HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION. 529 



A SHOET HISTOKY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION.* 



By J. NORMAN LOCKYEE, K. C. B., F. E. S. 

 II. 



I MUST come back from this excursion to call your attention to 

 the year 1845, in which one of the germs of our college first 

 saw the light. 



What was the condition of England in 1845? Her universities 

 had degenerated into hauts lycees. With regard to the university 

 teaching, I may state that even as late as the late fifties a senior 

 wrangler — I had the story from himself — came to London from Cam- 

 bridge expressly to walk about the streets to study crystals, prisms, 

 and the like in the optician's windows. Of laboratories in the uni- 

 versities there were none; of science teaching in the schools there 

 was none; there was no organization for training science teachers. 



If an artisan wished to improve his knowledge he had only the 

 moribund Mechanics' Institutes to fall back upon. 



The nation which then was renowned for its utilization of waste 

 material products allowed its mental products to remain undeveloped. 



There was no minister of instruction, no councilors with a knowl- 

 edge of the national scientific needs, no organized secondary or 

 primary instruction. We lacked then everything that Germany had 

 equipped herself with in the matter of scientific industries. 



Did this matter? Was it more than a mere abstract question of a 

 want of perfection? 



It mattered very much ! From all quarters came the cry that the 

 national industries were being undermined in consequence of the 

 more complete application of scientific methods to those of other 

 countries. 



The chemical industries were the first to feel this, and because 

 England was then the seat of most of the large chemical works. f 



Very few chemists were employed in these chemical works. 

 There were in cases some so-called chemists at about bricklayer's 

 wages — not much of an inducement to study chemistry; even if there 

 had been practical laboratories, where it could have been properly 

 learned. Hence, when efficient men were wanted they were got from 

 abroad — i. e., from Germany, or the richer English had to go abroad 

 themselves. 



At this time we had, fortunately for us, in England, in very high 

 place, a German fully educated by all that could be learned at one of 



* An address delivered at the Royal College of Science on October 6, 1898. 

 ■j- Perkin. Nature, vol. xxxii, p. 334. 

 VOL. liv. — 39 



