FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 221 



six; three veterinary scliools; and one each, bearing the name of 

 National Agronomic Institute, is a shepherd school, a cheese, and 

 a silkworm school. In the universities are no less than 160 depart- 

 ments and chairs of agriculture for students of profoundest re- 

 search. All this costs the departments alone over 4,504,050 francs 

 per annum. 



In Prussian Germany no less activity is displayed or energy put 

 forth to make the farmer's occupation one of financial profit and 

 scientific status. Statistics for 1897 are at hand in the report of 

 the Prussian Minister of Agriculture. The German system is 

 based on the theory that schools and colleges are the only places 

 where theoretical agriculture can be properly taught. Few of the 

 higher agricultural schools first established were exclusively such. 

 A liberal education could be obtained at most of them without 

 touching the subject of agriculture. Later educators have devel- 

 oped a system which begins by fostering a love for Xature in the 

 minds of the pupils in the kindergarten, and patiently develops that 

 love through all the dozen or more grades of schools until it cul- 

 minates in the polytechnic school or the degree granted by the 

 university. 



Germany is indebted to the learned Professor Thaer for the 

 establishment of its first agricultural school at Moglin in 1807. 

 But more than all is she, in common with all the world, indebted 

 to the famous chemist Baron von Liebig, who, in 1840, announced 

 the scientific truth which underlies all arguments for agricultural 

 education — viz., that no matter how impoverished a soil is natu- 

 rally, or has become by excessive cropping, its fertility may be 

 restored, maintained, and even increased by providing it with the 

 mineral and organic matter which it lacks. 



Prussian agricultural affairs are under the supervision of the 

 Ministry of Agriculture, Domains, and Forests. The state main- 

 tains three grades of schools — higher, middle, and lower — as in 

 other European countries. The most celebrated are the Royal Ag- 

 ricultural High Schools at Berlin and Popplesdorf, two royal acad- 

 emies of forestry, and the university courses in agriculture at Halle, 

 Gottingen, Konigsberg, Leipsic, Giessen, and Jena. The state ex- 

 pends something like two hundred thousand dollars annually on 

 agricultural education. In Germany agricultural education has so 

 broadened out as to include training in every technical part of a 

 farmer's work — culture of forests, fruits, flowers, and vines; 

 schools to teach wine, cider, and beer making, machine repairing, 

 engine running, barn construction, and surveying; knowledge of 

 poultry, bees, and silkworm raising; domestic economy, sewing, 

 and accounts for farm women — all in addition to the long scientific 



