Report on Agricultural Education. 
155 
of considerable antiquity, has only recently become of much 
importance. 
Ey the law of 1879 every department not already possessing a 
professor of agriculture was compelled to elect one by competitive 
examination under certain Government regulations. The ex- 
amination has to be upon the general principles of agriculture, 
of viticulture, of arboriculture, of horticulture, and on the 
sciences in connection with these arts. The candidates must 
be of French nationality, and at least twenty-five years of age. 
The professors must give their lessons at the normal primary 
schools and at such otlier public institutions as exist, and they 
also have to deliver lectures in the different Communes to the 
teachers and agriculturists of the district. 
The salaries of the professors of agriculture are paid by the 
State, and the travelling expenses by their own department. 
Their salaries are fixed on the following scale : Fourth class, 
120/. ; third class, 140/. ; second class, 160/. ; and first class, 
180/. On appointment, every professor enters the fourth class, 
and no promotion to a superior class can take place without 
three years' service at least. Such promotion is decided upon 
by the two Ministers (of Agriculture and Commerce and of 
Public Instruction and Fine Arts). The agricultural lectures 
have to be delivered according to a programme decided upon 
each year by the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. 
Not less than twenty-six are to be delivered in a year, the 
localities in which they take place being decided on by the 
Prefect. 
In one of the letters of instruction to the professors, they are 
reminded by the Minister that their " mission is to keep the 
cultivators of the soil informed respecting modern discoveries 
and new inventions of economical and advantageous applica- 
tion, so as to let them be ignorant of nothing which it is to 
their advantage to know, but to lead them forward in the 
general movement of progress in which they participate to 
so small an extent owing to their isolation." The following 
remarkably sensible advice is also given : — " I should recom- 
mend you to use great prudence with respect to questions of 
theory, or rather of principle which you may be tempted to 
broach. In addressing cultivators and practical men, who 
have the knowledge for themselves which tradition gives, — 
that is to say, the slow and patient observation of facts from 
generation to generation, you should dwell only upon well- 
known truths and principles clearly proved by science. Your 
language should be clear, simple, and denuded of all expressions 
which will not be thoroughly comprehensible to your audience. 
1 ou should not forget, in point of fact, that as lecturer your 
