HOW SHALL AGRICULTURE BEST OBTAIN THE HELP OF SCIENCE? 345 



allotted to agriculture, but in most counties the proportion is very much 

 less. 



The mode in which this agricultural education is carried out is, of course, 

 very varied. It may consist simply in money aid to classes under the 

 Department of Science and Art ; or tlie county may have its own 

 travelling lecturers, who deliver short courses on agriculture, horticul- 

 ture, dairy-work, poultry, bee-keeping, and the diseases of animals. 

 Purely technical classes on horse-shoeing, ploughing, hedging, draining, 

 are also common. The most popular, and certainly one of the most useful, 

 of these technical schools is the travelling daily, by which practical in- 

 struction in butter-making is given at many centres throughout the 

 county. As a help to a higher grade of instruction than is furnished by 

 tliese popular classes, the County Councils grant agricultural scholarships 

 available for the courses of instruction at agricultural schools and col- 

 leges, and in some in.stances at institutions of university rank. In a 

 few cases dairy institutes and agricultural colleges have been established 

 by County Councils, usually by the united action of two or three counties, 

 and in these cases considerable sums are annually set aside for their 

 support. The sketch we have given of County Council work will, how- 

 ever, leave a far too favourable impression if we do not bear in mind that 

 only a portion of the schemes mentioned are generally in use in any one 

 county. 



As it is clearly most imjDortant that these new schemes of agricultural 

 education should be wisely and efficiently carried out, we may profitably 

 devote a few minutes to the consideration of some important points upon 

 attention to which any real success will largely depend. 



With lads of the age at which they are usually in attendance at 

 elementary schools little can be done in teaching the scientific principles 

 of agriculture ; such lads have not acquired the previous scientific know- 

 ledge necessary for understanding what is to be taught. They may indeed 

 learn off answers to questions either from the blackboard or from a printed 

 text-book, and thus furnished they may pass examinations ; but the know- 

 ledge they have acquired is merely a knowledge of words, and will be of 

 no value to them in after-life. The foundation of habits of observation and 

 logical reasoning must, however, be laid in the elementary school if higher 

 instruction is hereafter to be given. This elementary training may 

 easily be made to have an agricultural bias. No better means of 

 educating a boy's powers of observation can be found than a study of the 

 individual characters and modes of development of the various crops, 

 weeds, and insects of the farm. 



When lads have passed thi'ough the elementary school their special 

 training should immediately commence ; any delay is most unfavourable to 

 the boy's development. The time has now come when a distinction has to 

 be made between the students ; some are to be labourers, some are to be 

 farmers. For both technical instruction is required : the arts of agricul- 

 ture have to be mastered.' The farmer's son, however, requires besides 

 this a higher course of study if scientific principles are to be inti'oduced 

 into his future practice. One great need of the present day is the esta- 

 blishment of secondary agricultural schools, which shall be centres both for 



' In some countries, as Ireland and France, instruction in the art of agriculture is 

 given in connection with the elementary schools : this is, of course, possible if the 

 school engagements admit of time being thus spent, and there is convenient land 

 adjoining. 



