be developed that higher
kind of attraction which is suggested by the very word _neighbourhood_.
Once get the farmers and their families all working together at
something that concerns them all, and we have the beginning of a more
stable and a more social community than is likely to exist amid the
constant change and bustle of the large towns, where indeed some
thinkers tell us that not only the family, but also the social life, is
badly breaking down. When people are really interested in each
other--and this interest comes of habitually working together--the
smallest personal traits or events affecting one are of interest to all.
The simplest piece of amateur acting or singing, done in the village
hall by one of the villagers, will arouse more criticism and more
enthusiasm among his friends and neighbours than can be excited by the
most consummate performance of a professional in a great city theatre,
where no one in the audience knows or cares for the performer.

But if this attraction--the attraction of common work and social
intercourse with a circle of friends--is to prevail in the long run over
the lure which the city offers to eye and ear and pocket, there must be
a change in rural education. At present country children are educated as
if for the purpose of driving them into the towns. To the pleasure which
the cultured city man feels in the country--because he has been taught
to feel it--the country child is insensible. The country offers
continual interest to the mind which has been trained to be thoughtful
and observant; the town offers continual distraction to the vacant eye
and brain. Yet, the education given to country children has been
invented for them in the town, and it not only bears no relation to the
life they are to lead, but actually attracts them towards a town career.
I am aware that I am here on ground where angels--even if specialised in
pedagogy--may well fear to tread. Upon the principles of a sound
agricultural education pedagogues are in a normally violent state of
disagreement with each other. But whatever compromise between general
education and technical instruction be adopted, the resulting reform
that is needed has two sides. We want two changes in the rural
mind--beginning with the rural teacher's mind. First, the interest which
the physical environment of the farmer provides to followers of almost
every branch of science must be communicated to the agricultural classes
according to