1870.] DAWSON — ON SCIENCE EDUCATION ABROAD. 277 



comparison with similar places ia England ; collections of draw- 

 ings, models and machines; a collection of architectural models 

 and sculpture ; collections in zoology, geology, and antiquities ; 

 and a botanical garden. To the foundation of the University the 

 Federal Government of Switzerland contributed £20,000, and 

 the canton of Zurich £136,000. Its annual expense is very 

 moderate, being only £13,459 sterling. From such institu- 

 tions in Germany and Switzerland annually proceed numbers of 

 educated young men who are prepared to advance every branch ' 

 of art by the applications of science, who are distancing England 

 in so many manufactures, and who are now contributino- so 

 largely to the wonderful success of the German armies. It is 

 well for us to remember that the Technical University of Zurich 

 ministers to the wants of a population of only two millions and a 

 half, or considerably less than that of Canada, and that even the 

 little state of Wurtemburg, with a population of less than two 

 millions, has its Technical University at Stuttgardt, with no 

 fewer than 57 professors and teachers. It is further to be ob- 

 served that these Universities are but the higher principles of a 

 complete system of technical education, descending from them to 

 the humblest schools of practical science, for the children of 

 labourers. It is scarcely necessary to add that they do not 

 detract from or interfere with the great general Universities of 

 Germany, in which scholarship and philosophy have reached so 

 high a pitch of development. 



A recent Englisli writer thus eulogizes the Prussian system : — 

 " The Prussians, whatever their other qualities, are emphati- 

 cally a scientific people, and to that predominating characteristic 

 first and foremost arc their recent military triumphs due. We 

 do not mean that because they are great chemists, astronomers, 

 and physicists, therefore are they necessarily great soldiers ; so 

 narrow a proposition would hardly be tenable. What we mean 

 is that the spirit of science possesses the entire nation, and shows 

 Itself, not only by the encouragement given throughout Germany 

 to physical research, but above all by the scientific method con- 

 spicuous in all their arrangements. What does the word Science, 

 used in its wider sense, 'un^\j ? Simply the employment of means 

 adequate to the attainment of a desired end. AVhether that end 

 be the constitution of a government, the organization of an army 

 or navy, the spread of learning, or the repression of crime, if the 

 means adopted have attained the object, then science has been at 



