VII. 



Technical Education in Surrey. 



IT requires no genius to see that education is as apparently endless 

 as the civilisation with which it is indissolubly connected, and 

 progress in the direction in which the most important nations of the 

 world are developing is dependent very largely on the introduction of 

 mind into labour — the more complete guidance of the hand by a 

 cultivated brain. In England we have been, in some degree, slow to 

 recognise the value of scientific training, and our Continental neigh- 

 bours are, at the present moment, ahead of us, in the fact that they 

 possess a combination of educated employer and employe. Prosperity 

 in the industries of this country is due 'primarily to scientific know- 

 ledge, and for complete success in its application it is necessary that 

 the efficiency of the worker should not be reduced by want of 

 intelligence. 



The Government Grant to the County Councils has rendered it 

 possible for something to be done, not only by way of raising the 

 general level of intelligence, and so indirectly altering the interests of 

 life among the masses, but at the same time in imparting information 

 which will have a practical bearing on definite occupations. 



During the last year, nearly every County Council in England 

 has been intensely active in carrying out its Scheme of Technical 

 Education, and the work, as a whole, is undoubtedly a step forward 

 which augurs well for the future. The want of precedent as a guide 

 is sufficient to justify the expectation of failure in some cases, and the 

 gigantic scale of the work, together with its diversity, makes it of great 

 difficulty, even so far as its mere organisation is concerned. 



At the outset, the difficulties to be met with seemed almost 

 insuperable, but owing to the energy of the organising secretaries, 

 and the interest manifested locally, classes were held, lectures 

 delivered, and work done in many branches of science at hundreds 

 of towns and villages during the winter months. The great aim of 

 the work has been to combine practice with the science underlying 

 it, and the meaning of Technical Education in its legal aspect hints 

 that the latter should have due prominence. 



The most interesting, and at the same time most difficult part 

 of the work is that which is concerned with rural districts. It is in 

 these places that the greatest amount of ignorance prevails, coupled 



