2 28 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cease to be one of the subjects provided for examination by the 

 Science and Art Department. Should the second recommenda- 

 tion become a law, the sum expended by local county councils in 

 agricultural education would be vastly increased. 



Passing from England to her colonies, let us journey toward 

 the sunrising. Stopping for a moment in Egypt, we note with 

 pleasure the existence of the newly established School of Agricul- 

 ture at Gizeh, which is under the direction of the Ministry of Pub- 

 lic Instruction for Egypt. Its reconstructed course of study was 

 open to students in 1898, and it provides for four years of study. 

 Arabic and English are the teaching languages, especially the lat- 

 ter, and allotments of land for individual culture are made to all 

 pupils. 



Beyond the Indian Ocean lies Hindustan. Here all science 

 study is awaiting its development. The best cultivation of India 

 is not behind that of England as a matter of empiricism,* but the 

 science of cultivation is yet to be developed. Agricultural chem- 

 istry and agricultural botany and horticulture, as related to India, 

 have scarcely been investigated, and text-books in the native 

 tongues have yet to be written. For this accomplishment all ele- 

 mentary instruction in public schools must patiently wait. For an 

 agriculturally educated set of teachers, also, Indian youth study- 

 ing in the vernacular must patiently wait. In 1889 the home 

 Government (Parliament) laid upon the Indian Educational De- 

 partment the duty of providing school " readers " which should 

 contain elementary instruction in agricultural science, and it au- 

 thorized a liberal grant-in-aid toward such schools as could furnish 

 pupils for passes in this subject. Eor those students who have mas- 

 tered the English language a few colleges exist. ■ Saidapet, near 

 Madras, with about forty students in a three-years' course, includ- 

 ing veterinary, is a pure agricultural institution. Fourteen stu- 

 dents received diplomas in agriculture in March, 1897. 



Several colleges have agricultural departments, notably the 

 Poona College of Science in the Bombay presidenc}^; the Baroda 

 College; the Maharajah's College and the Shimoga College, My- 

 sore; the Central College, and the Sanskrit College of Bangalore. 

 All of these are affiliated with the University of Bombay, and 



* Dr. Voelker, in his Report on Improvement of Indian Agriculture, made to the Eng- 

 lish Board of Agriculture in 1893, said: "At the best, the Indian rait/af, or cultivator, is 

 quite as good as, and in some respects the superior of, the average British farmer. It is 

 wonderful, too, how much is known of rotation, the system of mixed crops, and of fallow- 

 ing. Certain it is that I, at least, have never seen a more perfect picture of careful culti- 

 vation, combined with hard labor, perseverance, and fertility of resource, than I have seen 

 at many of the halting places. Such are the gardens of Mahim, the fields of Nadiad, the 

 center of the garden of Gujarat, in Bombay." 



