IN A UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM 9 



of a restricted and purely local character were gradually 

 abandoned, such work being left in the hands of the 

 County Councils. In the first year the Board granted 

 the sum of 2,160 to thirteen different bodies in England 

 and Wales, and each year has seen some extension of 

 the support, until now the annual sum so administered 

 amounts to nearly 11,000. 



The third event to which I wish for a moment to 

 refer occurred in 1890, when the passing of the Local 

 Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act placed at the dis- 

 posal of County Councils an annual grant approaching 

 a million sterling, all of which was available for the 

 furtherance of technical instruction. The actual sum 

 distributed by the Treasury in any one year depends 

 on the aggregate consumption of whiskey ; and as the 

 tendency of recent years has been towards greater 

 sobriety of living, the Exchequer grant has been 

 gradually declining, though it still amounts to the re- 

 spectable sum of, roughly, 700,000. Of the total 

 amount about an eighth, or say 90,000, is annually 

 spent on education in agriculture in all its branches ; 

 so that what with central and local contributions and 

 neglecting grants from the Board of Education practi- 

 cally 100,000 a year is at present expended on higher 

 agricultural education in England and Wales, of which 

 nearly half is given to universities and colleges, and to 

 schools of an agricultural character. 



Those of us who were at work in the early years 

 of the Technical Education movement have still a vivid 

 recollection of the nervous energy with which Local 

 Authorities applied themselves to the task that was 

 suddenly and unexpectedly thrust upon them. In no 

 case were they equipped with educational machinery; 

 they had practically no precedents to guide them, and an 



B 



