and he at once de- 

 termined upon using some means for improving them. He thought that 

 if it were not possible to induce the elder people to improve themselves, 

 every means should be taken to give the young men and children a good 

 opportunity of learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. He therefore 

 established a reading-room and library. . The reading-room has been 

 constantly supplied with several daily and weekly newspapers, and also 

 with a few monthly magazines, such as ' Good Words,' ' Sunday Maga- 

 zine,' ' British Workman,' and the ' Journal of Agriculture.' The library 

 has now a good supply of standard works of different kinds, among 

 which may be found Wilson's ' British Farming,' Stephens's ' Book of the 

 Farm,' and Brown's ' Forester,' and a number of other useful works on 

 rural subjects, suitable to workmen employed in the general work of an 

 estate. There is also an evening-school in operation each winter, where 

 the young men are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic chiefly. The 

 result is, that while in 1861 I could only get one or two of the men 

 to sign their names in my pay-book, in 1868 nearly all of them can 

 do so, and they take a pleasure in trying to do it well when pay-night 

 comes. Much good can be done in this way. * Every village and every 



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