260 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



5s. per school. In forty-six of tliose schools, (whose returns 

 have been published) one thousand seven hundred and eleven 

 boys received the agricultural education above described, at an 

 average cost of 3s. 4d. per boy. 



Ordinary agricultural schools, as the name indicates, consist 

 of ordinary national schools having a few acres of ground 

 attached to each. In these schools the sons of farmers, labor- 

 ers, and such others as may desire it, receive, in addition to the 

 ordinary literary education, elementary instruction in the 

 science and practice of agriculture. The little farms are, for 

 the most part, worked by the boys. The teacher of a school of 

 this class receives, in addition to his literary class salary, X5 a 

 year and the profits of the farm. 



The forty-seven ordinary agricultural schools in operation in 

 1859 cost c£269 Is. 2d., or about £5 15s. per school. In forty 

 of those whose returns have been published, one thousand three 

 hundred and seventy-five boys received agricultural instruction 

 at a cost of 3s. 4d. per boy per annum.* No money expended 

 by the state could be productive of more benefit than the small 

 sum expended on teaching those young lads — the rising small- 

 farmers and laborers of Ireland — correct notions of the art by 

 which they must earn their bread ; — the art which is the staple 

 industry of their country. 



The outlay on " ordinary " agricultural schools is so trivial 

 compared with the immense advantages derived therefrom, 

 that, like the cost of agricultural education in workhouses, it 

 may i-easonably be doubted if any would object to it. When 

 the commissioners of national education engrafted agricultural 

 instruction on the ordinary secular instruction in some of their 

 country schools, they observed that: — "Considering the very 

 backward state of agriculture in Ireland, ^and that it forms the 



* In the English agricultural and other industrial schools, the committee of 

 council on education allow 5s. for each industrial scholar wh«n p, special 

 industrial instructor is employed, and 2s. 6d. when the ordinary teacher con- 

 ducts the industrial department. In addition to this allowance a grant is made 

 to each industrial school equal to half the rent of the premises specially hired 

 for the purpose, and one-third the cost for tools or raw materials for labor. 



In certified industrial schools for vagrants, the sum of 6d. per day, up to a 

 maximum sum of £7 10s. per annum, has been allowed from the education 

 grant for every child received under magisterial sentence. — Vide Parliamentary 

 Estimate, 1861-2. IV. 131. 



