courses of study and years of practical work on an established farm. Verily, the country that excels Germany in training agriculturists must be par excellence in its methods.
A special feature of agricultural teaching is the traveling professor (Wanderlehrer). United States Consul Monaghan enthusiastically describes him: "These teachers, supported partly by the state and by agricultural unions, go from place to place … and lecture on agricultural and horticultural subjects. Their purpose is to lift up and ennoble agricultural life; to afford the farmer the knowledge gleaned by science since he left the school; to impart to him the best methods of selecting soils, fertilizers, cattle, trees, etc.; to teach him how to use his lands to best advantage, to graft, to breed in; to get the best, quickest, and most profitable results. These teachers are skilled scientists, practical workers, not theorists, … perfectly familiar with the wants and needs of their districts. Armed with this knowledge, the teacher's usefulness is certain and unlimited. When he speaks his voice is that of one in authority, it is heeded.… He is a walking encyclopædia of knowledge, especially of knowledge pertaining to the woods, hills, farms, and fields."
Austria has, like Germany, a system of agricultural and forestry schools in three grades—viz., superior, middle, and lower. Its oldest school of superior grade was established in 1799 at Krumman.[1] Similar schools existed later at Grätz, Trieste, Lemberg, Trutsch, and Altenburg. The latter is especially complete in every appliance for instruction, and well patronized. The middle schools provide two-year courses of study and practice, and are located at Grossan, Kreutz, Dublany, and other points, while the lower schools incline less to study and more to lectures and farm practice. They are located in the provinces of Bohemia, Styria, Galicia, and Carinthia.
Forestry schools of various grades exist at Mariabrunn, Wissewasser, Aussen, Pibram, Windschact, and Nagny; of these, Mariabrunn is especially deserving of mention for its thorough course and complete equipment.
Switzerland was the home of the philanthropist and educator Fellenburg, His school, established at Hopyl in 1806, was a philanthropy in aid of the peasantry, concerning whom he said that possessing nothing but bodies and minds, the cultivation of these was the only antidote for their poverty. At least three thousand pupils received their education in agriculture here. The Federal Polytechnic School at Zurich is the nation's pride. Out of six courses of superior training which it provides for its one thousand
- ↑ See Barnard's Journal of Education, vol. xx, 1870, p. 673.
