Down here the Education Act of 1870 was not altogether a success. There had been a school in Lustleigh since 1825, maintained by a small endowment and the fees. Only the brightest children went there, and the others did not go to school at all. Had it gone on after 1870 as a higher-grade school, it might have done much service here; but the trustees shut it--by a breach of trust, so far as I can see. The bright children had to go to the board-school with the others who were not so bright; and their progress was retarded by these others, as the staff was never large enough to take them separately. As it is, I think more progress might be made, if the classes were only half the size, and the children were only half the time in school, some going in the morning and others in the afternoon. In most of the parishes round here there are cottages too far away for young children to attend school in all weathers. As a rule, the able-bodied men have always got young children--families are long, and spread over many years. There is thus a difficulty in getting suitable tenants for these cottages; and many of them have been allowed to go to ruin, after being unoccupied for some long time. Families move down into villages, which now have many of the defects of a town, without its merits; and real country life is dying out--an unforeseen result of Education Acts. Agriculture has suffered from a cause that seems equally remote--“farm-house lodgings.” People say that farms are let at so much per acre, but all farms have a house, and the house will often pay the rent; and, when the house does that, the farmer is less careful of his land. The profit is not only from the letting of the rooms, but from selling butter, eggs, fowls, etc., without the trouble and expense of going to market, and often (I am told) at more than market prices. People crowd down here in summer, and will put up with any kind of lodging, as they mean to be out-doors all day. I have heard of rooms with “Wash in the Blood of the Lamb” in illuminated letters, where there should be a wash-stand. But this craze for rustic lodgings is comparatively new. My grandfather writes to my father, 16 January 1862:--“Tremlett they say will leave Lustleigh at Ladyday, and Hurston of Way has taken Harton and will leave Way, even Crideford (who used to let one room) will leave on Ladyday for Torquay: so no lodgers will come to Lustleigh. Perhaps when the railway comes, there may be accommodation.”