44 
a little mixed. One has got to fix distinetly in one’s mind whom, in 
the first place, one proposes to educate, and with what object. Some 
of my friends say gardeners; others * younger sons:’ and here I am 
reminded that the ladies must not be forgotten. Others, again, insist 
that intending colonists are the people to be taken in hand; some, on 
the other hand, suggest that the future peasant-proprietor is the person 
to be looked after with an eye to fruit eulture and the petite culture 
a general interest in the subject by peripatetic and popular a 
addressed to any local andience that may be inclined to attend the 
* Tt will be admitted that we have here a rather rico field for diini. 
sion, and, unless we settle what particular item we are th in hand, 
have found that we are apt to get rather at cross soba 
“I had got as far as du in the sorting out of my E Es. the 
August number of the Agricultural Gazette for New South Wales came 
into my hands.. Here I found a letter from Professor Huxle bri on à 
subject "Rd spalegous, which struck me as altogether admirable. It 
has made meg -like flight to the Antipodes, and back again. 
But it is ev ER Re e the worse for 2t t jeune, and I do not see 
why I should not vag it on its travels a 
In the course of a paper on technical ibd. before the Easing- 
wold Ate Chamber of Agriculture, on April 10 last, Mr. J. 
Harrison read the following letter from Professor Huxley, which appears 
also in the Agricultural Gazette of Englan 
“Tam afraid that my opinion upon the nico) of your inquiry is 
worth very little, my ignorance of practical agriculture being profound. 
ROOM there are some general principles which apply to all technical 
he 
with things. And this leads me to the general principle which I think 
applies to all technical teaching of school boys and school girls, and that 
is, that they should be led from the observation of the commonest facts 
to general scientific truths. If I were called upon to frame a course of 
elementary [pie hone preparatory to agriculture, I am not sure ure that I 
sho ttempt chemistry, or botany, or physiology as such. It is a 
method fraught pé danger of spending too much time and attention 
on abstraction and theories, on words and notions, instead of things. 
The history of a bean, of a cf wheat, of a turnip, of a sheep, of 
a pig, cr of a cow, properly treated, with the introduction of the 
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youthful mind, which loathes anything in the shape of long words and 
abstract notions, and small blame to it. 1 am afraid I shall not have 
pem you very ied but I believe that my suggestions, rough as they 
,are in the right t direction 
(Signed) a TH. HUuxLEY. 
