TECHNICAL TEACHING FOR THE RURAL LABOURER.* Ida. BAILEY DENTON has
republished in a permanent form a remarkable and very suggestive address which he recently
Oa Technical Teaching in the Puhlic Elementary Schools of Rural Districts, with a View to the Advancement of Agriculture and the Improved Condition of the Farm Labourer. By J. Bailey Dentan. London : E. and F. Spon, Charing Cross.
delivered to the Farmers' Club at Upton-on-Severn, and which has attracted considerable attention among the agriculturists and country gentlemen of Worcestershire. His object is to urge upon the Government and on school managers the importance of such teaching and training in rural schools as will have a distinct bearing on the life and work of the agricultural labourer, and enable him to understand more fully the nature of the pheno- mena by which he is surrounded, and of the instruments and forces by the right use of which he is to get his living, and play a useful part in the rural life of the nation. Mr. Denton con- tends that wages are higher in towns than in the country because more skill and knowledge are needed in trades and manufactures than in agriculture ; that the country is thoroughly awakened to the need of a further increase in this skill and knowledge, by means of better technical instruction for artisans ; but that there is no less need for the sort of technical instruction which dis- tinguishes a skilled from an unskilled ploughman or farm-servant. The increase of wages in the agricultural districts, which is largely due to the Labourers' Unions and to Mr. Joseph Arch—an in- crease which Mr. Denton computes at 2s. per week—has, he says, not been attended with any corresponding increase in the value of the work done. Yet he believes that such an improve- ment is both desirable and attainable :—" I have heard it declared that any men with arms and legs are fit to do farm .work, while I, who have every reason, as an engineer, to value physical strength in manual labour at the proper price, boldly assert, as the result of long experience and observation, that the exercise of the brain in directing the hand has in it a very appreciable money value, even in the very commonest work of the farm."
To all demands of this kind, that the education given in schools should be adapted to qualify the scholar for particular pursuits in life, there is the obvious and prima fade reply that it is not the business of a school to concern itself with the special calling in which a child is likely to be employed, but to give him such general power, capacity, and mental training as will adapt itself equally to all conceivable callings. Mr. Denton anticipates this objection, and recognises its force, but seeks to reduce it to its true proportions. He admits that reading, writing, arithmetic, and even the elements of grammar and geo- graphy, properly form the staple of elementary education, and that the Government is right in insisting on a uniform standard of attainment in these indispensable subjects. But he argues that a system of national education ought to be elastic enough to recognise the need for schools of somewhat different types. "The rural population," he urges, "represents 32-2 per cent, of the whole population, while the number of schools estab- lished in purely agricultural districts compared with those existing in towns, is in a very much larger proportion, and they are so located as to partake of a distinct, and separate character." He adds that "agriculture is an occupation towards which every per- son—the prince, the tradesman, the labourer himself—may turn at some period of his life, with advantage to himself and to his country, and that the amount of this advantage is in proportion to the extent of practical knowledge which regulates the outlay of capital." The industries special to localities may properly be encouraged in the schools of such localities, so long as they do not interfere with general education in the rudiments set forth in the official Code. It is not unreasonable to expect that the school which is to train the agricultural labourer should seek to develop the power and intelligence of the children in some connection with the actual duties they will have to do, and the lives they will have to lead. There are in the phenomena of the world which lies all round the peasant, in the conditions of his social life, and in the laws which determine his industrial success, materials for intellectual discipline not less valuable than those to be found in books. And if once we were to recognise the educational importance of these things, we should not only in- crease the market value of the labourer's services to an extent which would enrich the whole country, and justify a still further increase in agricultural wages ; but we should be fulfilling in the most effectual way the true ideal of a school, as a place for en- couraging the formation of character and the growth of mental power. The practical suggestions which Mr. Denton makes with this view are moderately and judiciously set forth. In regard to the reading-books in use in schools, he complains, not without justice, of the curious medley of mythical, fabulous, geological, poetical, and moral lessons which they contain, and suggests that reading-books, especially those likely to be used in country schools, should be provided with at least a few lessons on, e.g.,
the elements, the seasons, and the science of the weather, the vegetation of the farm, including cereal and root crops, pulse, grasses, seeds, and fruits, as well as the trees, vegetables, and weeds which grow on a farm ; animals and poultry, vermin and insects, implements and tools, from a spade to a steam-engine ; and lastly, the customs and habits of rural life, in relation to crime, health, cleanliness, and decency. Without going so far as Mr. Denton In the desire to substitute these prosaic realities for the Arabian Nights and Gulliver's Travels, it may be admitted that he has made Out his case for the introduction of some practical teaching, adapted to awaken the observation of children, in regard to the familiar objects which are nearest to them, and to substitute ele- mentary but yet exact and scientific knowledge of such matters, for the vague and half-realised impressions which men and women who live and die in the midst of rural phenomena are too often content with.
With regard to the pictorial illustrations and diagrams which adorn the walls of school-rooms, Mr. Denton points out that they are confined to the exhibition of wild and foreign animals and maps of distant countries. "Here," he says, "are a whale and a sword-fish side by side, lying high and dry in the most unnatural fashion ; and here is a camelopard, with its neck so long that it can take a peep into the cottage bedroom window." Here is a picture of the rhinoceros, one of the illustrations of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and a letterpress description underneath :—" We find an animal spoken of in the Bible as the unicorn. The word ' unicorn ' means having one horn, and it is not known for certain what this animal is. You see the picture of the unicorn on the Queen's arms, but there is no such real animal as that which we know of." Would not this odd mixture of the real with the ideal, and of the Holy Bible with the royal coat-of-arms, mystify any one ?" It is, therefore, suggested that fac-simile drawings of the best living examples of cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry, to familiarise the eyes of children with the best shape and points of those animals on which we have to depend for food, would be of special value and in- terest to children who may hereafter be entrusted with the care of stock. Maps of the village and of the surrounding fields and streams should be drawn, and brought under the notice of children, as.well as maps of Australia and Africa. Explanations of the geology and physical geography of the district, of the climatic conditions which affect the growth of crops, of the use of the barometer and hygrometer, might usefully take their place with more general lessons on elementary physics. And in the department of social economics, there is ample room for special and appropriate lessons on public rights, on poaching, and on the little thefts and temptations which are apt to be so prevalent, and to do so much mischief in rural villages, simply because neither the understanding nor the conscience of the labourer has ever been aroused to the perception of them in their true light.
Nothing would be more fatal to the maintenance of a high ideal of education than the complete substitution of considerations of utility such as these, for the more uniform standard of general learning and intelligence at present accepted by the Education De- partment, and adopted by the elementary schools of both town and country alike. But the value of such considerations, as tend- ing to modify the application of that standard and to prevent the nation from acquiescing in a sterile uniformity, is unquestionable. The fairy-tale, the abstractions of grammar or arithmetic, the stories of strange animals and remote people which kindle the imagination and enlarge the vocabulary of a little child, all have their uses, and cannot be dispensed with as ingredients in the education even of the labourer's son. There are duties of being, as well as of doing ; and they who control national education will never, we trust, disregard this aspect of their work. Mean- while, we are in constant danger of accepting one theory of train- pest has its enemy, in the shape of a small ichneumon fly, which lug as if it were good for all children alike, and of forgetting seizes it, tucks it between its legs, and carries it off, to store up as food for its own larvm. To all these insect tormentors, as well as that systems are rectified, and kept healthy by being constantly
to noxious animals of every kind, the Amazonians apply the com- tested with the actual life and necessities of those for whom they
prehensive Portuguese word Bichn, which may be taken to mean are designed. Writers who call attention to the manner in which
a disagreeable creature of any species save the human one ; and educational systems fail in their application to particular classes of as has been seen, bichos have pretty much their own way at pre- the population do a public service, and Mr. Denton's pamphlet appears to us eminently to deserve the consideration of all authorities who exercise influence over the instruction of children departure. in rural districts, seeing that his suggestions are obviously the Unlike most of those who have result of considerable knowledge and experience, and also of a Messrs. Barrington and Lidstone true sympathy with the best hopes and aspirations of the humbler rural population.
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