

WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 127 



geographically and administratively the instruction in pure 

 chemistry from that in applied chemistry, geology, and mineralogy. 

 If properly supported, the School of Mines might become one of 

 the best and largest institutions of its kind, but it would be an 

 error to suppose that, however successful it might be, it could be 

 made to suffice for the requirements of the whole country. Other 

 similar institutions will have to be opened in provincial centres* 

 and we have an excellent example set us by the town of Manchester, 

 which, in creating its Owen's College, has laid the foundation for 

 a technical university, capable of imparting useful knowledge to 

 the technologist of the future. 



Technical education is here spoken of in contradistinction to the 

 purely classic and scientific education of the Universities, but it 

 must not be supposed that I would advocate any attempt at com- 

 prising in its curriculum a practical working of the processes which 

 the student would have to direct in after-life. This has been 

 attempted at many of the polytechnic schools of the Continent 

 with results decidedly unfavourable to the useful career of the 

 student ; the practice taught in such establishments is devoid of 

 the commercial element, and must of necessity be objectionable 

 as tending to engender conceit in the mind of the student, which 

 will stand in the way of the unbiassed application of his mind to 

 real work. Let technical schools confine themselves to teaching 

 those natural sciences which bear upon practice, but let practice 

 itself be taught in the workshop and in the metallurgical estab- 

 lishment. 



LABOUR. Equal in importance to an enlightened direction of 

 metallurgical works, is the obtaining of labour upon reasonable 

 terms. The wages paid in this country are, as a rule, higher than 

 those prevailing on the Continent of Europe, and I do not belong 

 to those who would wish to see them materially reduced. The 

 late Mr. Brassey found as the result of his experience that the cost 

 of labour, that is the co-efficient resulting from the division of the 

 work done per day, by the day's wage, was a constant quantity for 

 all countries. This rule would lead to the conclusion that the 

 more costly but effective labour, as measured by a day's wage, 

 must be the cheaper in the end, because it produces a greater 

 result with a given amount of plant. I have no reason to doubt 

 the general truth of this proposition, provided only that it is not 



