82 



confined their teaching to the walls of the class rooms of the institu- 

 tions themselves, and have extended their aid to men and women 

 unable to leave their homes and go to school. 



An interesting and important feature of the traveling school of 

 instruction is indicated in the courses prescribed Ijy the county coun- 

 cils under the designation " manual processes." These are taught 

 in courses adapted to each subject and constitute an important branch 

 of education. They comprise bee keeping, farriery, veterinary 

 science, dairying, fruit cultm-e, market gardening, cider and vinegar 

 making, sheep shearing, plowing, stacking, ditching, thatching, care 

 of live stock, pruning, milking, etc. The usefulness of knowledge 

 and skill in the performance of all of these processes is acknowledged, 

 but, as has been stated, it is only recently that the higher agricultural 

 institutions of learning have come to realize that part of their duty 

 is to see that information respecting these and kindred subjects is 

 made accessible to the mass of country people. 



The effect of the new departure in giving instruction in agricul- 

 ture in Great Britain is strikingly exhibited l)y comparing a state- 

 niMit made in the report of the parliamentary connnission appointed 

 in 1887 to investigate the condition of agricultural education in Great 

 Britain with a corresponding statement by the board of agriculture 

 made in 1895. The commission called attention to the fact that a 

 Scotch Avitness stated that certain associations of farmers desiring to 

 improve their systems of dairying endeavored to ol)tain a skilled 

 teacher in the art of butter making, and " that they had to send to 

 Denmark and engage a Dane to come to the district and teach them 

 to make butter." It was also stated that scarcely two years prior to 

 1887 " the managers of the Cheshire Dairy School could find no effi- 

 cient teacher of butter making in Great Britain, and had to engage 

 the services of a skilled dairy maid, who had been instructed at the 

 Merster Dairy School near Cork." Contrast this with the report 

 jnade by the secretary of the board of agriculture of Great Britain 

 seven years later— in 1895. The secretary states that '' dairying is 

 now taught in some form or other under the county councils of all of 

 the counties of England and Wales, excepting London and Middle- 

 sex. Similar instruction is now given in more than half of the ad- 

 ministrative counties of Scotland." 



The change in this brief period in this one industi-y has been 

 wrouoht through the new methods of education which were begun 

 in 1888, which consist in conveying valuable, practical instruction 

 in agriculture, by means of skilled teachers, to people at work upon 

 the land without requiring them to leave their homes or neglect 

 their daily duties in order to receive the information Avhich is offered. 



