262 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



fa vol' of a (•oini)lt'to national system of a^ricwltiirnl odnration to take 

 the ])lac'e of the widely varied types of colle<j^es and schools which now 

 jiil'ord instiMiction in a<jfri('Mltni'o. As an indication of the growth of 

 such sentiment, it is rejxjrted by the committee that a*!^riculture now 

 receives rccop;nition in all the nniversitios in that country, and that 

 the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, and other agricultural 

 institutions which have hitherto been operated under private control, 

 are considering the advisability of taking, or have already taken, 

 steps to become public institutions. 



According to a report issued in 1909 by the board of agriculture 

 and fisheries the total expenditures of this board for agricultiu'al 

 education in England in 1908 was $58,085, an increase of $2,0(58 over 

 the previous year. One of the secretaries of the board pointed out 

 that the facilities for instruction in agriculture in England were 

 far from adequate, and called attention to the remarkable fact that 

 this condition was more pronounced in the agricultural counties than 

 in the manufacturing counties. For example, in four counties in 

 wdiich more than 40 per cent of the whole male population over ten 

 years of age were engaged in agricultural pursuits less than 5 per cent 

 of the excise fund available for education was devoted to agricultural 

 education, while in contrast to these four other counties having less 

 than 7 per cent engaged in agriculture devoted 15 per cent of such 

 funds to agricultural education. 



From another source, the Report of the Board of Education for 

 1900-7, it is learned that considerable progress is being made in the 

 teaching of gardening, fruit culture, and dairy work in the public 

 elementary schools of England. It is stated that gardening is taught 

 in every English county except two, and the number of schools that 

 applied for grants in 1900-7 was over 900 as compared with 371 

 earning grants in 1903-1. The increase is almost entirely confined 

 to counties in which a horticultural lecturer has been appointed 

 whose duties are to organize and supervise school gardening and to 

 train teachers to teach it. Fruit culture is coming to be one of the 

 important features of school gardening, and bee keeping is sometimes 

 associated with it. Dairying has been reintroduced into the code 

 as a special subject for which grants may be given and is looked upon 

 as a subject especially valuable for girls, not only as an important 

 branch of domestic work, but also as a means of education and as a 

 practical means of giving instruction in the principles of hygiene. 



Studley College, Warwickshire, England, has added to its cur- 

 riculum a housewife's course, which may be taken either separately 

 or in conjunction with dairying and poultry keeping, which go to 

 make up the " colonial training course." The instruction leads to a 

 certificate and will include training during three terms in cooking, 

 laundering, and housework, together with lectures on sick nursing, 



