Page:The agricultural labourer (Denton).djvu/26

 a farm labourer in the management of the engine, if he is previously assured of his intelligence. This circumstance, while it shows how an individual difficulty may be overcome, must go some way to prove that that technical education is to be attained in the lowest grade of agriculturists, as in the more refined artisan class. It would be tedious to pass through all the branches of a farmer's business, to show how technical knowledge in the labourer would apply. There is hardly an operation in tillage that would not be done better, if the operator had early understood it. Take the simple operations of ploughing, drilling, and sowing; is not a good workman worth 1s. or 2s. more per week than a bad one? The same observation applies to hedging, ditching, draining, and thatching, in which there is no comparison between an expert man and an unpractised one. I have myself sent miles for a good thatcher, and for a hedger who has understood his work.

How, then, are these practices to be taught in youth? I will do my best to explain.

The only reasonable ground for keeping the children of an agricultural labourer from school, is the circumstance that, having hungry stomachs to fill, and active bodies to clothe, they must earn something to pay for the food they eat and the clothes they wear; and so weighty is this excuse with some men of high position and character, that they are led to doubt the policy of compelling attendance, even for the limited number of hours yearly which it is proposed the children should be at school. Still, so essential is primary knowledge, that we may with certainty assume that this objection, weighty though it be, will give way to general opinion. And what I would suggest would be, that those children who attend school for the limited time determined upon,