314 
Farming of Hampshire. 
day school, when two or three children can, without any payment 
for apprenticeship, at once double the weekly income of the 
house ; when these immediate pecuniary advantages are to be 
had Avithout any reading, writing, or arithmetic ; and when, as 
far as falls within the observation of a villager, there are but 
few instances of social advancement consequent on education. 
The necessities of the employer and employed alike requiie, 
that the years spent by the children of the agricultural labourer 
at the day school should be few, and attendance during those few 
years intermittent. 
But it would be a mistake to suppose the farmer to be opposed 
to education generally, or when confined to instruction in reli- 
gious knowledge, and in elementary reading, writing, and arith- 
metic. He would indignantly repudiate the notion that the 
uneducated labourer is preferable to the educated. He values 
intelligence, good order, and a willingness to listen to reason. 
He finds a great improvement in these respects : his machinery 
is now peaceably worked, there are no Jack Straw riots. He 
believes schooling to have something to do with this change for 
the better. He foresees that scientific methods will be more 
and more pursued in agriculture, and that the mental faculties of 
the labourer will be more and more called into exercise. 
I have found among farmers a strong feeling for Sunday 
schools and winter night schools, the hours for these not inter- 
fering with agricultural labour. The Sunday school — an old 
institution — may be supposed to have lived down any original 
adverse feeling ; but the favour shown to night schools, so recently 
after their establishment, is a striking evidence of the belief, 
entertained by a very practical set of men, that they are the right 
thing for an agricultural district. These schools are also most 
popular among the poor. The eagerness shown to attend them, 
and the diligence awakened during attendance, are a refutation 
of the assertion that the poor do not value education. This 
complaint of indifference comes from those who expect the poor 
to keep their children at a day school at a loss of one-third or 
one-half of their income. Who among their superiors would 
submit to such a sacrifice ? These have an income in relation 
to which their children's earnings would be inconsiderable, and 
the prospects of their children's advancement in life are con- 
tingent upon a high education. Neither condition attaches to 
the lot of the peasant. 
Night schools, indeed, seem to have arisen naturally out of the 
necessities of the case, as the best means of supplementing the 
inevitable deficiency consequent either on the early age at which 
the day school is left for labour, or on an irregular attendance, or 
on no attendance there. They may be taken to be one mode, of 
