182 REPORT— 1869. 



of thought is subject to great fluctuations within the same individual at various 

 periods, that these fluctuations are possibly daily and hourly, and that the difl'er- 

 ences between diflerent i)idividnals at the same time must be very considerable. 



Some Statistics of the National Educational League. By Jesse Collings. 



On-tTie.Teclniical Education of the Arjricxdtural Labourer. 

 E>/ J. Bailey Denton, C.E., F.G.S. 



The object of this paper was to show that, in addition to, and associated with, 

 elementary school teaching, technical education in the duties of agriciiltm-al laboiu" 

 should be encouraged as a means of making greater the value of manual work. 

 The result, the author contended, would be that the former would have better work 

 performed and be better able to pay higher wages, it being a mistake to believe that 

 physical health and strength were alone required to make a farm-labourer all that 

 he need be. The business of the farmer is gradually becoming more like that of 

 other industrial classes, in which technical knowledge and education are highly 

 esteemed. To regulate wages simply by the physical strength of a laboui-er, 

 without regard to skill or knowledge, cannot be maintained ; while to pay higher 

 wages without increasing the quantity or improving the quality of labour could 

 only be maintained by impoverishing "the farmer -without increasing the produce of 

 the country. It was advanced on the author's own experience, that the farm- 

 labourers of Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, and Cornwall, earning from 7s. to 12*-. a 

 week, performed work of much less value than those of Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and 

 Northumberland, where wages vary from I2s. to 18s. a week; and that a northern 

 fanner employing the latter secured a better return for his money than a soutliern 

 farmer employing the former. By the technical teaching of Dorsetshire labourers, 

 who had originally been emploj'ed by the author at from 7s. to 10s. a week, he had 

 been enabled to pay the same men from 18s. to 25s. a week with advantage. 



The mode of conveying technical information to the children of agi'icultural 

 labourers which the author recommended, was to teach them at school to read 

 books purposely written on the common objects of the farm, so as to secure an early 

 interest in the "duties upon which they would be aftei-wards engaged. These chil- 

 dren's books should deal with the animals, insects, crops, and weeds of the farm, 

 and should be written purposely in language and style as interesting as possible, in 

 order to interest the worst-taught branch of the community. Thus primary and 

 technical education would proceed together. The teachers at the school should be 

 specially qualifled to interest children in agiicultural objects. As soon as the 

 youths leave school and take part in farming duties, the author proposed that they 

 should be placed under leading labourers in different departments of the farm, and 

 not be allowed to rim from one duty to anothei', as is now the case ; and to encourage 

 the best workmen to con-^-ey information to youths, it was proposed that examina- 

 tions should take place periodically, and rewards or prizes be given to the teachers 

 as well as to the taught. 



Statistics of Invention illustrating the Policy of a Patent-Law. 

 By Henet Diecks, C.E., LL.D. 



The author stated that the time seemed to have arrived for a close inquiiy into 

 the policy of a patent law, as the subject was not only likely to come before Par- 

 liament next Session, but had also excited the attention of the working classes, 

 as one aflecting their interests. He considered it a first requisite in the treatment 

 of the subject to trace the inquiry both historically and statisticallj'. He urged 

 the disadvantage of excessive patent-fees, and showed that under the existing 

 liberal system a great impulse had been given to invention ; also that heavy patent- 

 fees, acting like a prohibitory duty on commerce, only served to limit the inventive 

 ingenuity of the country. He refeiTed to the thirteenth century for its gun- 

 powder, and to the fifteenth century for its printing-press, both of which, although 

 unpatented, left a long waste period without any considerable progress. The 



