Morning journal and courier., 1883-01-29
Poultry Progress. From tha St Japoas, aayatta

Nobody will be surprised to learn that ssthe poultry show at the Crystal Palace is the most extensive exhibition of the kind ever l brought forward ;'' and yet, making all allow
 ance for twelvemonth's progress, 5, 39O pens of birds IS an astonishing figure. With a
 modest calculation that only twenty per cent. of them are cocks, and that they have suffi- cient self denial to crow only six times in the hour, what terrors do we find under one roof
 alone This, it IS true, is only one aspect of
 the question, though by no means an unin-
 portant one; for, to an outsider, the rooster's voice Is the most conspicuous detail of fowl house. With the real essence of a pouI- try show, however, outsiders have nothing to
 do. Life is too short for mere spectators,
 men of the world to master the intricacies of artificial poultry breeding. Even the
 judges cannot remain infallible without fresh
 instructions, for the standard of perfection
 is so constantly changing that old breeders
 hardly recognize their favorite birds in the
 extraordinary smonstrosities that carry of the cups and prizes nowadays. Competition is
 the rage of the age and we live in an atmos-
 phere of "best on record" achievements
 Each new steamer across the Atlantic, each
 fresh pedestrian at Lillie Bridge, boasts of
 beating all previous performances by frac-
 tlons of hours or minutes; and so each poul-
 try-breeder dreams and labors only to add
 one more feather to the hind toe of fowl or
 one more wrinkle to 8 carrier pigeons beak
 And so at last the typical Cochin China fowl
 has become just such gruesome spectre in
 feathers as the imagination of an artist of
 Japan might have conceived for one of his
 fantastic gods to ride upon. All the malice
 Of civilization has been expended upon fowls
 Legs so heavily feathered that the wretohed
 birds only walk by series of fortunate acci-
 dents; heads decorated with tufts so enor-
 moos that the creature's circle of vision is
 limited to the ground it stands upon; combs
 of so wonderful kind that each cock ap-
 pears to carry beefsteak and two mutton chops above his startled visage these are the results of centuries of scientific breeding. Nor need the poultry complain for the evils of high-pressure competition are equal ly obvious among bipeds of the "featherless class"
 In our modern school have we not results as lamentable in the large-headed, weak eyed boys of fourth, fifth, or sixth standards or forms, trained like Cochin China eockereIs or stunted standard roses into one stiff type of conventional excellence? Turn one of these prize fowls into the fields and it will ] starve, or, after straddling gaIlop of twenty | yards, fall helpless victim to the first fox ! that pursues it; and in the same way you | may send boy who has received 8 first ] prize education" into the world, and he gen. eraliy finds absolutely nothing that he can | do, except to form one more of that too num- erous class whose woes find periodical ex- | pression in the public press beneath large | type headings of '' Over Supply of Clerk" or Formation of a Regiment of Gentle l men" For years men of all types of thought l have combined to denounce 'sthe vile art of | teaching words" as Beaeonsfield stigmatized | the learning of his youth. But the world goes on, and we still offer the same old pri- zes for the same old requirements; and just ! IS the wheels of our educational system ! ,reak more rustily and grind the hopes out of more young lives year after year, so poul- ha \ Cochin yearly finds 8 greater difficulty in walking and the Houdan becomes more hid ! ,ous. That the results of this competition Ire evil cannot be denied, for everything is judged by a fictitious standard of s'results /" Parents judge the nursery teaching by the ,laee small boy takes on entering his first chool; his schoolmaster is judged by stre- ults" when his pupil leaves him for the pub ic school; public schools base their reputa- ion upon the " results" of teaching-uni: 5 ersity scholarships; the university judges y degrees conferred for excellence; and 1 CTS life provided with fragments of dead lan-
 uages, whereby to make 8 living. s'The nd of learning is wisdom," and the bourne ' f domestic fowls existence should be the itchen but neither Latin verses nor feath- I rs on the legs conduce in any especial de- rec to these desirable consummations ?
 But in neither case is the remedy hopeless; or the cause of the disease is simple enough 'ducation and poultry breeding alike have aeir origin in ths employment of the leisure the rich it 5'as well enough. in the days I hen book learlfag was unnecessary and lxury, that the wealthy should set up for lemselves toys and trifes of classic delicacy , the object of their labors; but now that 1ucation is g necessity for all alike, let not le golden years of youth be squandered in l { le requirement of what must be in the na- Ire of things useless appendage of pedan- e lore-a six-inch feather on the toe of = arning. Walking boots are not made of tin, nor the ploughman's spade of gold leaf. N ut our modern working day education is ill made up too much of odds and ends of d-world culture, while all, or very nearly ], the prizes are given to mere toys-toy E wls, toy pigeons, and toy terriers.