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optical glass or chemical glass-ware, short of artificial manures, 

 with no plant to work the complex zinc ores from Australia, 

 and with only a mere nucleus of trained chemists to undertake 

 the production of these and a hundred other chemical substances 

 essential for the national welfare both in peace and war. 



Fortunately Roscoe and Meldola lived also to see the first 

 faint rays that seemed to betoken the dawning of a new day 

 for chemistry, but both passed away before it could be decided 

 whether it was a real or a false dawn. 



The chief ground on which both chemists met was that of 

 technical education, and in many addresses and articles in 

 newspapers and journals they warned the country of that 

 decadence of chemical industry which they saw going on 

 around them. 



Sir Henry Roscoe had particular opportunity of observing 

 how industries were faring in this and other countries as a 

 member of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction in 

 1881. 



The results arrived at, and the Report issued by the Com- 

 mission, were of such importance, and of such interest to-day, 

 that it is worth noting one or two of the more salient features 

 of the Report. 



Sir Henry Roscoe was invited in 1881 by Mr. (later Sir) A. J. 

 Mundella (then Vice-President of the Education Council) to 

 become a member of Sir Bernhard Samuelson's Commission on 

 Technical Instruction. 



As Sir E. Thorpe reminds us at the beginning of Chap. X., 

 this was " one of the most important Commissions ever issued by 

 reason of its influence on the industrial history of this country. 

 Roscoe threw himself heart and soul into its work. The task 

 was thoroughly congenial to him, for he was profoundly con- 

 vinced of its importance. It required long and frequent visits 

 abroad in order to inquire into the methods of the con- 

 tinental trade-schools and polytechnics, and to judge by direct 

 observation of their results. The preparation of the Report 

 was a tedious and complicated business, but with the help of 

 his colleagues, whom he invited to his holiday home in the 

 Lakes, it was gradually, as he says, 'licked into shape,' 

 the last touches to its recommendations being made at the 

 chairman's country house in Devonshire." 



The Commission was in many ways a singular one, not the 



