AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 797 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



Annual report on the distribution of grants for agricultural education and 

 research. 1907-8 (Bd. Ayr. and FinlicrUx [Lomloii], Ann. Rpt. Af/r. IJd. and 

 Research. 1907-8, pp. A'L//+/6i).— According to this report the grants 

 awarded by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for agricultural instruction 

 in England and Wales in 1!»0T-S amounted to .$58,085. This is an increase of 

 $2,G0S over the previous year, due to grants of $1,455 to the University of 

 Oxford for a dei)artuient of rural economy, and of .$1,213 to the University of 

 Cambridge for a school of forestry. There were also special grants for experi- 

 mentation and research amounting to $1,843. making a total of .$G0.52S. 



The total attendance at the subsidized institutions has increased from 1,221 

 in li)0G-7 to 1,313 in 1907-8, not counting 230 students attending the Uoyal Vet- 

 erinary College nor 300 elementary school teachers who attended short courses 

 at the colleges during the year. It is estimated that every year 10.000 young 

 men in England and AVales should receive agricultural instruction in some 

 form, while as a matter of fact less than 7 per cent of the registered college 

 students are actually receiving such instruction. In these estimates no account 

 has been taken of market gardeners and others occupying holdings of less than 

 5 acres, nor of the bailiffs, shepherds, laborers, and others belonging to the agri- 

 cultural and industrial classes for whom instruction in the manual processes of 

 agriculture, poultry keeping, cottage gardening and bee keeping is now provided 

 by local authorities. 



In an endeavor to estimate the direct expenditure for agricultural education, 

 it is shown that with the exception of the grants earned for classes in the prin- 

 ciples of agriculture from the Science and Art Department, all the state aid 

 available for technical in.structiou in agriculture was, until 1!)02, given by the 

 Board of Agriculture. These grants increased gi-adually from $7.!i05 in 188.S-9 

 to $58,685 in 1907-8. After the Education Act of 1902 came in force the Board 

 of Education grants to local authorities for the purposes of higher education 

 became applicable to agricultural instruction, but apparently no substantial 

 sum was applied to agricultural purposes until the board introduced the new 

 "block grant" regulations in 1906. In a memorandum recently published by 

 the Board of Education, it was estimated that $37,767 was disbursi'd in 1907-8 

 for '* specialized agricultural technology." Of this amount .$(5,445 was paid to 7 

 agricultural institutions and the remainder to county education committees for 

 local work. It is estimated that in 190.5-6. out of a total of 5.72S evening 

 schools receiving grants of $1,682,950, only 248 earned grants for agricultural 

 work. 



The report shows that the total annual cost of agricultural education in Eng- 

 land and Wales during the past 9 years has varied from $412,250 in 1899-1900 

 to .$475,300 in 1903-4, and that the net average expenditure for agricultural 

 education in 1906-7 and 1907-8 was actually about .$50,000 less than in 1901-2 

 and 1902-3. 



A table is given showing by counties the male population engaged in agi'icul- 

 ture, average sums spent on agricultural education, percentage of males en- 

 gaged in agriculture, percentage of residue grant spent on agriculture, and ex- 

 penditure on agricultural education per 1,000 male agriculturists. These figures 

 indicate that " among English and Welsh counties, for example, there are 4 in 

 which more than 40 i)er cent of the whole male i)opulation over 10 years of 

 age is engaged in agriculture, but these 4 counties spend on the average less 

 than 5 per cent of their 'whiskey money' in promoting agricultural education; 

 this works out at less than $.53 per 1.000 agricultin-ists. In contrast there are 

 the 4 counties which (excluding Middlesex) have the smallest agricultural 



