Page:The education of the farmer.djvu/14

 at the same time, discriminating habit of mind—a habit disposing him to take advantage of all useful inventions, and to reject fanciful schemes; and therefore he should desire for his son, 1st., Readiness to acquire knowledge; 2ndly, Power to use and apply knowledge when acquired.

These are qualities confined to no particular calling, and requiring no special model-schools to teach them.

Still, granting that the sciences above enumerated are either unattainable, or not required, by the ordinary farmer, it may yet be asked, "Is there not something so peculiar in the business of farming as to require special teaching?" The country and the town, land and trade, present ideas so opposite, that it may well be supposed that the education which fits for the one is not a good preparation for the other. Let us see. English society throws itself broadly into three classes—the labourers; the employers of labour for profit; and the educated classes, who live by the labour of their own brains, or by incomes derived from their predecessors. The middle class, living on profits, includes the tradesman who supplies the bodily wants of his customer by retail; the manufacturer, who converts the raw material into a state fit for use; and the agriculturist, who supplies raw materials for food and clothing. In addition to these, there are of course many other branches of mercantile business, furnishing employment to a large class of agents and clerks.

The occupation of the farmer, for which he is to be fitted by his education, has much in common with that of the tradesman and the manufacturer. His time will be spent in supplying the material wants of his fellow-creatures. He will look for the maintenance of his own family to the profits derived from the judicious expenditure of capital in the payment of wages, in the purchase of stock at the lowest price, to be sold again at the dearest. He will be engaged in the constant struggle with the powers of nature, and his success will in great measure depend on the employment of processes skilfully adapted to economise time, money, and labour.

In all this there is no clear distinction to be drawn between the employments of the farmer and those of other men of business in the middle ranks; whereas the whole of the middle class is separated on the one hand from the labourers who work for wages, as other men's servants, with a view to their employer's profit or enjoyment; and on the other from what are called the