ROYAL AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE at Cirencester, in Wiltshire, originated in a meeting of the Cirencester and Fairhaven Farmers' Club, held in November, 1842, one of the fruits of an address by Robert Feffries Brown, on the "Advantages of a Specific Education for Agricultural Pursuits." The advantages then set forth were appreciated by the members present, and relying on and appealing to landholders and the occupiers, a deputation of the Club, headed by Mr. Brown, made known their plan throughout the kingdom-secured from Lord Bathurst, on a long lease, a farm of upwards of 400 acres, with an appropriate site and pasture land, on favorable terms-obtained subscriptions to the amount of 12,000l., and in March, 1845, secured a charter, incorporating the governors, proprietors, and donors, under the title of the Agricultural College, "for teaching the science of agriculture and the various sciences connected therewith, and the practical application thereof to the cultivation of the soil and the rearing and management of stock." The sum of 12,000l. being found inadequate for the objects in view, the capital was increased by subscriptions and donations to 20,32071.

The apparent interest in the enterprise induced the managers to make larger outlays in buildings and improvements than the funds in hand would justify, and the fee first fixed of 30%. for board and instruction, being inadequate to meet the actual cost, it was found in 1848 that there was a deficit of 10,000l. In this emergency, Mr. Holland, Earl Ducie, Earl Bathurst, Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, and Mr. Langston, raised 30,0007. on their personal security to pay the debts and increase the capital to 44,000%., and were intrusted with the management of the College.

The buildings now consist of the college hall, a laboratory, and chapel, erected on an elevated site, facing Lord Bathurst's beautiful park, and commanding extensive views over Wiltshire; together with extensive farm-buildings, and a veterinary hospital. Accommodations are provided for 85 students in residence, with additional rooms for students not matriculated for the whole course, but resorting to the institution for special instruction.

The resident staff of the College consists of the Principal, the Farm Manager and Demonstrator, the Chemical Professor and his assistant, and the Professors of Botany, Veterinary Surgery, Mathematics and Surveying, and a Drawing Master. Additional courses of Lectures are secured from men eminent in their specialties. The course of instruction embraces lessons and work in practical agriculture on the farm daily, commencing at 6.30 in the morning, and in lectures on Chemistry, applied, organic and inorganic; botany; veterinary surgery; anatomy and pathology; therapeutics; mechanics, mensuration, surveying, and drawing.

The attendance of students has not been large, and probably will not be until by government grants, or numerous scholarships, the expense of

residence and instruction is greatly reduced, and the full benefits of its course of instruction will not be appropriated by students, until the practice prevails of receiving no person as pupil who has not previously spent at least one year in the practical work of the farm to acquire the alphabet and grammar of agriculture, and at the close of a two years' course arrange for at least two years' further residence with a skillful farmer, in work and further study of the most approved agricultural literature, with careful daily observation on the processes going on around him. On this basis a class of professional farmers can be trained to introduce, perfect, and illustrate improved methods.

Thus far the great improvements in English agriculture have been made by large proprietors at great cost; and by slow degrees, and through the agencies of exhibitions and the public press, and the enhanced market value of the products, these improvements have passed into the practice of the small farmers.

The Royal Agricultural College, established thus far on an outlay of 50,000l. in permanent structures and improvements, has slowly worked its way into the confidence of British agriculturists, who are yet widely divided as to the best mode of educating the practical farmer. Early and continued apprenticeship is generally considered the surest way.

EXAMINATION AND PRIZE SCHEME OF ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.

In 1865, the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society established a scheme of prizes determinable on the Cambridge Local Examinations, 31 in all, varying in value from 17. to 10l., for proficiency in mathematics, botany, zoology, geology, mechanics applied to agriculture, and chemistry applied to agriculture; 120 candidates, sons of farmers, and intending to pursue the vocation of farmers, were examined, and 31 succeeded, representing 25 different schools. Students of the Royal Agricultural College took the highest prizes in chemistry applied to agriculture. The same scheme was tried in 1866, with the Oxford Local Examination. Prizes to the value of 100l. were competed for by 45 candidates, besides two scholarships of the value of 201. and 50%., to assist the successful candidates in spending one year with a practical agriculturist, or at Cirencester, Glasnevin, or the Agricultural Department of Edinburgh University.

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND.

A PROFESSORSHIp of Agriculture was established in the University of Edinburgh in 1856, and a scheme of study and graduation in this department was instituted in 1868, and coupled with it, a course of professional instruction in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery.

VETERINARY COLLEGES.

The earliest systematic training in the treatment of the diseases and accidents of domestic animals was begun in 1791-9 by Prof. Charles St. Bel, a graduate and an assistant in the Veterinary School of Paris, in St. Pancras, Camdentown, London. It has grown into a large establishment, and the veterinary surgeons of the army must hold a certificate of graduation from its board of instruction. A medical school of this class was instituted in Edinburgh under the auspices of the Highland Society in 1856.

SPECIAL SCHOOLS OF COMMERCE AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.

SPECIAL SCHOOLS OF COMMERCE, like those of Paris and Antwerp, described in the volume on Technical Education in France and Belgium, or like another, less thorough but more strictly professional type, those in the chief cities of the United States, to be hereafter described, do not exist in England. There are, however, several which bear the name, as well as another class, the characteristic study of which is economic science, as applied to commercial transactions. City of London School.

THE CITY OF LONDON SCHOOL is a Modern School on an old foundation, the main object of which, according to a printed statement of the Principal, and a special report of a Government Inspector, "is to prepare pupils of the middle class for the life of trades-people; to give them what is called a commercial education, or preparation for shops and merchants' offices, and, to some extent, a manufacturing career." The classification rests on a primary school in which no Latin is taught, and is entered by boys of eight years of age, and from this they pass to the middle or secondary school, from which a majority pass into business connections. Beyond the middle school there is another division, consisting, out of 650 pupils, of 80 to 90 who prepare for the University. In the Middle or Commercial School the peculiar studies are drawing, with writing and book-keeping; arithmetic, followed by algebra and geometry, with geometrical drawing; English language and literature, with French and, to some extent, Latin; geography and history, associated with the history and statistics of commerce; chemistry with physics, with special reference to domestic and manufacturing uses. The Latin, and particularly Greek, even with those who prepare for the university, is begun later than in the old Public or Grammar Schools, and with decided success so far as concerns the appreciation of the thought and style of the authors read. The Principal does not aim to give technical, but a general scientific preparation for a commercial career, and to the satisfaction of parents and employees. The school is under the management of a Committee of the City Council, which appropriated 20,000l. besides the site, to the building, and 9007. from the income of a fund towards the support of the teachers (12 class professors and 11 extra masters), who are paid up to a certain maximum according to the attendance of pupils.

King's College.

King's College, founded in 1829 in competition with University College for the patronage of residents in London, has a course of instruction framed to meet the demands of modern life; and yet provides for commercial education in the capital of England only through Evening Classes, and for young men already engaged as clerks and apprentices in mercantile houses.

BIRKBECK SCHOOLS AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE.

THE BIRKBECK SCHOOLS, so designated by their founder, Mr. William Ellis,* of London, after that eminent laborer in the field of scientific popular education, Dr. George Birkbeck,† although mainly elementary in their range and private in their management, belong to the department of technical instruction. The first was established in 1846. There are now (1869) five in London and its precincts, viz.: Southampton-buildings (Chancery-Lane), Peckham, Hackney, Gospel-Oak-Fields, and Bethnal-Green-all distinguished by the following characteristics: they are unsectarian, supported mainly by fees, and give instruction in the elementary principles of social and political economy. We have before us memoranda of a visit made to the school at Peckham, in company with Mr. Ellis, in 1852, and of a lesson given by Mr. W. Shields, the ingenious and successful principal; but we adopt here the fuller notice of the system from a paper by George C. T. Bartley, in the Journal of the Society of Arts, Dec. 17, 1869

THE PECKHAM SCHOOL, LONDON.

The Peckham School, situated in a populous part of the south-east of London, was opened in 1852, under the management of Mr. Shields, who still conducts it. At its commencement it was on a somewhat smaller scale, but has increased from time to time, as the neighborhood gradually appreciated the excellent education to be obtained in it, until, at the present time, about 600 chil

* WILLIAM ELLIS, founder of the Birkbeck Schools, in which the elementary principles of economic science are taught, was born in London, in 1800. Trained early to commercial pursuits, he was placed at the age of twenty-six at the head of a marine insurance office, which under his management has become one of the most successful of its class in the metropolis. Taught by Mr. Tooke in the whole subject of currency, and the phenomena of industrial life, in 1846 he began a series of lessons to the elder boys of a British School, on the subject, which were afterwards published in a little volume entitled, “Progressive Lessons in Social Science." About the same time he established an elementary school, in which the same subjects were taught, and the system of management more fully illustrated in the Peckham School was introduced. He is the author of "Outlines of Social Science;" "Introduction to the Study of Social Science;" "Outlines of the History and Formation of the Understanding;" "Questions and Answers as to some of the Arrangements of Social Life;" "The Phenomena of Industrial Life," edited by Dr. Dawes, Dean of Hereford; "Education as a Means of Preventing Destitution."

Mr. Ellis has expended on the Peckham School over $40,000 as an illustration of an elementary school for the laboring classes.

† GEORGE BIRKBECK, M. D., was born at Settle, in Yorkshire, Jan. 10, 1776. He studied for the medical profession in Leeds, London, and Edinburgh, where he took his degree in 1798. In 1799 he gave his first lecture as Professor of the Andersonian Institution, at Glasgow, on Natural and Experimental Philosophy, which in 1800 he repeated with special reference to mechanics. In 1802 he established a course of scientific instruction, with practical exercises, designed for workmen who had no previous instruction of this nature. In 1806 he removed to London, to pursue the practice of medicine. In 1820 he gave a gratuitous course of seventeen lectures at the London Institution. In 1823 the mechanics of Glasgow who had attended his lectures in 1802-5, in the Andersonian Institution, asked his consent for a portrait, which they placed in the Glasgow Mechanics' Institution, established in that year. In 1823, (Oct. 18,) he issued an Essay on the "Scientific Education of the Working Classes;" and on the 11th of November, he presided at a public meeting called to establish the London Mechanics' Institute-and on the 15th of December, he was elected president, which office he filled until his death, Dec. 1, 1841. On the 20th of Feb., 1824, he delivered the inaugural address on the opening of its first course of lectures.

For an account of this visit, and of the value of economic science in popular education, by Charles Knight, see Barnard's Papers for the Teacher, vol. ii. p. 107.

dren are daily under the instruction of fourteen teachers. All the children are day scholars, the greater part, of course, residing in the neighborhood of Peckham, though a large number come from Walworth, and a few from even a greater distance. Of these about a quarter are girls. Those over seven years of age of either sex, have separate class-rooms and play-grounds.

The school is divided into two:-1. The infant-school for boys and girls under seven years of age. 2. The junior school. 3. The upper school. The difference between these last two divisions does not consist in the grade of advancement of the children, but is more of a social difference, the payment being higher, and the children, consequently, belonging to parents of a higher position in life.

One great disadvantage of this social feeling, which prevents parents, whatever their position or means, from sending their children to begin in the lowest class and advance as they rise in learning, is the fact that it duplicates the elementary instruction. Many of the children in the upper school require the first lessons given to the lowest classes of the junior school, and, as they can not be made into one class, a considerable amount of teaching power and time is lost. The fees paid form a large part of the income of the school, though they are not quite sufficient to render it self-supporting. In the upper school they vary somewhat; but 12s. a quarter is the general charge. At Hackney, no less than £1 per quarter is paid in some cases; in the lower school, 6d. aweek for those under eleven, and 18. for those over that age. But even this limited fee of 6d., to some of the poorer pupils, is sometimes an occasion of irregularity. It is found absolutely necessary to charge some fee; but, during seasons of short work, the schooling is the first thing to be stopped, and, in the winter, if sending the child to school involves the purchase of a pair of boots, this will too often be the cause of a break of some weeks in its attendance.

The system of teaching largely adopted is that of question and answer-a mode advocated by Mr. Ellis, and carried on in this school with remarkable success. Few books are used, and the children are made familiar with the objects and facts which are being described to them, and in all cases, where possible, the blackboard becomes an important auxiliary to the teacher.

A peculiarity of the institution is the entire absence of the usual stimulus given to pupils by prizes and rewards. Occasionally a book may be given to a boy on leaving, as a private present, but there is no system of competition for prizes in the different classes.

The highest boys in the school are formed into the monitor's class, and great care is taken to secure only those who, by private character and habit, are good examples of conduct, as well as apt teachers. These monitors, during certain hours, take each a few of the lower classes and form what is called a collective class. Each small division of six or seven, under its monitor, is gathered round a blackboard, and some problem in arithmetic or other subject is worked at by all; the monitor learning probably more than any by the repeated questions of his pupils. The teacher is stationed at one end of the room, and appealed to in all cases of difficulty. In this way nearly all the masters in the school have been trained.

Some attention is given to drill, both with the boys and girls, but with the latter not to any great extent, and the whole time of the pupils is devoted to mental study, no part of the day being given to industrial training.

The subjects of instruction embrace those usually given in elementary schools. and, in addition, in the junior and upper schools, geography, history, French, drawing, and elementary and practical science.

The chief feature in the infant school is the great stress laid on instructing the children in printing. This is taught almost before writing, and, judging from the excellent writing throughout the school, there can be no doubt but that the mode adopted is most successful in forming a clear, good hand. Another plan, which is carried on with the same object, is the method of requiring children to copy sentences on large sheets of paper, which are needed from time to time to hang on the blackboard, for the use of the classes. These are done with a broad quill pen, in letters an inch or more in size, and the work is found to give freedom and neatness.

Arithmetic is really taught at this school, for it is unfortunately a fact that