22 



munity that desire to receive higher instruction in that pursuit. The nobility 

 who own the land, on the one hand, and the common farm laborers, on the 

 other, do not care for this instruction. It is the renter, or middle man, as he is 

 called in England, who wishes to prepare himself for the proper management of 

 a farm. " The object of the school of practical farming of Jena," says Mr. Flint, 

 " is to give its pupils an education which will fit them for the skilful, practical 

 management of middling-sized and small estates." At Schleissheim, he says, 

 the pupils are the sons of peasants mostly. And, speaking of the price of tuition 

 and boarding of the institute at Cirencester, which was $150 per year, as one of 

 the causes of its failure, he says, " Small farmers could not send their sons, and 

 rich ones would not." After creating a debt of $125,000, this institute passed 

 under the control of some of the nobility, and the price for tuition and boarding 

 was raised to $450 per year, for the obvious purpose of excluding the sons of the 

 middle men. Still it is not prospering. 



"The spirit of caste" says Mr. Flint, "so prevalent in England, has probably 

 been the cause of the failure of this college to meet the expectations of the 

 friends of agriculture, or to commend itself to any considerable portion of the 

 people. I could not learn that it was popular with any class." We see here 

 very plainly why these higher agricultural institutes have but a limited number 

 of the farming population in Europe to sustain them. 



2d. The second cause is seen in the caste to which Mr. Flint refers. 



Neither of these difficulties will exist in this country. Not for farmers alone 

 will our industrial colleges be created, but for all the industrial classes ; and as 

 I hope to see them, not for those only, but for all occupations, professional as 

 well as industrial. Caste can only exist in this country by separation, for this 

 begets estrangement; and if we are to have separate institutions for the mental 

 instruction of those following different pursuits, by like reasons we should aim 

 at such separation in moral and religious instruction, and divide into State 

 Catholic and Protestant colleges, and the latter again into Calvinistic and 

 Wesleyan, and Unitarian and Trinitarian. 



In Europe the great mass of agricultural laborers do not aspire to ownership 

 of the soil ; their condition is one of poverty and servitude, and hence they are 

 not represented in its chief agricultural institutions. But here the industrial 

 classes are owners in fee simple, and their circumstances will enable them to 

 give their children the best instruction. The limited number of the agricultural 

 students in European institutions does not, therefore, indicate that a like number 

 only will be the attendance here. The sons of the poorer agricultural classes in 

 Europe are found in schools of an inferior character. "The great majority," says 

 Mr. Flint, " of what are called agricultural schools in Europe are mere manual 

 labor schools, and on a very limited scale at that. In Ireland alone there are 

 one hundred and thirty-four such schools. France has three regional school ons 

 the same footing as that at Grignon, though I believe the two others are not 

 quite so flourishing, one agricultural institute at Versailles, and many inferior 

 schools, carried on in a small way, where, in addition to the elements of educa- 

 tion, more or less instruction is given in agriculture, and where the pupils have 

 to work; and this is the case in many other continental countries." 



3d. In commenting on the want of success of the institute at Cirencester, Mr. 

 Flint says : 



" It only adds another list of instances which might be given to show that 

 success or failure will depend very much upon the man at the head, however 

 great may be the incidental advantages which may occur in favor of such an 

 enterprise." Of the institute at Hohenheim he remarks : 



" But as imperfect and defective as were the arrangements at the outset at 

 Hohenheim, there was one thing that neither the director nor the pupils were in 

 want of, and that was an earnest love for their work and an enthusiasm for the 

 7iigh reputation of the new institute. It was not the least of the merits of 



