522 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



candid on the point, and said that he was unaware that the Robson Act 

 had ever been put into force in the rural districts of England, and that 

 the Board had taken no steps to draw the attention of local authorities to 

 its provisions. Mr. Struthers also, of the Scotch Education Department, 

 remarked that it was not their business as an Education Department to 

 facilitate withdrawals from school. The Committee regret this, feeling 

 that these provisions afford a method of developing a taste for, and know- 

 ledge of, horticulture and country life generally, and they hope that the 

 new authorities will put them into force without delay. In this case, 

 also, the local control of education should facilitate the desired change. 

 Mr. Hedge, the Scotch representative on the Committee, confined his ob- 

 servations on this subject to Scotland, and pointed out that the Education 

 (Scotland) Act, 1901, is somewhat different from the English Act. In 

 Scotland every case where exemption is asked for must be considered on 

 its own merits by the School Board, and exemption refused or granted 

 accordingly. Where parents are too poor to keep their children at school 

 till fourteen years of age, or where by so acting they would be doing an 

 injustice to other members of the family, or where other circumstances 

 make withdrawal a necessity, the School Board has power to grant exemp- 

 tion certificates. They are not, however, encouraged to grant them in 

 Scotland, and, in the interests of the child and of the country, he did not 

 think they should be, and he was not inclined to suggest anything to the 

 Scotch School Boards beyond this fact ; that, when they had decided to 

 grant exemption certificates, they might as far as possible see that the 

 children exempted were to be employed in the open air, so that their 

 health might not be impaired. 



22. Turning next to higher education, the Committee find that in 

 England two Government Departments, the Boards of Education and of 

 Agriculture, are concerned in the work, with the result that there may be 

 some overlapping. In the first place, certain grants are made by the 

 Board of Education towards schools or classes in horticulture, among 

 other subjects, and the amount of the grants going to horticulture is on 

 the increase. The Board of Education visits and inspects these schools 

 or classes, but it is very difficult to estimate the character or the effect of 

 the work which is being done, as the Board itself confesses that its 

 Reports are in no way a guarantee of the soundness of the instruction 

 given. The Board does not inspect, it says, "as experts in horticulture, 

 but merely to see that its general arrangements are carried out." The 

 Committee would not be surprised to learn that some of the money thus 

 spent is wasted. In England, however, the principal horticultural 

 education is in the hands of certain colleges or schools which teach 

 agriculture or horticulture, or both, most of which are in connection with 

 one or more County Councils. To many of these the Board of Agriculture 

 makes grants, and in return inspects them, thus by a system of de- 

 centralisation taking a share in agricultural and horticultural instruction. 

 Horticulture is taught at the following colleges among those to which the 

 Board gives grants : the Yorkshire College, Leeds : the Armstrong College, 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne ; the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth ; 

 the University College, Reading ; the South-Eastern Agricultural College, 

 Wye, Kent ; the Midland Agricultural and Dairy Institute, Kingston, 



