Agricultural Education in France. 



201 



methods which have been attained. The difference in func- 

 tions between the two classes of professors has been thus 

 denned by M. Tisserand : " The task of the departmental pro- 

 fessor is to teach the agricultural classes : that of the speci al 

 professor to inform them." In 1894 the number of such 

 special professors was given as 114, and there are now 

 apparently about 160, including two at primary schools for 

 girls. 



Elementary, as distinct from primary, agricultural educa- 

 tion is afforded by the Farm Schools and the Practical 

 Schools. 



Farm schools, where the sons mainly of peasants are to 

 all intents and purposes apprenticed to the director of the 

 school fwho farms the land connected with it at his own risk), 

 show a steady decline of late years. Mr. Jenkins reported 

 23 in existence in 1882, whereas there had previously been 

 40 or 50, and Mr. Austin Lee states that there were 75 in 

 1852. In 1888 the number had sunk to 18, in 1891 to 17, in 

 1893 to 16, and in 1899 to 14. There are, in addition to 

 these farm schools, two sheep farm schools, one silk school, 

 14 cheese-making schools, and one school of fish-breeding. 



In contradistinction to the decline of farm schools has been 

 the rise in practical schools, which were designed to fill up 

 for the benefit of the small farmer or peasant proprietor the 

 g'ap between the primary or superior primary schools, and 

 the National Institutions mentioned later on. In some 

 instances no doubt they would bridge over for the pupil this 

 interval between the one class of instruction and the other, 

 but their chief object would seem to be — in the terms of the 

 report of one of these schools, as quoted by Mr. Austin Lee 

 — to take the child from the primary school, to give him two 

 years' thorough practical and theoretical teaching, and then 

 to send him back to the agricultural family, which he will 

 not again, leave. These schools take pupils from the age of 

 about 13 to 18 and train them for one, two, or occasionally 

 three years. Land, varying in extent from 7 acres at one 

 school to 850 at another, is attached; generally, however, 

 there are from 100 to 350 acres. The farming- risks are all 

 taken by the director, who is either the proprietor of the 



