406 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ent status merely is indicated. The purpose and energy of the 
government are further and even more forcibly shown by the 
fact that its annual appropriation to this one great academy at 
present exceeds the sum of $100,000. * * * 
GREAT BRITAIN. 
Great Britain has been surprisingly slow, anci, so far as the 
attempt has been made, rather unsuccessful in the department 
of agricultural education. In 1849 a school was established at 
Cirencester, with royal title, and with at first a promise of 
usefulness. The buildings were ample and substantial; the 
farm of seven hundred acres, though rather poor, tolerably 
well adapted to the purpose intended; the course of instruc¬ 
tion given by six professors, some of them, as for example 
Dr. Yoelcker, eminent in the profession ; and the need of such 
an institution generally recognized among the intelligent 
agriculturists of the kingdom. Nevertheless, the institution 
has never flourished in the best sense of that term, and is 
now half abandoned bv even its friends. Whether its failure 
«/ 
to meet the expectation of its originators has been due to the 
form of its organization, or to that pertinacity of the English 
aristocracy which, so long as pupils from the middle and 
lower ranks in life attended the college, held back the sons of 
the nobility from participating in its benefits, or to the refusal 
of the government to grant the necessary aid, and the conse¬ 
quent high charges made for instruction, ($175 per annum,) 
or whether all these circumstances combined to prevent its 
success, there seems to be difficulty in determining. But the 
fact is undeniable that the institution languishes, while the 
few joung men ambitious of a knowledge of scientific agricul¬ 
ture are found distributed among the schools of the continent. 
Some little instruction is given in agriculture by professors 
in various institutions of scientific and technical character, but 
hardly sufficient in amount and importance to demand special 
attention. 
In Scotland, professional instruction in agriculture is con¬ 
fined to a single chair in the university of Edinburgh, and to 
special lectures given in a college at Aberdeen. 
