WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.K.S. 387 



ii ivntly. The apparatus which I saw is not nearly sufficient, and 

 the rooms for .Mechanical Drawing, especially, leave much to be 

 desired. I saw no accommodation for teaching the most important 

 items in every education, that is, Art and Literature. I hope these 

 branches of knowledge will not be neglected, because a man who is 

 brought up only to understand his particular craft or business has 

 a very limited understanding of even that particular business. He 

 must be able to rise into other regions occasionally, in order that 

 he may get a bird's-eye view of the matter that interests him daily, 

 and a wider view of life and its purposes generally. I have no 

 doubt this want will be supplied, either by the erection of an addi- 

 tional building, or by re-arrangements within the present one. 



How much interest there is evinced throughout the country in 

 favour of this Institute and its doings may be best gathered per- 

 haps from the Report of the Royal Com mission that was appointed to 

 .examine into Technical Education in all European countries and 

 in America, which report is very favourable to the doings of the 

 Institute ; and it may be also gathered from the fact that last 

 week only, the President of the Royal Society, in addressing that 

 representative body of pure science, devoted two pages and a-half 

 to Technical Education, with particular reference to the doings of 

 the City and Guilds Institute. These, I think, are proofs of the 

 interest which the highest and best in the land take in your pro- 

 gress ; and with the eyes of all the country upon you, I doubt not 

 that you will be all the more ready to satisfy the just expectations 

 that are entertained. 



I have already said that what I look upon with the greatest 

 interest with reference to the City and Guilds Institute is the 

 facility which it offers for the apprentice to acquire scientific 

 knowledge. In this respect the Institute reminds me of the 

 ancient Trade Guilds ; and it is curious that the Guilds of London 

 have now introduced a system by which the trades which they 

 severally represent will be raised and ennobled in every way. 

 (Hear, hear.) The Trades Guilds of this country were powerful 

 bodies in the middle ages in London, Bristol, Coventry, and 

 several other cities, but there was no connection between the 

 Guilds of one city and those of another. The great political 

 friction and contention that was going on in those days was per- 

 haps necessary for settling the foundation of that superstructure of 



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