426 
Agricultural Education in Ireland. 
of crops is extending ; the growth of root crops, and of artificial 
grasses, is also increasing ; and in due time correct ideas on all 
subjects relating to the proper cultivation and management of 
their holdings will prevail among the people. 
The Commissioners are anxious to increase very considerably 
the number and efficiency of this class of schools, and they con- 
fidently hope the Treasury will enable them to carry out their 
views. They are of opinion that all persons who are competent 
to form a correct opinion on this subject will applaud their 
efforts, and agree with the late Lord Palmerston, who in a speech 
delivered in the House of Commons, used these words : — " There 
could not possibly be a better application of money in Ireland, 
than in teaching the peasantry and small farmers how best to 
cultivate the soil, for they did not know how to realise, to the 
best account, the natural resources which lie undeveloped in the 
soil they tread." 
Having said so much with reference to the rural schools, I 
shall now make a few remarks on the Glasnevin or Central Agri- 
cultural Institution of Ireland. 
At the outset the great difficulty the Commissioners had to 
contend against was the want of teachers combining sufficient 
knowledge of improved farming with the ordinary qualifications 
of literary teachers. To supply this want, it manifestly became 
necessary to establish a model farm, and a school in the neigh- 
bourhood of Dublin, where the teachers would be trained in this 
new branch of education. This was the primary object of the 
Glasnevin Agricultural School. The Commissioners are now 
training in this central Institution 180 teachers every year. 
These teachers receive systematic lectures on the theory and 
practice of improved agriculture, and they see theory reduced to 
practice on the farm at Glasnevin. 
But while that institution was founded primarily for the in- 
struction of the schoolmasters, the Commissioners, from the out- 
set, made it available for the agricultural education and training 
of farmers, farm bailiffs, and estate agriculturists. The plant 
having been provided, it seemed to them wise and right to use 
the school for conferring benefits on as many pupils as pos- 
sible. The machinery of the national system enabled the Com- 
missioners to bring up from the provinces promising young 
men who evinced a decided taste for agriculture. To these they 
have endeavoured to afford sound instruction in modern farming, 
and training in agricultural practices. Of the young men so edu- 
cated and trained, some have emigrated, as might be expected, 
but the majority remain in the country, and are now occupied 
in farming for themselves, or as farm-bailiffs, or in instructing 
the tenants on certain large estates. 
