744 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of most importance for the great mass of our population, the fault 

 becomes almost a crime, the more that there is no practical difficulty 

 in making good these defects. There really is no reason why drawing 

 should not be universally taught, and it is an admirable training for 

 both eye and hand. Artists are born, not made ; but everybody may 

 be taught to draw elevations, plans, and sections ; and pots and pans 

 are as good, indeed better, models for this purpose than the Apollo 

 Belvedere. The i)lant is not expensive ; and there is this excellent 

 quality about drawing of the kind indicated, that it can be tested al- 

 most as easily and severely as arithmetic. Such drawings are either 

 right or wrong, and if they are wrong the pupil can be made to see 

 that they are wrong. From the industrial point of view, drawing has 

 the further merit that there is hardly any trade in which the- power 

 of drawing is not of daily and hourly utility. In the next place, no 

 good reason, except the want of capable teachers, can be assigned why 

 elementary notions of science should not be an element in general in- 

 struction. In this case, again, no experience or elaborate apparatus 

 is necessary. The commonest thing — a candle, a boy's squirt, a piece 

 of chalk — in the hands of a teacher who knows his business may be 

 made the starting-points whence children may be led into the regions 

 of science as far as their capacity permits, with efficient exercise of 

 their observational and reasoning faculties on the road. If object- 

 lessons often prove trivial failures, it is not the fault of object-lessons, 

 but that of the teacher, who has not found out how much the power 

 of teaching a little depends on knowing a great deal, and that thor- 

 oughly ; and that he has not made that discovery is not the fault of 

 the teachers, but of the detestable system of training them which is 

 widely prevalent.* 



As I have said, I do not regard the proposal to add these to the 

 present subjects of universal instruction, as made merely in the in- 

 terests of industry. Elementary science and drawing arc just as need- 

 ful at Eton (where I am happy to say both are now parts of the regu- 

 lar course) as in the lowest primary school. But their importance in 

 the education of the artisan is enhanced, not merely by the fact that 

 the knowledge and skill thus gained — little as they may amount to — 

 will still be of practical utility to him ; but further, because they con- 

 stitute an introduction to that special training which is commonly 

 called " technical education." 



I conceive that our wants in this last direction may be grouped 

 under four heads : (1) Instruction in the principles of those branches 

 of science and of art which are peculiarly applicable to industrial pur- 

 suits, which may be called preliminary scientific education. (2) In- 



* Training in the use of simple tools is no doubt very desirable, on all grounds. 

 From the point of view of " culture," the man whose " fingers arc all thumbs" is but a 

 stunted creature. But the practical difficulties in the way of introducing handiwork of 

 this kind into elementary schools appear to me to be considerable. 



