AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 205 



labor, and after dinner. I had my doubts whether some of the 

 pupils, whom I saw* did it much oftener than this. 



On Sundays, the pupils are required to attend their respective 

 places of worship, accompanied by their instructors or mon 

 itors ; and it is earnestly recommended to them to employ the 

 remainder of the day in reading the Word of God, and such 

 other devotional exercises as their respective ministers may 

 point out. 



This is a very commendable liberality, and rather remarkable 

 in a country, I speak of England as well as Ireland, where 

 the first principles of religious liberty are not universally under 

 stood, and where men of all parties seem quite as tenacious of 

 their religious differences as of their moral duties. While no 

 reasonable effort should be spared, in places of education, to 

 instil and maintain in the youthful mind a profound and habitual 

 sense of religious duty, nothing can be more unwarrantable than 

 to take advantage of the influence which such places afford, to 

 enforce the principles or peculiar practices of a sect or party. 



It may be interesting to learn the general regulations of the 

 school, which the intelligent principal was kind enough to give 

 me in a printed form. 



1. As the great object is to make the boys practical farmers, 

 one half of them will be at all times on the farm, where they 

 will be employed in manual labor, and receive from the head 

 farmer such instructions, reasons, and explanations, as will 

 render the mode of proceeding, in all the various operations 

 performed on the farm, sufficiently intelligible to them. Every 

 pupil is to be made a ploughman, and taught, not only how to 

 use, but how to settle the plough-irons for every soil and work, 

 and to be instructed and made acquainted with the purpose and 

 practical management of every other implement generally used. 

 And all are to be kept closely to their work, either by the head 

 farmer or his assistant, or, in their unavoidable absence, by the 

 monitor placed in charge of them. 



2. Their attention is to be drawn to stock of all kinds, and to 

 the particular points which denote them to be good, bad, indif 

 ferent, hardy, delicate, good feeders, good milkers, &c. 



3. At the proper season of the year, the attention of the boys 

 is to be directed to the making and repairing of fences, that they 



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