704 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the school boy or girl, as also in the next 

 grade of civilization above the savage, 

 the object is furthered by the use of 

 those finer instruments which we call 

 tools. In the university, as in the most 

 civilized races, it is by the use of scien- 

 tific instruments and machines. The 

 three grades of hand- work, then, in their 

 adaptation to brain- culture, are the use 

 of rude implements, tools, and finer in- 

 struments. 



Mr. G. S. Ramsay has shown that 

 the advantages which workmen of cer- 

 tain other countries are supposed to 

 possess over British workmen in the 

 same trades are due not so much to 

 mere special skill in manipulation as to 

 the superior general scientific knowledge 

 possessed by them and those who have 

 the directing of them. The German 

 beet-sugar industry has attained its great 

 proportions by making the technical part 

 of the work subordinate to the scien- 

 tific principles on which it is based. So 

 American and Canadian butter and 

 cheese have gained the predominant 

 place in British markets through the 

 makers having been wide-awake and 

 having adopted all the scientific im- 

 provements in treatment and processes 

 which the home makers neglected. In 

 eacb of these and other cases cited by 

 Mr, Eamsay we find the same state of 

 things r the producer " fails to under- 

 stand the importance of pure knowl- 

 edge ; he despises and disbelieves in 

 principles, and imagines that the only 

 thing he need know is what applies to 

 his own particular work." 



These views are wholesome, and it 

 promises well for the future of technical 

 education that they are gaining currency 

 among the persons who are endeavor- 

 ing to make this branch of instruction a 

 living fact in schools. 



Lord Armstrong, criticising, in the 

 "Nineteenth Century," the English sys- 

 tem of elementary education, charges it 

 with being liable to the radical objection 

 of "aiming at instruction in knowledge 

 rather than in the training of the facul- 



ties," and adds that "cheapness of pro- 

 duction and superiority of quality will 

 decide the victory in the race of compe- 

 tition, and if by early training we de- 

 velop the mental and bodily faculties of 

 our people, we shall improve our chance 

 of maintaining a foremost place; but 

 not, I think, by any forced or indiscrimi- 

 nate system of imparting knowledge." 

 This declaration was partly accepted 

 and enlarged upon by Lord Hartington, 

 in an address in behalf of the English 

 National Association for the Promotion 

 of Technical Training. 



The same thought has been expressed 

 by Lord Ripon, who gave as a reason for 

 being specially interested in the school 

 of handicraft, of which he is patron, that 

 he hoped it might become a center of 

 artistic education for the workingmen, 

 and that they might derive from it not 

 merely benefit in regard to their particu- 

 lar trades, but also in regard to their in- 

 tellectual advancement and cultivation. 

 By exciting the interest of workmen in 

 their work, and by finding play for their 

 imagination and other faculties, the in- 

 stitution might do something to solve 

 some of the most difficult of existing 

 social problems. 



Such declarations, coming from dif- 

 ferent quarters and made from so many 

 points of view, tend to strengthen the 

 hope that technical education will be 

 built up on the right grounds, firm and 

 solid ones, and that when it has gained 

 its place it will have come to stay. Re- 

 moved from the narrow basis of merely 

 imparting special knowledge in particu- 

 lar processes to the broader and com- 

 prehensive one of fitting those who 

 apply themselves to it both mentally 

 and bodily for pursuits requiring skill 

 and intelligence, it will be brought into 

 harmony «'ith the controlling principle 

 that education is good in proportion as 

 it tends to develop capacities for use- 

 ful action rather than to increase ac- 

 quirements in knowledge, and will be 

 destined to form an inseparable part of 

 such education. 



