SECRETARY'S REPORT. 267 



glorj of a country and the pride of the people. Well, indeed, 

 has Hohenheim paid its debt in this respect ; for, since its 

 foundation, many scientific professors of distinction have spread 

 throughout Germany and the world, the valuable practical 

 knowledge acquired or taught by them at that royal institute. 



Tiie circumstances in which the European agricultural 

 schools have grown up, and the state of society, are so different 

 from our own, that it does not follow, that what would be best 

 for them and for the condition of society which feeds them, 

 would be best for us. I am inclined to think the system 

 adopted at Glasnevin, at the Albert Model Farm, is better 

 adapted to meet the wants of the present time and the present 

 condition of things in Ireland,than a scientific institute connected 

 with the University of Dublin, or with any other, would be. 



Nor do I think that any impartial observer can fail to see, 

 that had the agricultural college of Cirencester been connected 

 with one of the universities, Cambridge or Oxford, it would be 

 more likely to accomplish the ends which it now proposes to 

 itself, would possess greater vitality, and receive a far more 

 liberal patronage from the class of people it now aims to edu- 

 cate, than it does, or is likely to, in any time to come. It 

 would have been able to secure and retain the highest scientific 

 talent ; while the farm which is now used simply as a model for 

 illustration, on which the students do not work, would have 

 been equally valuable and important on the. downs of Oxford- 

 shire or on the fens of Cambridge. 



In Germany, where the experience has been longer than in 

 any other part of Europe, the question of connecting agricul- 

 tural institutes with others, or of having isolated and independ- 

 ent establishments, has long been agitated, and is now more 

 warmly discussed than ever befoi'C ; one party — and it is proba- 

 bly by far the larger — taking the ground for, and the other 

 against such union ; each governed, in a measure, no doubt, 

 by personal experience in the one or the other system. 



So fi^r as I was able to inform myself, the ground taken by 

 the advocates of a union with the universities is, that it is better 

 for a young man setting out to procure a liberal education 

 in agriculture, to lay the foundation in a thorough knowledge 

 of general principles embodied in the wide range of sciences 

 which bear more or less directly upon agriculture, and then to 



