Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/237

Rh students, forestry and agriculture count as two. Five universities and numerous special schools furnish aid to agricultural education.

The little kingdoms of Belgium and Holland are following hard upon the tracks of their powerful neighbors. In Belgium may be found superior institutions of agriculture, horticulture, veterinary science, and forestry at Gembloux, Vilvorde, Cureghem, and Bouillon respectively.

In Holland, whose people robbed the sea to obtain lands for farms and homes, about £71,500 were expended by the state on its agricultural department in 1897. Its first school, established by a communal society at Hären in 1842, was discontinued. The state in 1876 adopted the school of agriculture which has been established at Wageningen as its own, and this institution can fairly lay claim to equality with any in Europe. Government also supports the State Veterinary College at Utrecht, and subsidizes a school of forestry and several dairy schools. Agricultural teaching in primary schools has not yet proved a success.

Italy has not made such progress in agricultural education as her northern neighbors, yet she is not indifferent to the requirements of the times. She has a most unique scheme for Government superintendence of agricultural matters. All comes under the purview of a general Director of Agriculture, assisted by a Council for Agricultural Instruction, which latter was established by royal decree in 1885, and reorganized in 1887. Four divisions of the department exist—namely, (1) agriculture proper, (2) zoötechny, (3) forestry, and (4) agricultural hydraulics. Statistics are not easily procured, but recent catalogues show that the two Royal Superior Schools of Agriculture, located respectively at Milan and Portici, are institutions of which any country might be proud. Of the latter Mr. E. Neville Rolfe, British consul, wrote in 1897 that it was originally a provincial establishment, but in 1885 it had been established by royal charter and domiciled in the magnificent grounds and buildings of a disused royal palace. Its study course requires three years to complete, and graduates obtain the degree of Laureato Agronomo. Up to 1896, two hundred and twenty-eight students had obtained this degree, most of whom are instructors or Government employees of high rank. It is known also that thirty-three special and practical agricultural schools exist in different parts of the kingdom.

Much can not be said in praise of agricultural education in Spain. That country possesses the machinery for education of the higher grades, but through her seven distinctly agricultural colleges, located at Madrid, Saragossa, Barcelona, Corunna, Valencia, Caceres, and Jerez, she seems only to have obtained men for