The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-11-12 00:00:00

THE AGRICULTURIST AND HIS
WORKMEN.

It is impossible to reed the addreems of the
different members of Parliament that have been
delivered during the pressot ream, without being
struck with the prominent plane occupied by educe.
boo, especially education of the labouring Weed
There is, no doubt, an appalling amount of igooranos
iu the land. With all the costly maohinory, both
public and private, the people are not domed, and
it is dangerous to leave than in their present sate,
bemuse an uneducated elms is always a dangerous
class —not became they are naturally worn than
others, hut became they are most easily led away by
those .ho are better educated, but more knavish
than themselves. The question therefore arias, how
Is this state of thloge to be mat? The employer
most be considered as well as the employed, de
parent as well as the child. Any rash and ill
prepared plan of sore *wry deletion, which did
not take all these into amount, *odd practically
overturn the whole system of wages and rental; in
fad, the entire agricultural tutored would be
seriously affected. As • rule the girls are better
educated than the boys; it is therefore with the
latter that we have chiefly to deal. The reason why
many boys are not educated is, that they are of use
at ni early an age, that the father cannot afford to
' keep them at school. But this is not the only
reason. Large numbers never enter • school, who
are camping themselves in idleness and mischief,
simply bemuse their parents are too indifferent
about the matter to make them keep to their school;
or if they take soy cones of it, it is only to ask the
schoolmaster to punish them, which is not likely to
Increase their love either for him or his teaching.
With these Government should did first, and insist
that boys, not at work, shoed be kept by their
parents at school. Out-door pariah relief should be
withheld, when this is neglected: if the poor law
allows • mother relief out of the home it is that she
may bring up her family better, and not have them
in the house. Above all, managers of schools should
make it • standing rule that the muter never
punishes children for staying away from lobed. It
is the pence's duty to me that they come ; the
master's to teach them when they are thiwn There
is no doubt that the bed taught children are those
brought up in the Union house' but they are not the
beet educated. AC 111 rule, especially if not taken
out at twelve years of age, they never take well to
manual labour. After years of quiet exercise of their
minds, their muscular powers are not equal to hard work
and unless they meet with a patient and odeiderat•
employer, too &tea they are returned into steak
with the °tweeter "I ain't 'make nothing of him."
So is any sehease of general education we mast
guard against educating the Wad at.the expense of
the body.
But during the dich few years of a boy'a labour on
the farm, he is not at work always, but only at par.
tauter miasma of the year; nor is he at work- all
through the day. After the horses are home from
Oast., most farmers would be glad to get the boys
off the premises. Now by a little legal regulation of
these matters, we believe that these boys might be
educated without any loss eider to parents or
farmer. If there we in every perish • school for
such Id* open for two bow a day, at a time that
wield mit them' it would not interfere with their
productive work, but it weld keen them from a
great deal of mischief, and educate their minds.
without enfeebling their bodies. But then another
difficulty arises; who is to have the managemeet of
these school.? and how are boys to be made to
attend them? In many of our small wide. the
sobool is under the charge of a female leader, who
would not be able to manage such boys. • nom-
biaatioo of parishes would involve too great •
divan*, for the pupils to walk after a day's work.
Perhaps the additional help fres Government would
ea improve the perish mind funds as to enable the
managers te employ a reader. At any rate, if the
dors, are to have the mammement, they mud bring
their Wools up to the required standard, and they
mast admit the laymen, not muddily, but redly,
Into the manegement of the school. We believe
that if this were more generally dew, there would
always be funds forthoonsint present the
farmer Is expected to ed do the ' for the school
bedding. and to sebeeribe to de yearly uutiniallu",
but as to the management of the school, or the alio-
tion of She umeter, or the kind of teaching, is that
be is not to Interfere; nor can be have the use of
the sided room after be has helped to build it, adess
purpose
for a quite ia sooordasies with the parsoe's
views; doss not think it to ratan
the eoca I by odealting him se 00011-
dans 'I Wage will met Ante Ite altered in may
firmament ealwaiii.

Bei limo swe the boy. to be made to attend
malady IS must Sot be the roaster's w irk, MW.
have already seen. The permits is many instances
Ire utterly iediffereat, or will themselves keep them
all home on the slightest pretext. Of comes, in us.
Mem" moss *e magistrates will have to interfere;
but in most mom this will be , if the
employer is strictly forbidden to give work to any
boy who does not produce hie school book, showing
that he has attended the requisite number of hours
during the previous week. By this means boys of
superior intellect and more persevering isdnetry will
have the opportunity of raising theatiolves into •
higherolses of society, and these who *met do that, will
"dill eery' with them through life selliaiest education
to guard them against tboe" ioniptations, whisk are
ever found irresistible by the uneducated. noes
few yews of life of whit* we have been spiking,
are most Important ; during them, multitudes of boys
entirely lose what they have learnt before they weal
to work, and it was but little; whilst a few hours •
day taken frost bodily labour for three or four years
would fix these wirlylemose ma their mind, so firotli,,
that all their subssquest life would not be able to
remove diem _ .

11; Was way likewiee the farmer and the parent
Would be considered. Taken at moo and entirely out
of the labour motet, these boys by their absence
would vastly Worsen the price of labour, sad there-
fore enhance the pries of the produce of agrioaltural
labour. Thete could not live without the
children's earning., VOW
Stheir own were greatly
increased, and o these MOTO highly paid men a
greater number must be employed, so that there is
no calculating the difficulty that would arise from •
Katy step in ibis direction.
The employers of labour meek be prepared, and
many ef them are prepared, to make some moribise
In this respect, aa they can foresee the advantage that
they or their children will rasp from • superior dam
of =beaten. As egriculture =women more scientific,
It will require more intelligent workmen; as
' maohirmary becomes more generally applicable to all
purposes, fewer workmen will be required, but then
they must he of the right sort. There will be no room
for the clumsy drunken sot, whose highest motive
to work is the prospect of soore to drink.
There is soother question closely connected with
this, end that is the 'dwellings. When moo
a man has learnt why he is emit into this world. that
one kind of labor= is jest as hossourabie as another,
that he has a mail to be saved as well es the greatest
man in the land, from that moment he cannot, and
be will not, live like a pig. The records of the
Loudon City Mission, and of the Bible Women all
Kew this. The moment one of the poor neglected
outcasts, among whom they labour, comes to valise
himself as an immortal being, at once the wretched
miller, or dilapidated garret, aseumie anew form.
Cleanliness comes first, comfort follows, and the long
dormant, but natural, taste obese itself in simple
but suggestive ornament; the coos =mitered window
is not only glued, but made cheerful by a dower or
two, here and there a picture adorns the wills;
simple things in tbe.sslvee, but not of email ism-
porton.% as showing that there is a mind at work,
where ones unrestrained Koko° ruled soprano,
and so if education is to be general, landlords must
set to work to build suitable dwellings, otherwise
they will see all their best men migrating to other
fields of labour, where they can be housed like men
and not like pigs.
We believe that this movement will place the
fanner in a much better position than he has here-
tofore occupied. Although as a dam they have for
year. been well educated sod thoroughly into/honk
yet it has been the fashion to speak of them as if
they were identical with the men, who, silty year.
ago, could not write their OWD name. If they will
now take up the position they have • right to
in their several pariahs', and take an active interest
In whatever scheme of general education is deviled,
It will be seen that it haa not been for want of in-
tollipooe, but for want of fair play, that hitherto
they have appeared indifferent to the intellecitual
welfare of the labourers.