COL,CMBC. 
Added as a Sujijdf}iiciU monlhhi 1o ihe '"TROPICAL AGRICU LTVRIS'T.” 
The following pages include the contents of the Magazine of the School of 
Agriculture for Jannarj' 
TECHNICAL TNSTKUCTION. 
N an able article in, the He.st- 
minsler lievieic of July last by 
Professor Andrew Cray, an at- 
tempt is made to state what 
tecbnical education really means 
‘‘ First, then," says Prof. Cray, “ tecluiical educa" 
tion is education priuci])ally in the theory and the 
application of the scientific jjrinciple.s M hich un- 
derlie ordinary industrial operations, from the 
general economic laws which regulate commerce 
a)id trade, to the theory of the tools and processes 
of the craftsmen It is the assimilation of a 
Carefully-reasoned out ai}d coherent scheme of 
’nstruction in the general elementary principles of 
mathematics mechanics, chenii.stry, economic and 
natural science, with their applications, including 
also modem language.s, literature anil history, a 
scheme which will make the workman a thinken 
a self-directing intelligence, instead of a dull 
lifeless machine. The notion is much too pre_ 
valent that such education being useful is, there" 
fore, necessarily a lower kind of education than 
that contained in the traditional curricula of our 
public .schools and universities. It is also too 
much the habit of mind of those who have been 
trained, or more frequently those who, ha\ing 
spent some little (time) in the Academic groves, 
and heaving breathed the same air with scholars 
and phihsophwrs, only fancij they liave been 
trained, in the old Humanities, to regard all 
instructions in the great dejiarl incuts of human 
knoAvlcdgo which modem civilization and .scicutii 
tic discovery have called into e.xistence with 
contem])t, or at any rate, as unworthy the atten- 
tion of a man of ‘culture.’” 
These words come with great force from a 
writer of Prof. tJray’s experience, and should 
go far towards the end for ■\^•hich the article, 
from which Ave quote, was written, namely to 
dispel a consiilerable amount of misajijirehen.siou 
as to the meaning and scope of technic 1 1 eduea'- 
tion. Even in the case of agricultural education 
in Ceylon there has been this feeling of eou- 
i tempt referred to aboc'e, and ridicule, as stated 
; by the speakers at the recent prize distribution 
I held at the School of Agriculture ; and a good deal 
ofgratnitous but umA'elcome advice is continually 
being thrown out, while some are ever ready to 
^ decry and censure every effort made in "this 
; direction. One critic has gone the length of 
: saying that the funds available to the School 
, of Agriculture have been misappropriated ! The 
founder of the School of Agriculture was evidently 
not one of those who, according to Prof. Orav, 
misapprehended the meaning and scope of techni- 
cal education in agriculture, Avhen he formulated 
his scheme of education for agricultural str.dents 
in Ceylon, so as to make them “thinking, self- 
dircctiug intelligences.” It is a trite saying that 
the prosperity of a country depends upon the 
stale of its agriculture, but it is none the less 
true, and rvas well illustrated in the history of 
our own Island. And it is for the educatioii of 
the natives of this country in agriculture t'>at 
some Avould grudge a modest expendiuuo on the 
jiart of the (lovernment ; this too at a time 
I Avheu the necessity for such education is being 
recognized in every part, even the remotest, id' 
I the globe. 
I Hut it is an encouraging Ihoughl that the rulers 
; and lenders of the jieople are among i he patrons 
of technical education; and A\ith such word-s 
ns the agricultural students heard from the 
speakers at the School of Agriculture la-st month. 
