226 THE ASSOCIATION 



Royal Commission on the subject. This recom- 

 mendation was adopted, and reports were subse- 

 quently made (1868-69) on the use of gun-cotton 

 not only for naval and military purposes, but also 

 in mining and quarrying. 



1863-64. The position of science in education 

 was to occupy the consideration of the Association 

 for some years. In this year the Parliamentary 

 Committee reported that some of its members were 

 supporting the suggestion of the Royal Commissioners 

 that the study of natural science should be introduced 

 into certain public schools. 



1864-67. The public schools bill which was 

 brought before Parliament in the following year 

 failed to satisfy scientific men, and at the instance of 

 a member of the Parliamentary Committee, evidence 

 was given by Sharpey, Miller, Huxley, and Tyndall 

 on the extent to which physical science might be 

 introduced into the curriculum of the great public 

 schools, and was quoted in the report of a committee 

 of the House of Lords on the bill. The bill did not 

 pass, but public interest was to some extent awakened, 

 and it is recorded that voluntary efforts were made 

 by masters at certain schools to add instruction in 

 natural science to the classical course, while ' some 

 of the boys at Harrow . . . formed themselves into 

 a voluntary association for the pursuit of science.' 



The death of Lord Wrottesley was the death-blow 

 of the Parliamentary Committee of the Association. 

 The weakness of the scheme for a Parliamentary 

 committee, unless under a chairman of strong per- 

 sonality and predisposed towards using that quality 

 to keep the Committee active, lay probably in the 

 necessarily frequent changes in its personnel, in 



