802 TRANSACTIONS OP SUB-SECTION 1'. 



for research. 1 know wliat Ireland suffers from is the deluBion that the solution 

 of the rural problem is to be found in the magic words 'an economic holding.' 

 What we should try to develop is an economic system and the economic man to 

 work it. 



There is one more factor in rural reconstruction which, though I have kept 

 it to the last, is unquestionably the most important — that is, rural education. 

 Here, again, a vast subject must be despatched with the fewe.st number of words 

 which will suffice to indicate thos^e of its aspects which bear upon our problem. 



Up to a certain point the education of the rural school is, in its essence, iden- 

 tical with city education. The character of the child has to be built up and its 

 mind stored with a certain number of necessary facts which nature curiously 

 enables us to assimilate much more easily when they are of no use to us than 

 when we want to apply them to practical life. But the point of divergence be- 

 tween town and country education appears to me to be reached when the course 

 of study has regard to the mental outlook. 



There are two human attributes to which the city appeals irresistibly, quite 

 apart from the better opportunity it affords of material advancement — the gre- 

 garious instinct and the love of e."v.citement. Improved locomotion and means for 

 communicating thought irom eye to eye and from ear to ear, the organisation of 

 social functions in rural centres, and lectures illustrated by the moving life of the 

 cinematograph — to take the latest addition to the mechanical aids to exposition — • 

 will all help. But their influence may be centripetal with some, centrifugal with 

 others. No conceivable devices by which the country may gain some share of the 

 enjoyment of the town can destroy the lure of the city. The farmer's calling is 

 one of constant and unremitting toil. No process of evolution will evolve a cow 

 which will consent to do without milking on Sunday, A modest standard of 

 physical comfort, devoid of all expensive luxuries, must continue to be the lot of 

 the tillers of the soil. The one way to oilset the townward tendency is to revolu- 

 tionise the mental outlook of the nu-al population, to concentrate it upon the 

 open country. 



How this is to be done it is for those who lead thought in educational science 

 to say. All I can do is to define the need as I see it. We want two changes in 

 the rural mind. The physical environment of the farmer ia replete with interest to 

 the followers of almost every branch of natural science. That interest must be 

 communicated to the agricultural classes according to their capabilities. 'Nature 

 study,' I believe, is the latest term of the pedagogues for the revelation of the 

 simple natural processes ; but to make those processes interesting to the child 

 you must first make them interesting to the teacher. The second change in the 

 outlook relates to the spiritual rather than to the utilitarian side of education. 

 Somehow or other, that intimacy with and afl'ection for Nature to which Words- 

 worth has given the highest expression must be engendered in the mind of rural 

 youth. In this way only will the countryman come to realise the beauty of the 

 life about him, as through the teaching of science he will come to realise its 

 truth. 



The Birth, Death, and Reincarnation of the Agricultural Sub-Section. 



I have now described in broad outline the problem of rural life as it presents 

 itself to my uiiud. 1 have drawn attention to, and tried to account for, the 

 failure of public opinion to recognise the gravity of the conditions out of which 

 the problem arises. Coming to the immediate concern of our Sub-Section, I have 

 argued that it will require a co-relation of all the sciences embraced by the British 

 Association to give even the hope of a satisfactory solution. I cannot conclude 

 without pointing out the treatment our subject has received since the Association 

 gave to it a distinctive — if a subordiuate— position in its deliberations. 



At Cambridge, four years ago, Dr. Somerville, in his inaugural Address, 

 expressed the thanks of those present to the British Association ' for the encourage- 

 ment and stimulus which are associated with the formation of an agricultural 

 Sub-Section.' The gratitude in this case was for favours not to come. My dis- 



