530 Report on Agricultural Education. 
100/. to tliose at the Cambridge and Oxford examinations 
who having passed the preliminary examination should have 
distinguished themselves in mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, 
physics, botany, zoology, and geology. 
The objects which the Council hoped to attain were to 
improve sound general education, and to encourage proficiency 
in such branches of science as are more immediately applicable 
to agriculture ; but there were considerable differences of opinion 
upon the subject among the members of the Education Com- 
mittee. Alternative schemes were proposed by the dissident 
minority, and finally it was decided that senior and junior 
scholarships should be offered under certain conditions, which 
it was soon found were too stringent to be adhered to. For 
instance, candidates were to be the sons of tenant-farmers or 
of owners of land not exceeding 500 acres, and occupying their 
own land. 
The senior scholarships were only to be given on condition 
that the scholar should spend a year with a practical agri- 
culturist to be approved by the committee, or at one of the 
Agricultural Colleges; and the junior scholarships were subject 
to somewhat similar conditions. The want of success of this 
scheme was very striking. In the first year no candidate 
attempted to obtain the senior scholarship, and only seven 
contested the junior. In 1867 no examination was held under 
the auspices of the Society, but immediately after that a new 
scheme was drafted which, with certain modifications of details, 
has remained in operation ever since. It will be best to give 
the scheme as it stands in toto : — 
" The examinations will be conducted by means of written 
papers, and by a viva voce examination, at which any member 
of the Society may be present. 
" Every candidate will be required to satisfy the examiners 
in the science (Chemistry) and practice of Agriculture and in 
Book-keeping, and also in one of the two following subjects : 
Land Surveying and Mechanics as applied to Agriculture. 
" The successful candidates will be placed in two classes, 
and arranged in order of merit. 
" Candidates in order to be placed in the first class must 
satisfy the examiners in both Land Surveying and Mechanics as 
applied to Agriculture. 
" Any candidate may offer himself for examination in one 
or more of the following subjects, viz.: Botany, Geology,. or 
Anatomy. Any knowledge that he may show of these subjects 
will be counted to his credit in the general classification, pro- 
vided that he shall have fulfilled the foregoing conditions, and 
provided that the knowledge of these subjects docs not fall 
