TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 43 



of the teaching staff and senior and experienced civil 

 officers (i) as to the suitability of this entrance standard 

 for the course of instruction to be given; (2) as to the 

 effect which the introduction of such a regulation as this 

 would have in weeding out a class of Indian students 

 considered desirable, and the automatic forcing into the 

 college of an undesirable class. Both of these fears have 

 been more or less justified, for in the first place the 

 experience has shown that this entrance standard does 

 not enable the college to recruit a student qualified to 

 attend the lectures and laboratory courses embodied in 

 the curriculum; and secondly, the students have almost 

 without exception entered the college solely with the 

 object of obtaining employment in one or other branches 

 of the public service, and not from a desire to benefit the 

 farming classes directly or indirectly. These students, 

 instead of coming from a farming stock, are for the most 

 part of the Khatri or shopkeeping class, which is, in 

 Northern India, the class most interested in education, 

 and the one which floods the University colleges and 

 secures the bulk of the prizes offered in the different 

 branches of Government service and civil employ, and 

 in the learned professions. The curriculum recom- 

 mended consists of practical and theoretical instruction 

 in agriculture, agricultural chemistry, botany, veterinary 

 science, entomology, physics, etc. 5 



The whole curriculum was from the first arranged on 

 the lines of the best English or American agricultural 

 colleges, the course containing as large a proportion of 

 practical work as could be well included, and at the same 

 time the student was given an up-to-date account of the 

 subjects under study. 



The system of marking also aimed at minimizing the 

 danger of cramming by allotting 40 per cent, of the 

 whole marks obtainable in the diploma examination to 

 work done during the three years' residence, and a 40 per 

 cent, pass standard adopted. In this way a premium 

 was placed on steady work, thus rendering it practically 



5 The syllabus of the Punjab Agricultural College has been 

 omitted. 



