1909.] The Education of the Farmer's Son. 655 



take a full share in the manual work of the farm, or will his 

 time mainly be employed in the directing of hired labour? 



If a boy is to become a skilled workman, he must begin 

 young, so that, apart altogether from the practicability of 

 sending a lad of this class to a secondary school, the de- 

 sirability of doing so is open to question. For, by spending 

 time at school when he should be on the farm, there is some 

 danger that his information may be increased at the expense 

 of his efficiency. On the other hand, if later in life the boy 

 is to direct labour, and if he will not be required to work 

 himself, except perhaps at busy seasons, there is less need 

 for manual, and greater need for mental training, and the 

 lad should go to a secondary school. 



Education after Attending a Secondary School. — The agri- 

 cultural education of lads who have been to a secondary 

 school may be obtained either at colleges or winter schools, 

 according to their capacity and their means, but before they 

 attempt to study the principles of agriculture they should 

 undergo an apprenticeship of from one to three years on the 

 holding of a practical farmer. 



There are two reasons for this recommendation. Even if 

 the farmer is not obliged to undertake manual labour himself, 

 he should, while young, make himself familiar with all the 

 common operations ; he must learn to drive horses, to handle 

 a plough, to sow corn, to build and thatch stacks, to attend 

 to live stock, and to adjust all ordinary farm implements. At 

 twenty he is too old to begin to learn, and he will seldom 

 be a satisfactory manager of farm labourers if he has not 

 made a beginning when he is sixteen or seventeen. The 

 second reason is that a lad who has been a year or two on a 

 farm learns much more while attending agricultural classes 

 than a boy who comes straight from school. The latter has 

 an advantage in certain subjects, but nearly all teachers are 

 agreed that although he has forgotten some of his school 

 work, and at first may be somewhat slow in assimilating 

 information, the boy from the farm derives much more benefit 

 from his studies than the boy who has just left school. 



So marked is the difference that one of the best known and 

 most successful of all agricultural colleges, the Guelph Col- 

 lege, Ontario, will not admit pupils unless they can produce 



