ABSTRACT
The hard work led to stiffness and blistered hands and Leonard Elmhirst used to retire exhausted up the ladder that led from the garage to the loft where he slept. Without having to be self-sufficient—Leonard was firmly against that—the community was seen as the agent of reintegration, the means by which the people who compose it could take collective responsibility for bringing together many different aspects of their lives. So with terms of reference which would flummox any Education Authority, the poet and the agriculturist sat down together to draw up a scheme for the new school. Once education and the arts were established Rabindranath Tagore came back to his old question and decided to try to foster initiative in the neighbouring villages. Tagore jokingly volunteered to be his first Minister of Education. Tagore trusted Sam and American colleges of agriculture.
