1178 REPORT—1885. 
2. The learning of what has been fully proved. 
In the first branch should be taught the custom to require proof of all that is 
asserted, and to become acquainted with what constitutes proof. In the second 
branch the student should go through— 
1, The course of the lecture-room, which is best adapted for lucid explanation, 
but he should be able to go from that place to 
2. The Laboratory, in order to confirm what is comprehended, to clear up what 
he has but hazily understood, and to correct what is erroneous. 
3. He should be able to go to an agricultural museum to see the proofs of 
former trials, illustrations in actual forms, the connection of one part of agriculture 
to another, and the systems and results of cognate work in other countries. 
4, He should have an opportunity of passing to the Experimental Station to 
realise the application to plants, to see the effect of different seasons, to compare 
the influence on different plants of the same treatment and the same season, and 
finally, to learn how to question nature. 
It might be added, ‘ Let him then go to a farm to acquire a knowledge of agri- 
cultural practice.’ But this is not agricultural education ; it is agricultural training, 
by which he becomes skilled in judging cattle, judging weather, in arranging work, 
in the drying and storing of crops, &c.; this training is both assisted and fore- 
armed, as it were, by the previous education ; by it the student is enabled, that is 
to say, both to comprehend what practice merely states, without being able to ex- 
plain, and to perceive errors in practice. 
It seems hardly credible that for this, the largest industry of Britain, there are 
only four places where the desired form of education can be obtained even in a 
partial way, while none of these places have any State aid. National support is 
given only in aid of a system of education, which, no doubt, has done much good 
directly and indirectly, but which partakes of the unproved form of education just 
alluded to. Now as agricultural investigation should precede education, one might 
say that the building has been raised by State aid before the foundation has been 
laid, and, consequently, that the work must become more unstable the longer the 
system is carried on, and that unless a radical change be made it may be ultimately 
expected to fall. The work has not yet proceeded so far, perhaps, as to make it 
yet too late to support it without much interference with the machinery now in 
action, and perhaps no more useful project could be suggested by which the 
Secretary of State for Scotland should inaugurate his high post than by being the 
pioneer in instituting a simple, sensible, well-planned, and not too extensive series of 
experiments, to be carried out in every county in Scotland under scientific super- 
vision. The results of such a scheme of experiments faithfully recorded, gathered 
up, and collectively considered by competent persons, would in the course of a few 
years be, one might say, certainly productive of results of high educational and high 
national value. Repetitions and extensions of such work would ultimately form 
the basis of true education that from its very truth would exert its force, and thus 
might be expected to find its way into the daily practice of agriculture—a cireum- 
stance which has not hitherto been attained, probably from the fact that the 
education has not been based on a proper foundation, 
The object of this short paper might be summed up in a few lines. It is 
intended to draw attention to certain features that probably are tacitly recognised, 
but are liable to be lost sight of, to the hurt of agriculture, to the hindrance of 
agricultural investigation, and to loss to the nation. 
1. That the aim of agricultural vestigation is increased knowledge and in- 
creased production, and as the latter must benefit the whole nation, this aim should 
suffice both to ensure national support and to attract and encourage inves- 
tigators. : 
2. That the aim of agriculture is pecuniary gain to those actually engaged in or 
having capital engaged in that industry, and that consequently to hinge investiga- 
tion as a dependent upon it is to expose investigation to a languishing existence or 
to starvation ; for, although the agriculturist, partaking of the réle of the scientist, 
may indeed on occasion extend to it sympathy, support, or gratitude, yet it is only 
when the point has been reached of clearly pointing out a road to gain that as 
