Besides these, Russia sustains 68 agricultural schools, containing 3,157 pupils, at a cost of $403,500, of which sum the Government pays $277,500, and the local zemstovs (societies) or the school founders pay $136,000.
In France the eminent scientist Lavoisier, at the close of the last century, advocated the founding of a national school for the teaching of agricultural science. His plan for government initiation was not realized, but in 1822 Matthieu de Dombasle founded, near Nancy, the first true agricultural school. In 1829 and 1830 the schools at Grignon and Grandjouan were founded by August Bella and Riefell respectively. Now France boasts of one of the most perfect systems of agricultural education of any country of the world. Under the joint direction of her Ministers of Agriculture and of Public Instruction, France plans to cover every phase of education from the simplest forms of object lessons taught by law in all her primary schools to the crowning National Institute of Agriculture at Paris. The facts of science, united with the soundest experience, are demonstrated to the farmer by lectures and experimentation; the future agriculturists of the country are educated in the certainties of scientific research at graded schools, ranging from elementary to university degrees, and every milkmaid is taught the necessity of promptness, cleanliness, and system in the care of milch cows and in the disposal of their milk.
The former able Director-General of French Agriculture, Monsieur Tisserand, says: "The aim and object of France has been not only to give to children and young people the means of acquiring knowledge, but also to establish means for interesting old cultivators. In this century of extreme competition we must admit that the agriculturist can only thrive if, in working the soil, he adopts scientific methods. Old routine is no longer sufficient in this branch, as it is proved to be insufficient in manufacture." In carrying out her enlightened policy, instruction was given in 1893[21] to 3,600 pupil teachers. Thirty agricultural laboratories throughout the country furnish analyses of soils and manures for the help of cultivators, and 3,362 trial fields are established where farmers can profit by experiments suitable to their own districts. The special farm schools number sixteen; practical schools of agriculture, thirty-nine; national schools of agriculture and horticulture, six; three veterinary schools; and one each, bearing the name of National Agronomic Institute, is a shepherd school, a cheese, and a silkworm school. In the universities are no less than 160 departments and chairs of agriculture for students of profoundest research. All this costs the departments alone over 4,504,050 francs per annum.
In Prussian Germany no less activity is displayed or energy put forth to make the farmer's occupation one of financial profit and scientific status. Statistics for 1897 are at hand in the report of the Prussian Minister of Agriculture. The German system is based on the theory that schools and colleges are the only places where theoretical agriculture can be properly taught. Few of the higher agricultural schools first established were exclusively such. A liberal education could be obtained at most of them without touching the subject of agriculture. Later educators have developed a system which begins by fostering a love for Nature in the minds of the pupils in the kindergarten, and patiently develops that love through all the dozen or more grades of schools until it culminates in the polytechnic school or the degree granted by the university.
Germany is indebted to the learned Professor Thaer for the establishment of its first agricultural school at Möglin in 1807. But more than all is she, in common with all the world, indebted to the famous chemist Baron von Liebig, who, in 1840, announced the scientific truth which underlies all arguments for agricultural education—viz., that no matter how impoverished a soil is naturally, or has become by excessive cropping, its fertility may be restored, maintained, and even increased by providing it with the mineral and organic matter which it lacks.
Prussian agricultural affairs are under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture, Domains, and Forests. The state maintains three grades of schools—higher, middle, and lower—as in other European countries. The most celebrated are the Royal Agricultural High Schools at Berlin and Popplesdorf, two royal academies of forestry, and the university courses in agriculture at Halle, Göttingen, Königsberg, Leipsic, Giessen, and Jena. The state expends something like two hundred thousand dollars annually on agricultural education. In Germany agricultural education has so broadened out as to include training in every technical part of a farmer's work—culture of forests, fruits, flowers, and vines; schools to teach wine, cider, and beer making, machine repairing, engine running, barn construction, and surveying; knowledge of poultry, bees, and silkworm raising; domestic economy, sewing, and accounts for farm women—all in addition to the long scientific 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.[22] 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 students, forestry and agriculture count as two. Five universities and numerous special schools furnish aid to agricultural education.