EDUCATION. 137 



EDUCATION. 



Agricultural Education — Technical Education: Science — Art. 



[*»* Note. — /;; this chapter will he found brief historical sketches of what 

 has been aiteftipted and do7ie ifi Ireland towards promoting technical itistruction 

 in regard to agriculture, industry, arid the arts and crafts. The consideration 

 of the whole question of literary instruction — pritnary, secondary , arid university 

 — though of the first importance , is beyond the scope and purpose of this work. 

 In regard to the very interesting efforts of the Board of National Education to 

 graft on to their literary prograrnme a system of agricultural instruction, no 

 better account exists than that contained in a letter addressed by the late 

 Sir Patrick Keenan, k.c.m.g., c.b., Resident Commissioner of National Education, 

 to His Excellency the Earl Spencer, k.g., then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in 

 January, 1883. This document is at once authoritative and succinct. It was 

 published originally in the Second Report of the Royal Commissioners on Technical 

 Instruction {C. — 3981, — /.), Vol. II., pp. 271-281; and it is reprinted here as 

 giving the best brief history of a remarkable and instructive experiment. — 

 Editor.] 



Agricultural Education in Ireland, 1826-99. 



The first movement in the direction of agricultural education was made in 

 1826 by a committee of the Ulster gentry, at a place 

 Agricultural School, called Templemoyle, in the County Londonderry. 

 Templemoyle, This committee collected and subscribed large funds, 

 Co. Londonderry, which were expended in the farming stock and the 

 necessary buildings of a considerable agricultural in- 

 stitution. From fifty to seventy agricultural pupils were annually received 

 into the Templemoyle School. The stipend was only from £10 to ;^I2 a 

 year for board and instruction ; but the school, on the other hand, com- 

 manded the free labour of the pupils. For nearly a quarter of a century 

 it was self-supporting. But, in the long run, mainly as an effect of the 

 famine of 1847, the committee became embarrassed in their finances, and, 

 to relieve themselves from further responsibility, connected the institution, 

 in 1850, with the Board of National Education. 



The Templemoyle school in the course of its operations up to 1850, had 

 received and educated about 800 pupils from different parts of England and 

 Scotland, as well as Ireland. Concurrently with the operations of the 

 Templemoyle School came the first attempt of the National Board to diffuse 

 a knowledge of agricultural science amongst the people. It suggested itself 

 to the Commissioners, when Parliament was first invited by them to vote 

 funds for agricultural education, that the most efficient plan to spread a 

 knowledge of sound principles in agriculture would be to make it a subject 



