776 iiEPOBT— 1888. 



7. Agricultural Education. By Professor James Long. 



Agricultural prosperity will return with the advance of agricultural education. 



The farmer's son of to-day trained at a commercial school. 



The son of the Continental farmer has a choice of numerous agricultural schools 

 of different grades. 



The agricultural classes deficient in their knowledge of the principles of 

 agriculture. 



Admitted that agricultural education requires State aid: what does the present 

 system do under the Science and Art Department ? 



6,578 students at 332 schools. 



4,206 students e.xamined and 3,583 passed, earning a grant of 3,123/. 



The three years' course for the associateship chiefly includes a knowledge of 

 certain sciences — chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, geology, mineralogy, 

 mechanics — the agricultural course only coming in one term of the third year. 



Astonishment of the authorities that only one student has attempted to 

 take it. 



In the last year, eight teachers had attended the thirty-eight weeks' course, and 

 thirty-one the three weeks' course, at a cost of 007/. 



Suggestion as to a central normal school and farm. 



The children in rural schools to have the option of two e.\tra subjects, of 

 which agriculture should be one. 



In particular districts special subjects applicable to those districts should be 

 more fully taught, such as dairying, fruit-growing, hop-growing, bee-keeping. 



Subjects under the head of agriculture, taught at the rural schools, should be 

 most comprehensive, although elementary. 



AVeekly night-schools for the pupils who have left the rural schools. 



Free scholarships to district schools of agriculture. 



Establishment of five district agricultural schools for England and Wales. 

 Each to have, in addition, a special course ; two for dairying, one for horticulture 

 '(including fruit-growing and preserving, and market gardening) ; one for biology 

 and botany, and one for forestry. 



Free scholarships from the district to the central agricultural school. 



Exhibitions from the central school, to enable students to travel abroad. 



Travelling' lecturers. 



8. Economy in Education and in Writing. By Eizak Pitman. 



A million pounds yearly are wasted by the present method of teaching reading 

 in our elementary schools, which might "be saved by the use of plionetic reading 

 books ; and a hundred million hours yearly are wasted in writing by those who 

 speak the English language. 



There are tive million children in the common schools of the country. Their 

 first occupation is to learn to read, and they spend, at the lowest reckoning, eight 

 hours per week in gaining a certain amount of reading power during the first four 

 years of their school life. An equal degree of proficiency might be gained by using 

 phonetically printed books during the first tivo years' schooling, and by reading in 

 tne present books afterwards. 



The annual cost of our elementary schools is five million pounds. The propor- 

 tion of tills sum spent in teaching reading is a little more than one-third. From 

 seven to ten hours, according to the Education Code, are required to be thus occu- 

 pied out of a total attendance of twenty hours per week. Say that on an average 

 eight hours per week are devoted to reading. The cost of teaching reading alone 

 to these five million children is, therefore, two million pounds. One half of this 

 sum would be saved by the use of an alphabet containing a letter for each sound 

 in the language. As reading is now taught, the sound or pronunciation of every 

 word has to be learned independently of the names of the letters that compose it ; 

 and generally in spite of the names or sounds of the letters. But by the use of 

 letters that make up the sound of a word certainty and celerity in the art of 



