397 
THE FARMERS' SONS’ EDUCATION. 
that he did say something; of importance which bore directly 
upon both of the points in question. 
There cannot be more valuable and instructive recoids than 
these horse-causes well reported. We have offered our metropo¬ 
litan friends to attend, and report them as well as we can, at 
least to report them honestly. We have entreated them to give 
us information of the time when any causes in which they are 
subpoenaed as witnesses are expected to come on. They have 
not vouchsafed to do so; and they must not be surprised or of¬ 
fended at the strange newspaper stories which we may oc¬ 
casionally, and most unwillingly, be compelled to copy. 
lExtratts. 
On Providing Schools for the Instruction of 
Farmers’ Sons in the Physical Sciences. 
By Mr. William Hawkins, Hit chin, Hertfordshire. 
An excellent paper, bearing this title, appeared in the last 
number of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. We subjoin 
some copious extracts from it, for the author shall speak for 
himself, and we will not weaken the effect of his argument. 
But, mutatis mutandis, how much of his reasoning applies as 
forcibly to us as to the farmer’s son ! How painfully does every 
day’s experience force upon us the lamentable . idea, that our 
education is not that which is calculated to fit us for the dis¬ 
charge of our duty ! 
The object of Mr. Hawkins is as noble a one as has lately 
been brought under the consideration of the public; and although 
one of the “ sciences” which he would teach the farmer’s son 
is the “ diseases of cattle,” we do not imagine that this ought 
to excite any jealousy in the veterinary surgeon, or would in the 
slightest degree be injurious to his interests. Our enemies are 
ignorance, prejudice, and jealousy. The men by whom we are 
looked on with an evil eye are those who cannot think, and will 
not learn—the herdsman, the shepherd, the cow-leech, and the 
farrier of the lowest grade. If the farmer employs us not 
beyond the treatment of the horse, it is because, ignorant him¬ 
self of the maladies of his cattle—their nature, their causes,—or 
thinking that they are matters of the simplest kind, or which are 
doomed”by a sort of fatality to run their destined course—he has 
no idea of the assistance'which we could render him. Give 
him some notion of the structure of his quadruped dependants; 
VOL. VII. 3 F 
