THE PLACE OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATION. 747 



Why is this ? It is, I believe, because our character is so firmly set 

 that nothing but severe compulsion will lead us to reform. It is be- 

 cause, whatever we may term ourselves politically, we are all by nature 

 ultraconservative, the rankest political radicals amongst us being the 

 strongest conservatives in their general conduct. It is due to our 

 intense belief in ourselves, the outcome of a long period of unexampled 

 prosperity. We are so intolerantly individual that we can not bring 

 ourselves to organize and cooperate, and this probably is the main 

 source from which our difficulties spring. Let me take an illustration 

 from agriculture, the most important of our industries, but one which, 

 as all know, is in a terribly depressed condition. We are told that 

 last year £36,000,000 worth of butter, cheese, eggs, hams, bacon, fowls, 

 ducks, etc., was imported into this country. Surely we ought to be 

 capable of producing most of these. 



As a matter of fact, we can not even make decent butter or cheese 

 yet. As Sir Henry Gilbert, the distinguished agricultural chemist, 

 remarked to me lately when we were sitting together at dinner, "In 

 our village we prefer to buy Brittany butter rather than the local 'best 

 fresh.'" If we could do such things it would not be necessary for the 

 Yorkshire College, our leading university college, to send out peripa- 

 tetic teachers to instruct dairymaids, or for county councils all over the 

 country to do similar work, nor would the Duke of Devonshire have 

 been called on, as he was a few weeks ago, to open a midland dairy 

 institute. In France they have long known not only how to make but- 

 ter properly, but what to do with it when they have made it, an impor- 

 tant art which we, from our inability to organize, have also yet to learn. 

 Let me recite my own experience in this matter. 



My father was largely concerned with the Normandy butter trade, 

 and on one occasion, about thirty years ago now, I visited France with 

 him 5 nothing I have since seen has ever impressed me more. The 

 morning after our arrival we were driven out to a market town in the 

 district, where we found all the country folk collected together, each 

 having brought whatever produce they could command to market; our 

 friend, and I should say that the active worker was a woman, went 

 rapidly round the market, tasting each parcel of butter and offering 

 what was thought to be its value, which, of course, was not the retail 

 price of best fresh. If the bid was accepted, note was taken by a clerk. 

 On our return, after dinner, in the evening, we found that the butter 

 had not only been collected and brought in, but we actually saw it being 

 carefully mixed and salted and colored to standard, so as to make it all 

 of one uniform quality, enough to fill a large number of casks being 

 thus dealt with. The next morning it was on the rail and on its way 

 to England. No such thing, I believe, has ever yet been done in this 

 country. 



As to eggs coming from abroad, a recent remark made by Sir J. B. 

 Lawes occurs to me: "That it is not that we do not produce them, but 

 we eat them nearly all ourselves." It may be well for us that we do, 



