cxcii 
Monthly Council, November 5, 1890. 
able for technical education. There- 
fore, the first portion of that report, 
down to paragraph 9, he thought he 
might say gave a short sketch of 
all that had been done, and suggested 
what might be done further, and what 
assistance might be given from County 
funds, and also from Imperial funds. 
So far there was no difference of 
opinion in their Committee. They 
agreed to endorse the views of Nos. 
2, 3, 4, and 5 of the recommendations 
adopted by the Joint Committee. 
Then they came to a very important 
matter, viz., the first recommendation 
of the Joint Committee : That a 
Normal School or College of Agricul- 
ture should be established and main- 
tained at the expense of the State 
somewhere in England. The more 
he considered that subject, the more 
he individually felt the difficulty at 
the present moment and the inex- 
pediency of founding such a college 
equipped and managed by the State. 
No one had a great opinion of the 
State Institution at South Kensing- 
ton in its work for the diffusion of 
agricultural knowledge ; and under 
the supervision and management of 
Government officers they might have 
the same sort of thing. Moreover, if 
a farm were taken in hand, it would 
certainly be a losing concern. The 
Royal Agricultural College, Cirences- 
ter had been obliged to transfer the 
farm to practical hands. At Barnard 
Castle and Aspatria neighbouring 
farmers with diverse systems of man- 
agement placed their farms at the 
disposal of the authorities of the 
schools, that they might take their 
pupils to the farms and show them 
what was being done. He could give 
other reasons, but he would not de- 
tain the Council. He had a very 
strong personal opinion that it was 
unwise to establish a State School of 
Agriculture, and therefore the recom- 
mendation of that report which he 
had laid before the Committee was 
that they should not concur in Re- 
commendation 1 suggesting the es- 
tablishment of a Central Normal 
School of Agriculture. This was 
agreed upon by their Committee yes- 
terday. 
They did not think either that it 
was advisable to go further than what 
was being done ut present by recom- 
mending that agricultural subjects 
should be taught in rural elementary 
schools. Generally speaking, the 
masters of these schools had already 
quite enough to do in teaching all 
the subjects now given to them. It 
would not be wise, and it would be 
hard upon the teachers, to put upon 
them the teaching of the additional 
subject of agriculture. The Committee 
suggested that the better-informed 
scholars might be granted bursaries 
or scholarships to go to the secondary 
schools for the study of agriculture. 
They might have better reading-books 
and diagrams for teaching agricul- 
tural subjects, but of course he could 
not now go into details with regard 
to those matters. The report in effect 
approved of Recommendations Nos. 
2, 3, 4, and 5, and disagreed with 
the Recommendations Nos. 1 and 6. 
He begged to move that that report 
be received and adopted. 
Mr. Pell, as the member of 
Council who moved the amendment 
in Committee, said it would not be 
out of place if he made a few re- 
marks upon it, and the reasons which 
led him to differ from some of his 
colleagues. It had been stated by 
Mr. Dent that his motion had been 
lost only by the casting vote of the 
Chairman, but he would have sub- 
mitted to that decision unhesitatingly 
had it not been that he felt that the 
question which had been raised was 
one of extreme importance to that 
Society: more, perhaps, to tli.it 
Society than to the cause of agri- 
cultural education generally. The 
first resolution of the Joint Com- 
mittee of the Central Chamber of 
Agriculture and the Farmers' Club — 
he was not upon that Committee — 
dealt with the scientific teaching, 
and that it would be best gMven in 
one Normal School for Great Britain. 
He concurred in that view, because 
he thought the science of agriculture 
— if there were such a thing — was 
extremely obscure, extremely difficult 
to master, somewhat novel, and, as 
far as his judgment went, there would 
be but few men in this country, and 
possibly in Europe, able to deal with 
the question. Consequently, he 
thought that they could hardly 
expect to find those geniuses 
scattered about in any sporadic 
