Hill. — Technical and Scientific Training. 153 



Art. XI.— Technical and Scientific Training. 

 By H. Hill, B.A., F.G.S. 



[Read before the Hawke's Bay PhilosopJdcal Institute in August, 1902.^\ 



In continuation of my paper on " University and Science 

 Work in New Zealand, " : which found a place in the 

 Transactions of last year, I desire to review with more 

 brevity the present state of science in this country. We 

 have been so attracted by events in the world outside 

 our own country that for some time past science and many 

 other things have been overlooked. However, necessity will 

 soon bring things back into their proper course, and the time 

 is not far distant when it will be found needful to consider 

 what this country must do in order to place the coming gene- 

 ration on such a footing that in the race for place and power 

 among the nations of civilised men we shall be able to hold 

 our own so far as concerns ourselves and our interests. And 

 here it is of importance to remind those who occupy them- 

 selves in the consideration of matters affecting the common 

 weal that, whether we will or no, environment is an important 

 factor in the consideration of questions bearing upon thought 

 and action. Hitherto the country has been mainly under the 

 direction of men of no practical training and scientific ex- 

 perience. Literary qualifications have been considered suf- 

 ficient, and our public scheme of education is merely the 

 outcome of literary ideals as distinguished from practical or 

 technical skill. The people in this country are amenable to 

 conditions which they are in a large measure unable to modify, 

 and which Nature herself compels us to watch and to study 

 if we would participate in all that is of the best and purest 

 among the gifts offered to us. 



The successful man is he who adapts himself to his 

 environment. Each country has an environment that is 

 specially its own. Conditions operate in such a way that 

 thought, aspirations, and tastes vary among different peoples, 

 and everywhere are to be seen adaptations to environment 

 such as time has brought and is bringing about. When we 

 come to realise how wide are the differences in the social, the 

 industrial, and even in the moral and religious aspects of 

 people who dwell in lands apart from one another, the ques- 

 tion at once forces itself upon us whether the same kind of 

 training should be adopted in the right upbringing of the 

 children. A country's needs are various, and in a large 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxxiii., pp. 395-406. 



