118 Sir Frederick Ahel [April 22, 



logical and trade schools in the metropolis, and the results, in regard 

 to number and success of students at the day and evening schools 

 of that important establishment, have afforded conclusive demonstra- 

 tion of the benefits which it is already conferring upon young 

 workers who, with scanty means at their command, are earnest in 

 their desire to train themselves thoroughly for the successful pursuit 

 of industries and trades. The evening courses of instruction are espe- 

 cially valuable to such members of the artizan classes as desire, at 

 the close of their daily labour, to devote time to the acquisition of 

 scientific or artistic knowledge. The system of evening classes, which 

 was pursued, in the first instance, at King's College and one or two 

 other metropolitan schools, was most successfully developed by the 

 Science and Art Department, and, being now sujDplcmented by the 

 important work accomplished at Finsbury College, is really, in point 

 of organisation, in advance of similar w^ork done in other countries. 



Another department of the City and Guilds' Institute, of a some- 

 what difi"erent character, but akin to that of the Finsbury College 

 in the objects desired to be achieved by it, is the South London School 

 of Technical Art, which is also doing very useful work, while the 

 chief or central Institution for Technical Education, which com- 

 menced its operations about tliree years ago, if it but continue to be 

 developed in accordance with the carefully matured scheme which 

 received the approval of the City and Guilds' Council, and with that 

 judicious liberality which has been displayed in the design and 

 arrangement of the building, bids fair to become the Industrial 

 University of the Empire. 



As one of the first students of that College of Chemistry which 

 became part-parent of our present Normal Schools of Science, and 

 the creation of which (forty-two years ago) constituted not the least 

 important of the many services rendered towards the advancement of 

 scientific education in this country by His Royal Highness the Priuce 

 Consort, most vividly I remember the struggling years of early 

 existence of that half-starved but vigorous ofispring of the great school 

 of Liebig, born in a strangely unsympathetic land in the days when 

 the student of science in this country still met on all sides that pride 

 of old England, tbe practical man, enquiring of him complacently : cui 

 bono ; quo bono ? That ardent lover of research and instruction, the 

 enthusiastic and dauntless discii)le of Liebig — my old master — 

 Hofmann, loyally supported through all discouragement, and in the 

 severest straits, by a small band of believers in the power of scientific 

 research to make for itself an enduring home in this country, suc- 

 ceeded in very few years in develoj)ing a prosperous school of chem- 

 istry which soon made its influence felt upon British industry ; and 

 it is not credible that less important achievements should be accom- 

 plished, and less speedily, in days when the inseparable connection 

 of science with j^ractice has become thoroughly recognised, by an Insti- 

 tution created, and launched under most auspicious circumstances, by 

 those powerful representatives of the commercial and industrial 



