Technical Education in Agriculture. 
XXXV 
the Council approve of a Normal 
School of Agriculture for Scientific 
Instruction." He did not pose as a 
scientist himself ; he had no scientific 
knowledge ; he did not know that at 
seventy-one years of age he should 
attempt to acquire it. He shared with 
others, and especially with the manu- 
facturing side of their community, 
the firm conviction that their future 
prosperity in agriculture, as their 
prosperity in the great iron trade and 
coal business, and in the other great 
operations which England conducted, 
must depend primarily upon science. 
With reference to technical instruc- 
tion, he had very grave doubts about 
its being of service. The present 
efforts were the result of the grant of 
a good deal of Government money. 
The popular idea was that the Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer would renew 
the grants ; that might or might not 
' be tlae case. Now the Royal Agricul- 
; tural Society, in furtherance of science, 
had applied recently the same methods 
it had applied in the improvement of 
stock — the prize system. They allo- 
I Gated 500Z. a year to agricultural edu- 
cation ; it was given for the most part 
in prizes. Acknowledging, as they 
did, the advantage of scientific train- 
ing, they had done but very little of 
a direct and legitimate character in 
the production of the pupil. He had 
a list of the names of each institution 
who furnished them with their so- 
called scientific offspring — but which 
he was rather inclined to term chance 
children. Let them look at the list : 
Maybole, Northampton, Portsmouth, 
Norfolk, Devon, Ashburton, and Surrey 
County Schools, &c. They were not 
concerned with the curriculum or 
,1 syllabus of any one of these instil u- 
I tions. It was sufficient for them if 
they sent upcandidates for their prizes. 
He had seen, not long ago, a return of 
what became of these young men. 
Had they become agriculturists ? The 
greater part of them were nothing 
of the sort. They had applied 
I their minds sufBciently to get their 
I scholarsl.ips and prizes, and then 
they went about their business all 
I over the world. He employed the 
. phrase " normal school" in its techni- 
' cal sense— an establishment where 
j teachers of agriculture should be 
trained and produced. It was not 
sufficient to make a teacher a scien- 
tific man, unless they conferred upon 
him also the art of imparting his 
knowledge to others — and that was 
an art for which there was likely to 
be a demand. Tlicy saw already that a 
number of new institutions — and some 
older ones — were taking up the ques- 
tion. He went to Bangor the other 
day, and he was delighted with what 
they were doing there. He had also 
gone to Yorkshire, and was there 
impressed with the idea that they 
meant to take up the teaching of 
agriculture. He could not expect any 
support from the speech of the oldest 
friend of education in that room — 
Mr. Dent — but he was going to get a 
little support from what Mr. Dent had 
recently put into print. In that 
supplementarj' report before the 
Council there was this passage : — 
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. 
He thoroughly endorsed that, but 
to have competent teachers thej' must 
bring them up to be competent 
teachers. Therefore he said and be- 
lieved that they ought to do all they 
possibl}' could for the production of 
scientific teachers. Now the demand 
for scientific teachers would be best 
provided for by a normal school. He 
did not propose the direct establish- 
ment by the Royal Agricultural 
Society of a normal school. He 
merely said it was desirable that there 
should be one. He would take, as an 
example, the Yorkshire College ac 
Leeds, on the Council of which there 
were many able men. not the least 
able of whom was Mr. Dent. He 
found that college in the pangs of 
child-birth with a scheme for agricul- 
tural education. Now supposing the 
thing came to its birth — and he had 
no reason to doubt it — they had 
another banfling. It might be a very 
useful bantling for his purpose. He 
should be very pleased if the Royal 
Agricultural Society could identify 
itself with this new scheme in York- 
shire, which was in a very good cen- 
c 2 
