Education as connected with Agriculture. 
69 
appointment or this rivalry would not attach to an independent 
degree conferred by a special " Royal County University," as 
proposed by Lord Fortescue in his pamphlet just published,* with 
its own affiliated colleges and schools through the various coun- 
ties of England. The constitution of that University migbt in 
form and effect be analogous to that of the Royal Agricultural 
Society itself. The most honoured names of the country might 
be connected to give it distinction, the wealthier landlords and 
farmers would endow it with scholarships and fellowships, while 
the cost of its annual examinations and degrees would be easily 
defrayed by the ordinary subscriptions or fees paid by the 
numerous and important class it is intended to serve. The 
colleges and the schools connected with it would, as in the case 
of the Devon County School, owe their foundation to local 
interests, and be maintained by the payments of students, with 
such assistance as the liberality of local benefactors might yield. 
And if, as I have ventured to anticipate, these schools and col- 
leges were to supply from the sons of the independent classes 
well-trained and well-conditioned masters for the elementary 
schools as well as for their own, it would not be unreasonable to 
expect that some portion either of the Government annual grant 
or of the hitherto neglected or misused educational endowments 
of the country might be applied to provide subsidies, or, better 
still, retiring pensions for such masters. 
Under such a system one might venture to anticipate a re- 
markable change in our agricultural districts. England would 
be England still, with no abrupt revolution in the habits or 
mutual relations of its several classes ; but education, the im- 
provement of man, would keep equal pace with other improve- 
ments. The rising wages of the labourer would enable him to 
afford that which the example and countenance of his employer 
would recommend — the education of his own children according 
to their station. The cost of suitable elementary schooling is 
now declared by authority to be 30s. per annum. Even this, if 
the parent paid it all, would in many districts be no dispropor- 
tionate burden to the wages earned. But this 30s. includes a 
large estimate for the cost of educating teachers. This, according 
to the views I have advocated, might be entirely deducted if the 
teachers were by a different system drawn from a class who can 
afford to provide their own education. But the Government 
grants, though objected to by many, are so established and 
accepted that they are not likely to be withdrawn. The re- 
sources of charity also, whether by endowment or subscription, 
* ' Public Schools for the Middle Classes,' by Earl Fortescue, Patron of the 
Devon County School. Longman and Co., 1804. 
