Agricultural Education. 447 



ultimately to ftirm ; Mr. Scwcll Read would send him to a distance 

 from home, and lie attributes the chief advantage of his o\nx agricul- 

 tural education to its having been obtained in many different parts of the 

 country. I believe in the latter statement, and the advice which it 

 conveys, as the safer and the better of the two. And seeing that it is 

 generally impossible to obtain in this way that Avider experience which 

 is desirable, it becomes the more necessary that the agricultural 

 student should learn the inner truth which underlies the varying 

 iiarticulars and shades of agricultural and all other experience, so that 

 the essence of every act that he directs, and of every fact that he 

 observes, may be understood apart from the wrapping of mere circum- 

 stances which disguises it. This inner truth is the subject matter of 

 scientiiic teaching. The sciences of dead and living matter — chemistry, 

 botany, physiologj^, and others— these certainly arc part of a sound 

 agricultural education, because they include and classify, and thus 

 truly represent the facts with which the farmer daily has to do. Any 

 agriculturist who is also to a certain extent a botanist, a chemist, a 

 physiologist, has his mind as well as his mere hands and eyes occupied 

 with his business, and his judgment is surer, safer, and more confident 

 in unusual or imtried circumstances, not only because it acts upon 

 this inner truth which circumstances disguise to the mere outward 

 eye — but also because by larger exercise and freedom it has thus 

 itself become an instrument of greater aptitude and power. 



I ought perhaps to beg pardon for occupying time with truisms of this 

 kind, and I \,i.\\ therefore conclude this part of my statement with a 

 short reference to the way in which the practical and scientific parts 

 of a complete agricultural education may be best obtained. It is the 

 desirableness of uniting the two that makes institutions of the class 

 of the Eoyal Agricultural College so valuable. Such institutions 

 should, in my opinion, be not scientific but agricultural colleges. 

 Their purpose, aim, and end, are to turn out agricultiu-ists ; their 

 business is to teach agricuitm'c — agriculture, certainly, and therefore 

 anything that will throw light on agriculture also. It is, however, 

 difficult, and perhaps impossible, to give this preponderating im- 

 j)ortance to instruction in farm practice in any scheme for thearrange- 

 ment of the time of sixty or eighty young men at an institution of 

 this kind, and therefore I am inclined to think that the best result 

 will be obtained where such colleges receive young men after three or 

 four years' residence upon a farm at home or elsewhere. They would 

 at the College have for a year or two opportunities of becoming 

 acquainted with the sciences, and their relations to the art and business 

 of the farmer, while at the same time the routine of work upon the 

 College farm would keep fresh their familiarity already acquired with 

 the practical details of farming. Failing this, the alternative is that 

 such institutions as the Cirencester College should be placed in 

 districts such as Norfolk and East Lothian, which are full of young- 

 men learning farming, and where perhaps Mr. Paget's half-time 

 system might be brought to bear, so that a certain portion of time 

 being devoted to practical work upon the several farms, a remainder 

 would be available diu'ing which students of agriculture could 

 VOL. I. — S. S. 2 G 



