THE EDUCATION OF THK COTTAGE AND MARKET GARDENKH. 113 



THE EDUCATION OF THE COTTAGE AND MARKET 

 GARDENER. 



By T. S. Dymoxd. 



[Lecture given on September 11, 1906.] 



The greater portion of this paper is devoted to the education of the 

 small cultivator, whether he makes the cultivation of crops his means 

 of livelihood or only an adjunct to his regular employment — education, 

 in fact, as carried out in the elementary school aad after. On the 

 education of those whose means and position have given them the 

 advantage of a secondary schooling a few introductory paragraphs will 

 suffice. 



Rural Grammar Schools. 



It cannot be said that our rural grammar schools have done much 

 in the past to promote rural prosperity ; indeed, so Httle has the 

 curriculum been a preparation for rural life that they have rather 

 tended to educate their pupils out of rural industry than into it. In 

 the few cases where an " agricultural side " has been established, the 

 attempt to give technical instruction in agriculture and horticulture at 

 the same time as instruction in French and Latin has seldom been 

 successful. I believe there are not more than two such schools in the 

 country now\* 



What we need, if our rural grammar schools are to afford a prepara- 

 tion for country pursuits, is that in all such schools the sciences should 

 be taught in relation to rural surroundings. At present this is very 

 rarely the case. In chemistry you may hear a description of the 

 neutralising and oxidising action of lime in an obscure manufacturing 

 process — a knowledge of which is not likely to be useful to one boy in 

 a thousand — but no reference is made to the neutralising and oxidising 

 action of lime upon the soil, the knowledge of which might be useful 

 to every boy in the school ; in physics, transmission of heat by convection 

 and latent heat are very properly studied, but no one thinks of illus- 

 trating these principles by determining the temperature at the top and 

 bottom of a slope, or that of the soil under crop and fallow. It is just as 

 easy to teach the principles of science from examples which are familiar 

 in the rural surroundings of the school as from those which are not, 

 while by doing so these principles are brought home to every boy in the 

 school because the illustrations appeal to him ; and at the same time 

 those of the boys who are to follow rural pursuits are obtaining know- 

 ledge about rural things which will be invaluable in their after-lives. 



I do not think it will be found that, as a rule, practical gardening is 

 a subject suitable for secondary schools. What is needed is a thoroughly 



* The Dauntsey Agricultural School at West Lavington stands on a different 

 plane, all the boys receiving an agricultural and secondary education. 



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