M.— AGRICULTURE. 203 



manufacture and with the elimination of waste in the manufacturing 

 process ; second, from the business side, so that the producer may have his 

 business carried out successfully and at a profit. From the point of view 

 of vocational training these two aspects are so closely interwoven that any 

 attempt to magnify one at the expense of the other can only lead to disaster, 

 whereas from the purely educational point of view the two are quite 

 distinct, and are better treated as stages in development, leading up 

 gradually from the purely scientific subject of the growth of the plant and 

 animal, through the application of this science to practical requirements, 

 to the business organisation of the fundamental producing units. 



The objects of vocational education in Agriculture have been recently 

 described by Sir Daniel Hall, 1 and further by Mr. Dale 2 in his paper to 

 this section last year, and may be summarised as improvement of farming 

 technique by making the results of recent research more readily and 

 more rapidly available, and improvement in business management result- 

 ing from more intimate knowledge of the economic details of the particular 

 farming business and a wider acquaintance with the economic position of 

 the whole industry. 



The development of technical education in this country has had for 

 one of its aims the improvement of farming methods by creating a class 

 of farmers who have had the benefit of a training at either a Farm Institute, 

 an Agricultural College, or a University, according as he could spare time 

 and money to pursue his studies. At the conclusion of these studies the 

 presumption is that he will spread the light of his knowledge and his skill 

 in his neighbourhood and, by the strong force of his example, cause an 

 improvement in the methods of his neighbours. Thus would the country 

 benefit from the greater yields per acre which would be grown, and the 

 farmers themselves from their more satisfactory economic position. 



Unfortunately for the industry things do not work out quite so simply. 

 The number of those who, on leaving the Universities and Colleges,, 

 engage in farming and set the shining example I have mentioned are 

 none too many, and the effect in this way upon farming practice has not 

 been as great as might have been expected. The great landlords too, 

 with certain notable exceptions, have hardly lived up to their eighteenth- 

 century tradition in taking the place which is theirs naturally as leaders of 

 the countryside in agricultural and farming affairs. Even the country 

 clergy, who seem in the eighteenth century to have been knowledgeable 

 in these matters, have apparently lost heart. Thus it appears that, 

 despite all the money which is annually spent on higher education, there 

 is not going forth into the countryside from our Universities and Colleges 

 that stream of well-informed and well-educated young men and young 

 women whose influence would so greatly modify farming practice up and 

 down the land. For let us be quite candid about the situation : British 

 fanning at its best as it is carried out by certain individuals and in certain 

 districts — and that there is a greater concentration of these individuals in 

 some districts no one will deny — is second to none all the world over. 

 There are, however, a large number of farmers whose technique is poor, 

 whose methods are slovenly, and whose general standard falls very far 



1 Scottish Journal of Agriculture, vol. x, p. 135. 



2 ' Progress of Agricultural Education in England and Wales.' 



