In France, there are seventy-five agricultural
schools; but in seventy of them--called inferior schools--the
instruction is a compound of that given in our public schools and the
discipline of a good farmer upon his land, with some special attention
to agricultural reading and farm accounts. Such schools are not desired
and would not be patronized among us. When an agricultural school is
established, it must be of a higher grade,--it must take rank with the
colleges of the country. President Hitchcock, in his report, published
in 1851, states that six professors would be required; that the first
outlay would be sixty-seven thousand dollars, and that the annual
expense would be six thousand and two hundred dollars. By these
arrangements and expenditures he contemplates the education of one
hundred students, who are to pay annually each for tuition the sum of
forty dollars. It was also proposed to connect an agricultural
department with several of the existing academies, at an annual expense
of three thousand dollars more. These estimates of cost seem low, nor do
I find in this particular any special objection to the recommendation
made by the commissioners of the government; any other scheme is likely
to be quite as expensive in the end.
My chief objection is, that such a plan is not comprehensive enough, and
cannot, in a reasonable time, sensibly affect the average standard of
agricultural learning among us.
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