Technical Education in Agriculture. 
107 
work in a mine"; but they learn the principles on which the art 
of mining engineering is based, and they learn them so well 
that, after spending a certain time subsequently in acquiring 
practical experience, they come into the front rank of mining 
engineers. Then, again, we have various schools of engineering. 
The students in these schools are not, however, engaged in 
building harbour walls, lighthouses, railways, or Forth Bridges, 
but they learn in the schools the principles which they afterwards 
put into practice. 
It is obvious that, if the possession of a fa^'m is to be a sine qua 
non, the salutary movement which is now in progress in the 
provinces can only end in disappointment. Moreover, it would 
be fatal to the aspirations of tbe University Colleges, and they 
would be permanently barred from taking any steps for the 
promotion of agricultural education. As a matter of fact, the 
possession of a farm is a mere incidental circumstance, and the 
lack of it should offer no obstacle whatever. In the provinces, 
students of the sciences bearing upon agriculture need experi- 
ence little difficulty in seeing good agricultural practice when 
they wish. Besides, the course in the colleges would not 
extend to more than about 32 weeks a year. This would afford 
the student, both in winter and summer, an opportunity to go 
on the farm again. It is not good policy to give the practical 
training and the theoretical instruction together, for it is diffi- 
cult to successfully combine sustained mental labour with hard 
farm work. It has been attempted, but not with success. A 
farm attached to a college is apt to be made a convenient 
excuse for shirking class-room or laboratory work. Student 
labour in the field is an expensive luxury to him who employs it, 
whilst if a student has to earn his college maintenance by the 
sweat of his brow, his time will be occupied more with earning 
than with learning. 
Reference is often made to the United States in support 
of the system of working students at an agricultural college 
the same as if they were reformatory boys. But even in America 
the practice is on the wane. The following letter from Professor 
L. H. Bailey, of the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, 
Ithaca, N.Y., speaks for itself : — 
The example of the Michigan Agricultural College, which is the oldest 
in America, and the chief exponent of the so-called manual labour system, 
is the best proof of the proposition that, as facilities for instruction grow, the 
mere manual trainiugs decrease in extent. That institution still holds to 
its traditional purposes, and most of its faculty would no doubt disclaim any 
falling off in the manual labour, Yet such labour has fallen off. It was 
once thought that every student should labour four hours every day. In 
my own day, labour was required for three and a half hours until about the 
