Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/244

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
230
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In Victoria there exists a college at Dookia and another at Longerong. There is also a school of horticulture at Richmond.

To New South Wales belongs the banner for furnishing the greatest opportunities for agricultural education. Its university at Sydney grants a degree of B. Sc. to students from the colleges of St. Paul, St. John, St. Andrew, the Woman's College, and the Sydney Grammar School. At Sydney also is the splendid Technical College, handsomely endowed, having an agricultural department. The superior of all other schools is the Hawksbury Agricultural College and Experimental Farm at Richmond, established in 1891, richly endowed with land (three thousand acres), and organized on the most approved modern models. Science teaching is not carried so high as the university standard, but all manner of practical work must be performed by each student.

Homeward bound, we reach Cape Colony, South Africa. Here, in 1887, the Government inaugurated a scheme for aiding farm schools in which elementary agriculture was taught. In 1894, out of 852 schools aided by the Government, 202 were classed as "farmhouse schools." In higher education there may be found (1898) the School of Agriculture and Viticulture at Stellenbosch, and a second one at Sunset East. As both of these schools are young, statistics concerning them are not yet available.

Last of England's colonies we notice the Dominion of Canada on our northern frontier. No evident progress has been made in introducing agricultural science teaching in the primary schools of the entire Dominion. The first step taken in the direction of agricultural education was for the enlightenment of farmers. In 1886 Parliament authorized the establishment of a system of experiment farms, one in each province in Canada, viz.: one at Ottawa (to serve both Quebec and Ontario), and one each at Nappan, in Nova Scotia; at Brandon, Manitoba; at Indian Head, Assiniboia; at Agassiz, British Columbia; and at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. To give these stations greater efficiency, the Government encouraged the formation of farmers' institutes in every electoral district for the hearing of lectures from experts which it provided, and for discussion or business. To each regularly organized institute of fifty members a grant of £10 is annually made.

In Nova Scotia five primary and secondary schools are reported as giving agricultural instruction to two hundred pupils. Some of these schools have farms or gardens. The Provincial School of Agriculture at Truro is making a good beginning. In its last class three students were granted teachers' diplomas, seven received farmers' diplomas, and eighteen took farmers' certificates. Three