their capacities. Second, that intimacy with and affection
for nature, to which Wordsworth has given the highest expression, must
in some way be engendered in the rural mind. In this way alone will the
countryman come to realize the beauty of the life around him, as through
the teaching of science he will learn to realise its truth.

Upon this reformed education, as a basis, the rural economy must be
built. It must, if my view be accepted, ensure, first and foremost, the
combination of farmers for business purposes in such a manner as will
enable them to control their own marketing and make use of the many
advantages which a command of capital gives. In all European
countries--with the exception of the British Isles--statesmen have
recognised the national necessity for the good business organisation of
the farmer. In some cases, for example France, even Government officials
expound the cooperative principle. In Denmark, the most predominantly
rural country in Europe, the education both in the common and in the
high school has long been so admirably related to the working lives of
the agricultural classes that the people adopt spontaneously the methods
of organisation which the commercial instinct they have acquired through
education tells them to be suitable to the conditions. The rural
reformer knows that this is the better way; but our problem is not
merely the education of a rising, but the development of a grown-up
generation. We cannot wait for the slow process of education to produce
its effect upon the mind of the rural youth, even if there were any way
of ensuring their proper training for a progressive rural life without
first giving to their parents such education as they can assimilate.
Direct action is called for; we have to work with adult farmers and
induce them to reorganise their business upon the lines which I have
attempted to define. Moreover, this is essential to the future success
of the work done in the schools, in order that the trained mind of youth
may not afterwards find itself baulked by the ignorant apathy or lazy
conservatism of its elders.

I hold, then, that the new economy will mean a more scientific mastery
of the technical side of farming, for farmers will make a much larger
use of the advice, instruction and help which the Nation and the States
offer them through the Department of Agriculture and the Colleges. It is
equally certain that there will arise a more human social life in the