74 Report of Committee on Agricultural Education. 
towns which, in an old, densely populated, and industrial 
country like this, creates the danger that the prolonged 
separation of a lad from the land may terminate in a 
permanent divorce. In Prussia, Denmark, Holland, and 
Canada, where serious attention has been given to the 
instruction of the agriculturist, the importance of practical 
training, before technical instruction is attempted, has been 
clearly demonstrated, so much so, indeed, that at Guelph, 
perhaps the first agricultural college in the world, no student 
is now admitted who has not had practical experience on 
a farm. 
Migratory and Advisory Work. 
Instruction in agriculture, horticulture, dairying, poultry 
keeping, farm hygiene, farriery, and manual agricultural 
processes such as hedging and thatching, has been provided 
by means of lectures, demonstrations, and visits of advice by 
instructors employed direct by county councils as well as 
by members of the staff at agricultural institutions. With 
regard to such work, the Committee considered that, while 
itinerant instructors should in the future play a much more 
important part in the system of agricultural education in 
this country than hitherto, yet the continuance of casual 
classes in the subjects mentioned is undesirable. “ While 
much good has been accomplished by some itinerant teachers, 
the Committee cannot but feel that as a whole the work has 
suffered from want of system. Classes have been held at 
irregular intervals often by persons who have come to and 
left the district as strangers, whose lack of local knowledge 
has discredited their teaching, and who have produced no 
effect on the methods of cultivation pursued in farm and 
garden.” “ Local authorities,” the Report continues, “ should 
be encouraged to concentrate their attention upon obtaining 
a permanent staff of teachers. If funds are small they should 
prefer one permanent to several temporary teachers . . . 
To stimulate local authorities to provide capable teachers, the 
Committee think that grants-in-aid should be made by the 
Board of Agriculture.” With a view to the better organisation 
of this class of work and in order to ensure that the practical 
skill of these permanent instructors shall be maintained, it is 
urged that, in districts where “ there is no suitable institution 
with which the county instructors could be associated, farm 
institutes should be established to serve as headquarters for 
the entire itinerant staff.” A farm institute in every county 
is therefore recommended in order “to give definiteness of 
aim and stability to county work.” Attached to each institute 
would be a farm laid out as typical of the district, the general 
