460 Chronicles of Science. [Jiily» 



suj^porters of the mining school at Glasgow — -which was allowed to 

 die a few years since — in the hope that they may be in a position 

 to revive it. Dr. Bryce, the President of the Philosophical Society 

 of Glasgow, has been in correspondence with Mr. ]\Iark Fryar, 

 now Mining Engineer for the Indian Government, and some of 

 the remarks made by Mr. Fryar, who was for upwards of four 

 years the teacher in the old Glasgow school, are worthy of all 

 attention. 



" It is absolutely necessary that some arrangement be made for 

 enabhng young men to give uj) a portion of their work in the 

 mines during the time of their attendance to lessons or lectures. 

 Men or boys cannot be expected to profit much from any som'ce of 

 instruction after having done an ordinary day's work in a mine. 

 I have been all my lifetime among miners, and know them well, 

 and many a hard day's work I have done myself in mines, and I 

 can assure you that schools of mines and scientific lectures are of 

 no manner of use to the working miner, uidess he has too the 

 means of subsisting on about half the usual amount of labour he is 

 expected to perform ; and so physically prepare liimself for mental 

 work, and for handling the instruments used in mapping and 

 drawing." 



There is much truth in the suggestion that hard labour is not 

 compatible with attentive study, and that those men who exhibit 

 a thirst for knowledge should be placed in a position to acquire it, 

 is to be desired. In considering the possibility of educating the 

 working miner we must, however, remember that it is only with 

 the best of their class that we shall ever have to deal. That those 

 young and earnest men will generally succeed in placing themselves 

 in some superior position, which will give them the required period, 

 not of leisure, but of cessation from actual toil. Mining schools, 

 wherever established, will only secure as satisfactory students those 

 who have already made a mental resolve to raise themselves above 

 their brethren. Experience has sliown that mining schools in 

 Glasgow, in Bristol, in Wigan, in Truro must be failiu'es. It is 

 quite as diflacult for working miners to attend the classes in any 

 one of those cities or towns, as it would be for them to attend the 

 courses of the Royal School of Mines in London. 



No system of education can be of any advantage to our mining 

 p)opulation which is not an itinerating system. The classes must 

 be formed in the centre of groups of mines, the instruction must 

 be taken to the miner, since it has been proved impossible for the 

 miner to come to the instructor. 



