SPRING MEETING. 13 



mucli neglected. To argue for the value of sucli a study was 

 useless; everybody recognised it. But lie did not think the 

 value of the study of local history was appreciated as it should 

 be. Yet what could be better calculated to produce a cultured 

 race than a knowledge of and interest in the places where they 

 lived? He believed that it should be taught in all schools, 

 whether higher grade or elementary, and that the result would 

 be of inestimable value. At present that was impossible as far 

 as Cornwall was concerned, for no one had collected the material. 

 Perhaps it would be better to teach what was written in such 

 books of history as they had than to teach nothing at all ; but to 

 do so was to run the risk of a great shock to any who in later 

 life found out how very unreliable these books were. What was 

 required, and what that institution ought to provide, was an 

 organised division of labour. Take, for example, a single 

 subject which must be cleared up and fully explained before the 

 history of Cornwall was possible to be undertaken — he meant 

 Domesday Book. He did not know if there was anyone there 

 who had formed an idea of the size of the Domesday acre in 

 Cornwall, who could tell them why Cornwall was in the 11th 

 century so lightly taxed compared with other counties, who 

 could explain why, in the time of Edward the Confessor, its 

 gelding hides were estimated at 155, while a few years after in 

 Domesday Book they were increased to 399. Was the light 

 taxation connected with the poverty of the land suggested by 

 the small population (the recorded population was 5,438 and 

 assuming each of these to represent five in family they had one 

 person for every 32 acres only), and by the fact that there were, 

 in the opinion of the Domesday jury, only half the plough 

 teams in the county, for which there was room. Or were there 

 in Cornwall an unusual number of estates unhidated by privilege ? 

 If so, what estates were they ? Or was the paucity of hides in 

 Cornwall merely the result of a confusion arising from the 

 attempt to thrust on the Celtic land a measure which would not 

 fit it ? Reference to some of the old charters showed that much 

 land in Cornwall was not measured by hides at all, and a very 

 little study of the Ordnance Map would show how difficult it 

 would be to divide the county by measures that suited well most 

 parts of England. If there were any in that room who could 



