6 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 



blished in the universities of Goettingen, (1769,) Giessen, 

 Rostock, and Leipsic, (1778;) and soon after this, says a 

 recent writer,* agricultural instruction was given in all 

 the High Schools of the country. As yet, however, no 

 agricultural schools had been founded. 



THAER'S SCHOOL. 



To the immortal Thaer is due the honor of first con- 

 ceiving, and attempting to carry out, the idea of founding 

 educational institutions especially devoted to instruction in 

 agricultural science and practice. f 



Not only did Thaer see the necessity of having a system 

 of education developed to correspond to the wants of the 

 farmer, but, with surprising acuteness, he discerned what 

 should constitute the general principles according to which 

 this system should be built up. In his principles of agri- 

 culture, (1809,) after dwelling upon the necessity of a 

 knowledge of Botany, Zoology, and Chemistry, and other 

 sciences, to an intelligent appreciation of agricultural prac- 

 tice, he goes on to remark, that "it is then evident that agri- 

 culture ought to ~borrow from every science the principles ivhicJi 

 she employs as the foundation of her own" With these ideas 

 he founded his agricultural school. An English traveller 

 who visited it in 1820, says: 



"It comprised a model farm of 1200 acres, and a college for in- 

 struction. The education was partly theoretical, and partly of a 

 practical description, The former was provided for by three Pro- 



* Dr. B^rnbaum Lehrbuch der Landwirthschaft. Vol. I. P. 31. 



f Albrecht D. Thaer was born in Hanover, Germany, 1752. He studied at the 

 University of Goettingen about the time (1770) that Prof. Walther commenced his 

 course of lectures on agriculture at that institution; and although he devoted him- 

 self, while a student, to the study of medicine, be doubtless saw enough of the dis- 

 &dvant?iges of attempting agricultural education in an old conservative institution 

 with stereotyped habits, to satisfy him that a course of instruction so radically dif- 

 ferent from that of the university, as that of scientific and practical agriculture 

 must be, could only be carried out properly in a new order of institution especially 

 adapted to agricultural science and practice. About 1800 he started a small agri- 

 cultural school at his native town, Celle, in Hanover, but in 1803 it was broken up 

 by the invasion of the French. Soon after, at the urgent solicitations of the King 

 of Prussia, (1804,) he went to Beilin and founded the Agricultural School, with 

 model farm, (400 acres,) at Moeglin, about 20 miles from the Prussian capital. 

 The disastrous defeat of the Prussian army at Jena, and the subsequent occupation 

 of Berlin by Napoleon's troops, (1806,) for a time delayed Thaer's plans; but, in 

 1807, he opened his school with 10 students, and after the peace of Tilset he had 

 an uninterrupted success with his school and farm till near his death in 1828. 



