fore him in its individual bearing. You
can rarely interest a single person in the improvement of himself,
but you can interest a number in the progress of that number as a
body. The vacancy of mind, the absence of any ennobling aspiration,
so noticeable in the agricultural labourer, is a painful fact. Does
it not, in great measure, arise from this very desultory life--from
this procrastinating dislike to active exertion? Supply a motive--a
general public motive--and the labourer will wake up. At the present
moment, what interest has an ordinary agricultural labourer in the
affairs of his own village? Practically none whatever. He may,
perhaps, pay rates; but these are administered at a distance, and he
knows nothing of the system by which they are dispensed. If his
next-door neighbour's cottage is tumbling down, the thatch in holes,
the doors off their hinges, it matters nothing to him. Certainly, he
cannot himself pay for its renovation, and there is no fund to which
he can subscribe so much as a penny with that object in view. A
number of cottages may be without a supply of water. Well, he cannot
help it; probably he never gives a thought to it. There is no
governing body in the place responsible for such things--no body in
the election of which he has any hand. He puts his hands in his
pockets and slouches about, smoking a short pipe, and drinks a quart
at the nearest ale-house. He is totally indifferent. To go still
further, there can be no doubt that the absence of any such ruling
body, even if ruling only on sufferance, has a deteriorating effect
upon the minds of the best-informed and broadest-minded
agriculturist. He sees a nuisance or a grievance, possibly something
that may approach the nature of a calamity. 'Ah, well,' he sighs, 'I
can't help it; I've no power to interfere.' He walks round his farm,
examines his sheep, pats his horses, and rides to market, and
naturally forgets all about it. Were there any ready and available
means by which the nuisance could be removed, or the calamity in
some measure averted, the very same man would at once put it in
motion, and never cease till the desired result was attained; but
the total absence of any authority, any common centre, tends to
foster what appears an utter indifference. How can it be otherwise?
The absence of such a body tends, therefore, in two ways to the
injury of the labourer: first, because he has no means of helping
himself; and, secondly, because th