TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 201 



In our country, of 4,694,583 children of the ages 5 to 15, only 2,405,442, or httle 

 more than half the number, are returned by the parents and heads of families as 

 scholars at home or at schools. 



The industrial qualifications of the people may be estimated from the list of occu- 

 pations, and the number of persons severally engaged in them. Without entering 

 into details, Mr. Yeats states his conviction, after careful study, to be, that by far 

 the largest proportion must be regarded as unskilled, and consequently least pro- 

 ductive labour ; and deplores the immense amount of energy and capacity for culture 

 left wholly unemployed, and thus lost to the community. 



We may yearly anticipate more rivalry in the arts, more competition in manufac- 

 tures. The very year of the census was that of the Exhibition. A second display 

 of the world's industry has just been held in Paris. It was remarked by the juries 

 on the first, that although we bore away the palm in many points, in almost all 

 our supremacy was challenged, in some utterly denied. Superiority which seemed 

 our own by hereditary right was slipping from us. Our long experience had given 

 us unrivalled excellence in a few departments, but wherever the highest require- 

 ments of art or science were concerned, those countries took the foremost place in 

 which industrial instruction was the most widely diffused. This point seems to be 

 the weakest in our consideration of the national strength. We want more and better 

 training for the young, which will bring about intelligence, abundance, economy, 

 prolongation of life, and an increase of productive power in the great body of the 

 people. 



MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 



Opening Remarks on the Objects of the Sectioti. By W. J. Macquorn 

 Rankine, C.E., F.R.SS. L. ^ E., President of the Section. 



In opening the proceedings of this Section to the British Association, I will address 

 to you some remarks on its nature and objects. 



Although this Section bears the title of " Mechanical Science," it is well under- 

 stood that questions oi pure or abstract mechanics form no part of its subjects. 



The object of this Section is to promote the advancement of science as applied to 

 practice in the Mechanical Arts. 



The special utility of this Section arises from the fact, that the application of scien- 

 tific principles to practice is a study of itself, distinct alike from pure science and 

 from pure practice. 



On the one hand, the cultivation of mechanics and other branches of natural know- 

 ledge, in a manner purely scientific, has for its ohject, first, to improve the mind of the 

 cultivator intellectually and morally ; and secondly, to qualify him, if possible, for 

 assisting in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge ; and with this view each 

 subject requires to be treated so as to investigate how the laws of particular phse- 

 nomena are connected with the general economy of nature and the structure of the 

 imiverse. 



On the other hand, the cultivation of purely practical knowledge, such as is acquired 

 by experience in business connected with the mechanical arts, has for its object to 

 enable the cultivator to judge of materials and workmanship, and of questions of con- 

 venience and commercial profit, to manage and direct the execution of work, to 

 imitate existing structures and machines which have proved successful, and to follow 

 rules, the utility of which has been established by practice. 



The gap between those two kinds of knowledge is so wide, their methods and 

 objects are so different, that rare as it is to find individuals who have cultivated both, 

 and profited by each independently, it is still more rare to find those who are able to 

 combine their advantages ; and hence seems to have arisen the prejudice, once deeply 

 rooted and widely spread, but now happily fast disappearing — that theoretical and 

 practical knowledge are nmtually inconsistent and exclusive. 



In fact, the study of scientific principles with a view to their practical application is 

 a distinct art, requiring methods of its own. 



