A RURAL INSTITUTE. 9}

1. As a ScHooL, ACADEMY, OR PLACE

OF INSTRUCTION, FOR NOVICIATE PUPILS. —Every other art, mystery, and profession has the means of gaining initial instruc- tion. Trade, and the lower branches of law and physic, are taught in appren- ticeships, and clerkships,——the higher branches, at the universities; while the art ofagriculture,—more valuable, if not more difficult, than the rest united,—has been left to accidental tuition. Formerly, if a young man happened not to be educated on the farm of his father, no common road of instruction lay open to him. Of late years, it is true, pupils, by paying suitable ac- knowledgments, have been admitted to the practice of professional men, in some particular parts of the kingdom. But, even in the districts where this has been the case, there are few men, who are at once sufficiently qualified for the under- taking, and willing to be encumbered with young men of that description.

If the Mitirary AcADEMy of Wool- wich has been useful to Engineers, and the

B