Supplement to the “ 
Tropical- Agriculturist'’' 
583 
Feb. 1, 1898.] 
owes its birth, It is a pleasure to me to be 
associated with your Principal, with members of 
whose family I had lived on the pleasantest 
terms for many years. I have, too, a double 
interest in schools, having been both a schoolboy 
and schoolmaster. A schoolmaster I was — earning 
a hard living at a younger age than most of 
the students who are present today. I always 
look back to that time with pleasure. It was 
the hardest work I ever had, for 1 was teaching 
others all day and myself agocd deal of the night. 
There are those who argue that the Agricultural 
School, as a training school for agricultural 
students, seems likely to fail in its object 
because it cannot attract students without adven- 
titious aid. Students only came because the fees 
were low and because they hoped that special 
prizes would be offered, and that were these 
inducements withdrawn, students would cease 
to be attracted. Why, of course, no school will 
attract students without offering some special 
attractions. But the reply is — an agricultural 
training school is founded no doubt to meet a spe- 
cial demand for that form of education. I used to 
discuss the question with Mr. Green who had a 
twm-fold idea : — To spread the teaching of agri- 
cultural science among the peasantry through the 
agency of trained teachers from this centre in the 
Government village schools. The other idea was 
that gentlemen farmers — a most neglected illi- 
terate class in this country — should send their 
sons here to pick up Western ideas. This was 
bound to fail from two causes, first, where the 
class of embryo agricultural school teachers came 
the sons of wealthy people would not come. 
The parents preferred a literary education because 
it sounded better and because the boys mixed with 
their equals. It was impossible to cater for both 
classes at the same time. But there was, and is 
still, this still more fatal objection. An agri- 
cultural training school, such as that at Cirencester 
is an excellent institution, but only under the 
condition, r.e., that the students shall be sfficiently 
advanced in primary education before they enter 
such a class. It is specialising in knowledge and 
should be wholly apart from the rudiments of 
general knowledge. It is only wasting the time of 
the teaching staff if there is not this foundation 
to work on. The foundation is a sound elementary, 
commercial education in English : — A decent Board 
school curriculum, or better still, the learning to 
be got at a Scotch parish school. Your funda- 
mental error here is to try to build on a defective 
foundation. Were I king, I w'ould ordain that all 
boys in Colombo should be taught rather to a 
certain age, 14 or 15, or up to a certain standard 
in the English language and in reading, writing 
and arithmetic. Under our present voluntary 
system, one-half at least of the boys of Colombo 
get no education at all, and the rest, when they 
ought to be grounded in elementary subjects, are 
being taught to acquire a glimmering of special 
culture when they are mentally still unfit to 
assimilate the knowledge. A very fair illustra- 
tion occurs to my own knowledge in connection 
with this School Magazine. Ceylon is essentially 
an agricultural country, although I see a dozen 
reasons why Colombo should also be a manu- 
facturing centre. Well, it is for the present an 
agricultural country. 1 contributed not long ago 
to the '' Agricultural School Magazine ” a paper 
on an agricultural subject in order to elicit 
criticism on the facts and figures which it had 
taken me years to collect. Six newspapers turned 
the stuff into leading articles and indulged in 
guarded generalities. But although the subject 
was one which must be vitally important to 
very many trained students, and to gentlemen 
farmers; and although I purposely quoted figures 
(not my own) which must have struck any reader 
as abnormal, not a single criticism ever appeared 
either in the magazines or in the six news- 
papers. You may call that Oriental apathy. I 
am inclined to hold that it is a direct result 
of the Ceylon system of education. An unhealthy 
Strasburg system of gathering up just a portion 
of all the chickens. And now I come to my 
deduction and the conclusion which has a special 
bearing on the future of this school. All boys 
of Colombo should be taught the English language 
and the rudiments of a commercial education. 
Beading, Writing and Arithmetic. They should 
be at School from 8 years until they have 
passed the Vth Standard ot a Board School, or 
until they have attained 15 years. The rate- 
payers should elect their representatives by Wards, 
and each Ward should either arrange with the 
great Educational Societies to provide this ele- 
mentary education or should apply to the 
Municipal Council for the establishment of a 
secular Board School. It is quite i^ossible that 
this could all be arranged without an addition 
to the direct taxation; although Colombo rate- 
payers should bear in mind that their rates are 
only half of those in some other eastern cities, 
and only one-third of what 1 have to pay at home. 
At the end of this free course of elementary edu- 
cation, 90 per cent of the boys should straightway 
go and earn their living. If they care to read 
then, they can go on educating themselves till 
they die. We will give them opportunities to do 
so. If they don’t care to read and go on, they 
can do without. They may forget what they have 
learnt and be none the worse for it. But they 
will have had their chance — which they have 
not now — and that is a chance which should be 
allowed to all free men under the principles of 
English rule. There will remain 10 per cent or 
so : either the sons of wealthy parents or boys 
of exceptional promise. Those who are destined 
to have a superstructure raised on the sound 
foundation thus laid in their mind will at the 
age of lo or 16 matriculate at the University 
of Colombo. The University of Colombo — where 
all the higher education will be imparted — will 
raise a stately noble architectural triumph on the 
site where we are now assembled. Situated in the 
central of the wealthy suburbs of Colombo, it 
will be most convenient for the purpose. It 
will be a teaching, examining and residential 
University. The cluster of houses — Colleges we 
may call them — grouped round the University 
buildings w^ould bear the time-honoured names of 
the Educational History of Ceylon. St. Thomas’ 
College w’ould be there, and the Eoyal, St. 
Joseph’s, St. Benedict’s perhaps : perhaps Trinity 
for the Kandyans and perhaps Gogerly House to 
represent the time-honoured name of a revered 
discijile of Wesley. And I have my eye on a big 
new house, not far off, for an ideal home for the 
