EDUCATION. 99 



trust itself to County Councils, whose record, we shall do 

 well to remember, as initiators of reforms of any sort is 

 in this country not immaculate, and who, it may be added 

 — especially after the admission has been frankly made in 

 Reports of the Board of Agriculture — do not always pull 

 well together with the latter. A recent Report tells us 

 that after various clashings of opinions on this particular 

 subject, at length a modus vivendi between the two autho- 

 rities has been established. But modus vivendi scarcely 

 indicate anything thorough, anything directed by a master 

 idea and a single aim. They are invariably the result of 

 compromise, which means giving and taking. The Prussian 

 Government has nothing to do in this matter with modus 

 vivendi. It retains the initiative as well as the superior 

 guidance warily in its own hands, committing the local 

 execution to specially appointed provincial Chambers of 

 Agriculture ; whose attention is not diverted by care for 

 other interests ; which have only the welfare of Agriculture 

 to think of ; and which are composed of specially qualified 

 members, exercising large powers of administration and 

 rating, and necessarily, by reason of their composition 

 and their brief, inspired by a singleness of purpose. And 

 apart from the rate-levying powers entrusted to these 

 Chambers, the Prussian Government by no means stints 

 Agricultural Education in the matter of funds, as unfortu- 

 nately we have done in this country. In very truth we had 

 scarcely any Government grants for Agricultural Education 

 worth speaking of until Mr. Lloyd George created his 

 Development Fund. Even so we do not give much beyond 

 ;£6o,ooo a year. And that is after a quite recent considerable 

 augmentation of the grant. In 1910 the Prussian grant in 

 support of higher agricultural education alone amounted 

 to more than five times what in that year we spent upon 

 Agriculture altogether, viz., ;£i9,265. The United States 

 Department spends about ;{2,ooo,ooo a year upon research 

 and education. You cannot have a good article without 

 paying for it. 



Some of our County Councils indeed have, like the Board 

 of Agriculture itself, shown very commendable zeal for the 



