30 



EXPORTS OF BUTTER, EGGS AND BACON FROM DENMARK TO GREAT BRITAIN. 



The Educational System. 



The Danish farmer is an educated man. He receives not only an excellent public 

 and high school education, but a large per cent o£ the tillers of the soil attend agri- 

 cultural schools. Attendance at the public schools is compulsory between the ages of 

 seven and fourteen, inclusive. Nature study is a prominent feature of the work. 

 Some schools are provided with school gardens, while in the case of others the children 

 are carried freely on the state railways to the country where lessons are given direct 

 from nature. 



Over ten per cent of the population pass through the high schools, of which there 

 are more than seventy in Denm.ark. Both men and women attend at ages from sixteen 

 to twenty-five. The fee for instruction is comparatively low, and provision is made for 

 the state to defray even this in the case of deserving young men or women who cannot 

 afford to pay their own way. The instruction given at these schools is not designed 

 to teach applied sciences, but rather to develop personal character, to brighten the 

 intellect, and to inculcate principles of integrity, thus preparing them for the battle 

 of life that is keen, not only in all trade, but in agriculture as well 



The early high schools took up agricultural chemistry and other sciences under- 

 lying the practice of agriculture. The importance of these subjects led to the establish- 

 ing of purely agricultural schools, of which there are forty-four. Fifteen of these are 

 entirely separate from high schools, one is purely a dairy school, and twenty-nine are 

 closely associated with high schools. Pupils range from eighteen to twenty-five years, 

 and, as in the case of the high schools, they board at the institution. These schools, 

 like the high schools, although receiving small government grants, were erected and 

 are conducted by private enterprise. To secure these schools, in many cases, farmers, 

 chiefly small proprietors, subscribed to the funds from which they were built and 

 equipped. A farm of greater or less area is attached to most of these schools. This is 

 run on a business basis and serves as a demonstration of the value of scientific methods. 

 All of the ordinary farm crops are grown, and live stock of the several classes are kept. 

 At these institutions men are trained to farm, there being no examination and no 

 certificate granted. There are throughout the country a number of agricultural ex- 

 periment stations taking up such work as the comparative tests of various varieties 

 of grains, clovers, grasses, mixtures, methods of cultivation, times of sowing, etc. The 

 reports of these institutions are eagerly studied by agricultural students, as also by 

 the rank and file of Danish farmers. 



The higher agricultural educational work is done at the University at Copenhagen, 

 known as the Eoyal Agricultural and Veterinary Institute. 



The Commission had a profitable visit to this well equipped and renowned institu- 

 tion, under the direction of the Principal, J. Hoffman Bang. This is a magnificent 

 college standing amongst the foremost of its kind in the world. It is conducted by 

 the state for the training of teachers in agricultural and veterinary science, also the 

 better fitting oi men to conduct large farms. Many sons of prominent farmers train 

 at this institution to go home to manage their own establishments. The attendance 

 of students in agriculture proper, including dairying, is from 125 to 150 per year. 



