AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 



The Department of Agriculture lays the greatest possible stress on 

 education, believing that it is the only satisfactory foundation on 

 which to build. But it recognises facts, as the I.A.O.S, did before 

 it. Like that Society, it knew that a generation would have to 

 pass away before the Irish people could be educated, and that 

 something had to be done at once. The I.A.O.S. had begun their 

 work by teaching the Irish farmers the principles of self-help, and 

 it had been backed up by the Department. But the Department 

 went a step farther. It began its work with a determination to 

 impart somehow or other to Irish farmers more technical know- 

 ledge of agriculture than they possessed, impossible as it might be 

 to make that technical knowledge perfect, in consequence of the 

 want of a proper foundation of primary education. It believed 

 that it could in this way help the existing race of farmers, and at 

 the same time fire them with a passion for the education of their 

 children. 



Itinerant Instructors 



In the forefront, therefore, of the educational movement stands 

 the itinerant instructor, who goes from district to district giving 

 to the farmers all the technical instruction they are able to receive, 

 advising them on all practical questions which come within the 

 sweep of agriculture, improving the condition of things in exist- 

 ence at the present time as far as they can be improved, and 

 laying the foundation of a better state of things for the future. 



Winter Schools of Agriculture 



The Department's scheme of education for the future is more 

 ambitious. The Department has nothing to do with primary 

 education, and therefore the foundation of its work is not in its 

 own hands. But the National Education Commissioners, who 

 have charge of primary education in Ireland, are working in con- 

 junction with the Department. Both bodies deprecate the teaching 

 of practical farming in the primary school, but they agree that the 

 children should be interested in the rural life around them, and 

 taught as far as possible nature knowledge. The Department is 

 strongly of opinion that secondary education, with which it has a 

 deal to do, for it administers the Science and Art and Technical 

 Education Grants, should be far different from what it has been. 

 It has hitherto had very little reference to agriculture, almost the 

 sole occupation of the people. The Department, without forgetting 

 the value and importance of education for its own sake, resolved 



