THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE : A PROGRAMME. 749 



scliools and classes, I think it is practically expedient that such taxa- 

 tion should be local. Our industrial population accumulates in par- 

 ticular towns and districts ; these districts are those which immedi- 

 ately profit by technical education ; and it is only in them that we 

 can find the men practically engaged in industries, among whom some 

 may reasonably be expected to be competent judges of that which is 

 wanted, and of the best means of meeting the want. 



In my belief, all methods of technical training are at present tenta- 

 tive, and, to be successful, each must be adapted to the special pecul- 

 iarities of its locality. This is a case in which we want twenty years ; 

 not of " strong government," but of cheerful and hopeful blundering ; 

 and we may be thankful if we get things straight in that time. 



The principle of the bill introduced, but dropped, by the Govern- 

 ment last session, appears to me to be wise, and some of the objections 

 to it I think are due to a misunderstanding. The bill proposed in sub- 

 stance to allow localities to tax themselves for purposes of technical 

 education — on the condition that any scheme for such purpose should 

 be submitted to the Science and Art Department, and declared by that 

 department to be in accordance with the intention of the legislature. 



A cry was raised that the bill proposed to throw technical education 

 into the hands of the Science and Art Department. But, in reality, 

 no power of initiation, nor even of meddling with details, was given to 

 that department — the sole function of which was to decide whether 

 any plan proposed did or did not come within the limits of " technical 

 education." The necessity for such control, somewhere, is obvious. 

 No legislature, certainly not ours, is likely to grant the power of self- 

 taxation without setting limits to that power in some way ; and it 

 would neither have been practicable to devise a legal definition of 

 technical education, nor commendable to leave the question to the 

 Auditor-General to be fought out in the law courts. The only alterna- 

 tive was to leave the decision to an appropriate state authority. If it 

 is asked, What is the need of such control if the people of the localities 

 are the best judges ? the obvious reply is that there are localities and 

 localities, and that while Manchester, or Liverpool, or Birmingham, or 

 Glasgow, might, perhaps, be safely left to do as they thought fit, 

 smaller towns, in which there is less certainty of full discussion by 

 competent people of different ways of thinking, might easily fall a prey 

 to crotcheteers. 



Supposing our intermediate science-teaching and our technical 

 schools and classes are established, there is yet a third need to be sup- 

 plied, and that is the want of good teachers. And it is necessary not 

 only to get them, but to keep them when you have got them. 



It is impossible to insist too strongly upon the fact that efficient 

 teachers of science and of technology are not to be made by the pro- 

 cesses in vogue at ordinary training colleges. The memory loaded 

 with mere book-work is not the thing Avanted — is, in fact, rather worse 



