Presidential Address. Section C. 35 1 



The cost of construction of railways in South Africa compares 

 favourably with that of other countries under similar conditions. 

 Some 6.000 miles of railways have been built in South Africa, and 

 arrangements have been made to expend some 10 millions of money 

 on new lines. It is a great pity that the original gauge laid down 

 from Cape Town to Wellington of 4 feet 8| inches was altered to 

 the present gauge of 3 feet 6 inches. There is no divine right in an\ 

 particular gauge, but for apssenger traffic, especially over long dis- 

 tances, a certain width of carriage is necessarv to accommodate the 

 human frame. The passenger coaches, therefore, on the 3 feet 6 

 inches gauge, which is the standard gauge of .South Africa, are as 

 wide as thev are on the wirier gauge of Europe and America. The 

 overhang, therefore, is ver\ much greater, and partly owing to this 

 fact, and partly to the smaller locomotive wheel possible on the 

 3 feet 6 inches gauge, the .speed of passenger trains in South Africa 

 is about half that general on broader gauge lines. The inconvenience 

 has not been much felt as yet. but as the public l)ecomes more and 

 more addicted to travel, as it assuredly will do, the feeling against 

 the present standard gauge of South Africa will become intensified. 

 This is still a young countrv. l)ut it will grow ven" fast ; now. there- 

 fore, is the time to insist that the l)est possible education should be 

 obtainal)le. The employer r)f labour as well as the emplo\ee re- 

 quires the best education that can be devised, and bv education is 

 meant the cultivation of the natural jXDwers and talents of the child 

 and the man so as to fit him to do his Avork and occupy his place 

 wr)rthily as a member of societv and a citizen. 



TECHNICAL EDUCATIOX. 



" We do amiss to spend seven or eight \ears mereh in scraping 

 together so much miserable Latin and Greek as might be leanied 

 otherwise easily and delightfully in one year." So wrote the classic 

 Miltfm nearly two hundred and sixty years ago, but the same process 

 still continues in England, and it is only very recently that, pressed 

 by the competition of other countries, a feeling that all is not right 

 in the matter of education has arisen. Commissions have been ap- 

 l)ointed to report on foreign educational systems, such as those of 

 Germany and Holland. There is a general uneasiness all round, 

 and some change now .seems likely to take ]>lace. The que.stion of 

 education is of vital importance, especially the question of .so-called 

 secondan education. 



The report of the Special Sub-Committee of the London 

 Technical Education Board on the application of Science to Industn 

 in August last, stated that various branches of inrlustn,- had during 

 the past twenty or thirty years been lost to England owing to the 

 competition of foreign countries, and that these losses were to be 

 attributed in no small degree to the .superior scientific education 

 provided in foreign countries, especially in regard to the transfer 

 from pjigland to Germany of numerous departments of manufacturing 



