The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-14 00:00:00

1,44)110 OR PET I-1 UPON THE EDU-
CATION' OF FARMERS,
At the annual dinner of the members of the Yetis-
shire aAgrecultural Society last week, after the n- ual loyal
toasts had been drunk,
Lord MORPETII, in proposing " Success to the So-
ciety," apt lie as follows :—My Lord and gentlemen, I
have been honoured with a command to propose a toe-t,
and I cannot but feel confident that it is a toast that will
prove acceptable in your sight. The toast is " Success to
the Yorkshire Agricultural Society."—(Loud cheers.) I
feel confident, gentlemen, that you will agree with me that
there could not have been an occasion upon which that
toast, at all times so dear to our hearts, could have been
more appropriate and more auspicious than the present.
• --(Cheers.) I think we may congratulate all concerned,
and also ene another, upon the event of this day's exhi-
bition.—(Cheers.) And these results must have fully
justified the selection of the place for holding it—of this
pleasant town of Beverley—(Cheers)—the capital of a
district second to few, if second to any, in the progress
and the perfectioning of agricultural improvement
(Loud cheers.) I ask you whether it was possible to
walk through the various departments of this day's ex-
hibition, and to feel that it was merely the exhibition of
a county of England at which we were assisting?—
(Cheers.) Everything seemed to me to be most aus-
picious and first-rate.—(Cheers.) The spot for holding
it was most commodious, the arrangements most satis-
factory. The sun itself was like that which ought
always to gild the labours of an agricultural August ;
and although we were told last night that the
rain of heaven made by far the best liquid
manure—(A laugh)—yet I think we all most gladly
dispensed with any manure of that kind this morn-
ing.—(Cheers.) But, gentlemen, highly honoured as I
feel myself by being selected as the organ for proposing
such a toast, and on such an occasion, and before such a
company, I rather fear that you may be inclined to
complain that it has been entrusted to me, when I inform
you that, before giving it, I must trespass upon you in a
twofold capacity, not very acceptable at any time, and
perhaps least so upon an opportunity of festive recrea-
tion—l allude to the twofold capacity of a bore and a
dun.—(Laughter and cheers.) And, gentlemen, the only
compensation I can make is to render my appearance
in those repulsive parts as brief as possible. With re-
ference, then, to the business which has brought this
goodly gathering here to-day, I have sometimes been
led to apprehend, amidst all the perfection to which
the breeding of stock and the exhibitions of cattle
have attained, from the faultless symmetry of the short-
horn to the unquestionable proportions of pigs and
sheep—amidst also the perfection which has been at-
tained in the department of agricultural implements,
of which your field to-day afforded such various and ad-
mirable specimens.—(Hear, hear.) I have sometimes
been led to apprehend whether we bestow on all occa-
sions a corresponding degree of culiure and attendee
up ie that ehich you will all admit to be the most im-
p 'leant breed, the noblest stock of all the human animals
—(Lotel cheers)—whether amidst the incri•asheg care
and skill which day by day, and year by year, are ex-
psnded upon the :arm, we do all we ought to do to the
farmer.—(Cheers.) Now, I am well aware that out of
the materials here before me I must at once meet with
the most satisfactory and triumphant refutation.—
(fear.) Many, very tinny farmers here present there
are who may safely be pointed out, and then I
naielA be a-ked, where would you look for more in-
tellieence, for more enterprise, for more worth ?
(Loud cheers.) In the face of such an exhibition
as we have seen to-day, where would you desire better
evidence of the skill and ability which are bestowed
upon the management and cultivation of the land ?
(Hear.) Where, and under what system, could you
wish to better the results that are set forth in the farm-
ing of the \Vitae and in the show fields of Beverley ?
(" ilear, hear," and cheers.) Now, I am the very last
person to c ,net rant or weaken such a satisfactory
testimony ; but wh it I wish for us all to strive
for is, to mike wh it is now partial become universal—
(Loud ch ass) —to meke the whole mass what the pat-
tern s implee are now inside of. It would he superilamis
at this tine oi• day, and upon this occasion, to desease
up-el the eilviovages of education. Eilucetioe is proba-
bly now mare abitedantly provided for than at any for-
mer period of , our history. Bete whilst the best
and mist apple-ire& methods of education are at the
eservice of the wealthier classes, and the mer-
cantile and comm Teed classes in our larger
towns,—and while, on the other hand, there is a multi-
tude of schools new open in our country parishes and
villages, whose the ehildren of the agricultural labourers,
stiel the working classes generally, may receive a daily
imprevine eyseen of education, it has seemed to rae, and
to others far more competent to form a sound opinion,
that there is a deficiency in the special and appropriate
modes of education best fitted for the sons of farmers.
--(Loud cheers.) Now, the importance of this point
turns very much upon the importance which ought to be
attached to the class of farmers, and to the rising
generation of English farmers.—(Hear, hear.) I, for
one, attach the very highest importance to that class.
I think they fill the most important place in the
social scele of the Britishcommenwealth. I think they have
high duties to discharge,—first, to themselves ; and per-
haes, this is the class of duties which we are always
most likely to remember. But, whatever Parliaments
or legislatois might do with respect to the laws which
hear upon their condition, it is plain that, in the pre-
sent state of competition which besets every department
ref human industry and effort, if the farmer will do his
duty tai himself—if he means to keep hi, place, or, as I
f-rleaCy live to improve upon it Loud cheers)— he
must be wide awake, he must be up to all the new me-
thods and discoveries which are every day so largely de-
veloping themselves, and adding to, in the science of
practical agriculture. Next, the farmer has duties to his
landlord—reciprocal duties, I admit—in which the land-
lord largely shares.—(Hear.) I am not now about to take
up the question of leases, or of any which way excite
a degree of opinion ; but I may observe in passing,
that, in toy b- lief, there is perhaps a greater degree
of what is called security of tenure in the ordinary run
el' the York shire landlords—this practically is the case—
than can be foetid in Scotland or elsewhere, where grant-
jee oT 'e use: terms the system of mere regelar hushieso
(eteeere) But if this be the case, and if the landlord is
e eeeered n ,t liehtly to disturb the tenure of the tenant
—as I hope he never lightly will—then, on the other
. hand, the tenant ewes it to the landlord not to let
himself be grievously outrun in the management of
his farm by his neighbours around him.—(L.•tul cheers.)
And the last duties to which I weti!d advert on the
pert of the farmer are those which he owes to the
aericalcurel labourers, to tile strength of whose arms
he so much relies. and on which he must so mainly
depend.—(Hear, hear.) Now it is upon the well-being
and the good conduct of the labouring classes of this
country that I think our hopes and destinies as a nation,
inure than on any other thing, mainly depend.—(Cheers.)
And tehen I red set how much the farm er has it in his
power, and within his reach, not only to consult the
material wants and the condition of those who work for
him, but also to influence their character, and to raise
their moral tone, I think it must be agreed that, in addi-
tion to the duties they owe to themselves and to their
landlords, they have most serious ditties to discharge to
the class of agricultural labourers.—(Load cheers) But
wherever there are high duties, there are also high re-
sponsibilities. And what I earnestly wish is, that the
corning generation of British farmers shall be trained
fully epee the level of its duties and responsibilities.—
(Cheers.) I beg pardon, gelid, men, for being so long in
laying my premise=s ; but I will fix my conclusions very
shortly. That which under the circumstances I should
.have originally thought most desirable would have been
to establish some distinct school in a ruraldistrict, in con-
nexioa with &wee model farm—(Cheers)—where acorn-
plete course of agricultural in-eruction might be pur
sued. But those with whom I have had an opportunity
of consulting came to the conviction that we should not
he able to raise sufficient fund=, nor insure sufficient at-
tendence, to sat on foot and maintain such an object.—
(Hear, hear.) However that may be, I believe many
amongst you may be acquainted with the substitute we
are endeavouring to introduce. There is already in ex-
istence a most excellent school at York, where a very
useful, sound, and complete education—when I say
complete. I admit that it will not be so without re-
ligion and morality being taught at the same time—
(Cheers)—where such an education is provided for the
young and middle classes, who have at present no such
means afforded. What we propose is to attach to this
school a large and commodious boarding-house, whi- re
children from any distance may be accommodated and
carefully attended to ; and on the education at present
given it is proposed to graft special instruction
in agricultural chemistry, in practical mechanism, or
any other branch which recent discoveries have brought
to bear upon this class of her Majesty's suhtects.—
(Hear, hear, and cheers.) But this undertaking, like
all others, stands in need of funds. I have been in-
formed that many of the wealthier end spirited farmer,
in this district have given as much as 1001. a year; and
it is proposed that the entire expense for lodging,
board, and education, shall be twenty-one guineas
a year, which I hope will not be considered out of the
reach of that class whose interest we are wishful
to consult.—(Cheers.) But, as I said, to accomplish this
we are in need of the sinews of war. 2,200/. has been
already subscribed ; and about 1,000/. more is required
in order to make the boarding-house and school con-
tiguous to the present establishment. And I ought to
mention that many of the chief proprietors and leading
noblemen and gentlemen of the county. including our
noble chairman, have come forward most munificently on
this occasion. Bat perhaps their munificence, in the fist
instance, may have head the effect of deterring smaller
subscriptions. If, however, the wealthy farmers would
spare us 1/. a-pieee, we should probably be enabled to
accomplish the whole extent of our wish. Our York
Yeoman School is well worthy of support, and with the
addition of what we propose would be a most valuable
acquisition to the British farmers: I again beg pardon fur
being indiscreet—tech DUS, I know —(No ) But I thought
that, having occasion to address know--(No,)
you, 'you would
.fhr-
give me, if, instead of indulging in vague generalities
in prase of agriculture, I shouind have
uylodubreatinten-
tion to a preject, which, to my mind,. w
useful, most desirable, and which is mosto extremely
wanted.—(Loud applause.) And I feel that it would be
as well Torus to make an intellectual co-operation second
to our mechanical contrivances, fur when we have made
man keep pace with the machine—Meer, and cheers)—
when we have made the human breed as thoroughly
furnished to the work as the best and most faultless
of our short-horns ; when we can not only point
to the rest of England, and, so far as the northern
counties of the island are concerned, show our agricul-
tural labourers superior to our brethren of the south,
not only in the amount of wages, but in the physical
energy which more than repays the outlay—(Cheers)—
when, besides these, we have made every class of the
farmers take the same high ground in all their resources
of intellectual affinity, it will then be with the best con-
science, and with the surest auguries of prosperity, that
we shall dri k the toast I have now to propose—" SAc-
cess to the Yorkshire Agricultural Society."—(Drunk
with three times three, and continued applause.)