the part of all other classes to improve it. But the want of education is not to be wholly attributed to national apathy and indifference. It is due to various causes special to rural life, but perhaps the most powerful of all is, the belief that existed largely at one time, and still lingers with some few farmers, that education disqualifies a labourer for manual work in the field. This belief had its origin in the little education possessed by the majority of farmers themselves in times past, though at the present time there is no class more quickly awakening from indifference to the benefits of knowledge than the farmers. Moreover, they are not as a class to be blamed wholly for past indifference, for there were many landowners who in their turn preferred men as tenants on their estates who were not possessed of those attainments which qualified them to appreciate education in their labourers. Not many years back it was a common thing to exhibit less care for the comfort of the labourer than for the comfort of cattle; better buildings, indeed, were provided for the cows than for the labourers. But this state of things is happily gone by.
I will not here dilate on the manner in which the children of the labourer should be taught at school, nor enter upon the arguments for and against compulsory education. I am content to express my conviction that primary education at school—consisting of reading, writing, and arithmetic—is essential as the basis of improved practical knowledge, even though it be called forth in the duties of the only class now omitted from the franchise; and that, as public attention has at last been aroused to the object, the good sense of the country will rightly determine how that primary education shall be attained. To confine our efforts, however, to elementary school learning would, I contend, fail in
