To live in the country and partake of the life of the country is in itself an education, partly because natural phenomena, experienced by the countryman at first hand, are educative, and partly because craftsmen abound everywhere practising their crafts in the open for all to see. These characteristics of the country provide two fundamentals of education : opportunity to study the relations of God with man, and the opportunity to learn through imitation (the only way that one human being learns, from another) the essential crafts of life.

Observation of nature is like looking at the illustrations of a history book. It offers visible examples of life and the way life is ordered. The pictures may be wrongly interpreted—as can be seen by the origin of the word paganism—but, given true philosophy, the countryside is a constant reminder of the ultimate things of life.

As regards the second educational advantage that the country possesses, almost every activity that a child watches—and is everywhere able to watch—explains itself. No one is likely to make a mistake about the purpose and method of milking a cow; the cutting, making and carrying of hay are their own text-book; the hedger, the thatcher, the ploughman, the blacksmith, the cobbler, each teaches a lesson to the passer-by, as do the manifold processes of cultivation in the fields.