156 Beport of the Education Committee, February 3, 1891. 
tions are based on the supposition that these funds may be used for 
assisting institutions in contiguous counties when it is evident that 
the inhabitants of the county so contributing would be benefited 
thereby. 
3. We must not imagine that our agricultural population is so 
destitute of means of agricultural information as some people would 
declare. For years earnest and cultivated men, like Sir John Lawes, 
Sir Harry Thompson, Mr. Pusey, Mr. Chalmers Morton, Mr. Wren 
Hoskyns, and many more whom we could mention, gave to tlie 
public the results of their researcli in the pages of the Journals of 
the Royal Agricultural and the Bath and West of England Societies, 
and in the " Agricultural Gazette." Since those earlier clays others 
have continued in the agricultural press of the present day to spi'ead 
their theories and extend their teaching ; and every one who has 
noticed farm progress for the last fifty years, both in prosperous and 
unfortunate times, has seen the result of this teaching. We might 
also mention the good work done at Cirencester, Downton, and else- 
where, and the encouragement given in this direction by the Science 
and Art Department and by our own Society. 
4. There is now, however, a demand for something beyond this. 
We are asked to provide competent teachers who may instruct 
classes in colleges or schools, or who may take their teaching to the 
country villages and towns, and so bring it home to the people 
interested. 
5. Many institutions for higher education liave of late years been 
established, and these have already in existence the means of teach- 
ing physiology, chemistry, botany, mechanics, and other brandies of 
science which are cognate to agriculture. It would not, we think, 
be difficult to find such convenient centres in most parts of England. 
The College of Science at Newcastle, affiliated to the University of 
Durham, would supply a centre for the northern counties ; the 
Yorkshire College at Leeds for Yorkshire ; the Owens College at 
Manchester for Lancashire and Cheshire ; the LTnivei'sity College of 
North Wales at Bangor for North Wales and the border counties ; 
Nottingham for one portion of the Midlands, Birmingham* for 
another ; Cambridge for the Eastern and Oxford for the Home 
Counties. No doubt we have omitted some institutions ; but we 
have sufficiently indicated that there are already in existence centres 
of education which might serve for groups of counties, at wliich 
could be obtained the adequate instruction of teachers, and also at 
which students might attend without much difticulty. 
G. Groups of County Councils might agree to support the 
agricultural or other technical instruction at these centres. A 
common course of teaching might be agreed upon between the 
authorities of tliese institutions, a common standard for degrees, 
diplomas, and scliolarships, and possibly a common Board of 
Examiners. To all these objects the County Councils affected 
might contribute ; and scholarsliips might be given by local autho- 
rities, and by the Royal and otlier Agricultural Societies. It might 
then be possible to relinquish the Senior Examinations of the Royal 
