March 2, 191 1] 



NATURE 



27 



influence on education and on progress, great as it lias 

 ibeen in the past, must be multiplied manifold. 



Time is necessary to solve the many problems that 

 arise, but a visit to South Kensington, where, by the 

 generosity of Messrs. Wernher, Beit and Co., and the 

 trustees of the Bessemer fund, splendid new buildings are 

 rising rapidly for the Royal School of Mines, and by the 

 .munificence of the Goldsmiths' Company the engineering 

 laboratories of the central institution are being so greatly 

 enlarged, is enough to show some of the first-fruits of the 

 work. 



The method which has been adopted for controlling the 

 work of the Central College by means of a delegacy 

 representing the Imperial College, the City and Guilds 

 jlnstitute, and the Goldsmiths' Company, is full of promise, 

 land the path whereby the whole can develop into the 

 'great institution planned by its founders seems clear. 



Much is still necessary before that development can be 

 fcomplete. In the first place, we must encourage research. 

 I The Central Technical College has a splendid record 

 among its professors — Henrici, Unwin, Ayrton, Arm- 

 , strong. Nor will the work of the younger men — Dalby 

 'and Mather — be less distinguished in the future. Still, 

 more remains to be done in the way of post-graduate study 

 'and students' research. I do not overlook the notable 

 efforts made lately in connection with the railway engineer- 

 ing course, but I would urge those in whose hands control 

 *lies so to organise the teaching that men, professors, or 

 jstudents who have the power to carry on research, should 

 be free to use it. You cannot successfully command a 

 professor to make discoveries. You can arrange his 

 , surroundings so that the power that is in him should have 

 f.jfull opportunities of action. 



f:| Secondly, we must not attempt in the Imperial College 



i to do elementary work which can be done equally well 



•elsewhere. The Central Technical College has always 



done rightly in selecting its students with care. Its 



success, and the fact that the students now number as 



' many as the college can hold, increase its power of selec- 



' tion ; the conditions of entrance may be raised gradually ; 



they are still very low compared with the great German 



technical schools ; and thus the whole character of the 



work may be improved. 



Thirdly, the Imperial College must not remain isolated. 

 The agencies at work in London applying science to the 

 ' wants of industry, not merely teaching the rudiments, but 

 advancing the boundaries between the known and un- 

 known, are numerous ; they include the University 

 Colleges, with their distinguished professors and their large 

 ' classes of students ; the polytechnics and technical schools, 

 , where, day and night, educational work of the highest 

 value is being eagerly pursued. 



Is it impossible to conceive some scheme by which the 

 labours of all these agencies for technical instruction 

 I should be coordinated and linked up with the work of the 

 Imperial College as a centre, to which, to repeat what I 

 said in an address I delivered to the Association of Tech- 

 nical Institutions, students only of proved capacity were 

 admitted, where the staff and students were free to con- 

 duct original investigations, and through these to learn 

 new truths, where scholars and prizemen from the various 

 technical institutions of London were collected, and where 

 the teachers in the polytechnics and other colleges were 

 i freely welcomed to carry out their researches and to 

 ii advance learning? 



! In close connection with this there should be a number 



I of colleges organised so as to provide teaching for the less 



advanced stages of the course, selected with due regard 



to geographical conditions. 



I Beyond these would come those polytechnics which were 



I engaged chiefly in evening classes for the worker, each, if 



possible, with one special department organised so as to 



1 provide teaching and means for research of an advanced 



J character, linked up to the central institution, the 



I Imperial College, in such a way that the teachers felt a 



I common interest in promoting the welfare of that institu- 



' tion, and turned naturally to its professors as their leaders 



\ in the search for truth. 



t There is one essential more. This group of institutions 

 j — the Imperial Technical College and its associated 

 ' colleges — must possess the power itself of granting 



NO. 2157, VOL. 86] 



degrees in technological science to its students who have 

 gone through its course and passed the proper tests with- 

 out reference to any external academic body. To secure 

 this may be dilTicult, but it must be done. In Germany 

 it was recognised some years agO' that the degree courses 

 of the older universities did hot afford the student of 

 technology the training he required, and new universities 

 — technological universities they are called, though the 

 phrase may be a misnomer — have been established in 

 many of the great centres of industry. 



Here in England, outside London and the old universi- 

 ties, our course has been different. The new universities 

 in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and elsewhere, 

 have each a faculty of technology along with those of arts 

 and science, law and medicine, and their constitution 

 allows them to do this with success, for in no case is the 

 control in the hands of an academic body — an unwieldy 

 Senate representative of all and every conflicting interest 

 that can conceivably be brought in. It rests with a com- 

 pact council, consisting mainly of business men, keen to 

 raise the standard of education in their cities because they 

 realise that on that progress turns. 



It may be possible to reorganise London University as 

 an assemblage of faculties, each practically independent 

 in its own sphere, each controlled by its council, a small 

 body of men containing some few representatives of the 

 teaching staff. This council, within the scheme, would 

 be the supreme body of the faculty ; subordinate to it 

 would be the general board of studies, representing all the 

 teachers, and the special boards dealing with the various 

 subjects of study in the faculty. Each faculty should 

 award its own degrees and be free to determine, with 

 the lines of the general scheme, the conditions under 

 which those degrees should be granted. 



There would need to be advisory committees of repre- 

 sentatives of several faculties for work in which more than 

 one faculty was concerned, and a small body, independent 

 of the faculties, to settle disputes which might arise. 



Under such a scheme the Imperial College would be- 

 come the centre of the Technological University for 

 London, and then for the Empire, a body like its govern- 

 ing body, but modified so as to include representatives of 

 the other institutions which would form with it the techno- 

 logical side of the University in London, would become the 

 council of that faculty ; the teachers in the various sub- 

 jects represented in the faculty would form the various 

 special boards of studies, and representatives of these 

 special boards would become the general board of studies 

 of the faculty. 



Whether this be a possible scheme or not it is not for 

 me to say, but I would venture to put forward three 

 propositions : — 



(i) That a combination of the technological depart- 

 ments of existing institutions and schools into an indepen- 

 dent technological faculty is necessary. 



{2) That in such a faculty a definite value should be 

 given to technical education in each London school. 



(3) That the technological faculty should confer degrees 

 under conditions to be laid down by the faculty. 



I am aware I have wandered into debatable ground. 

 I trust I have not erred beyond forgiveness in so doing. 

 The task before Sir Alfred Keogh, the rector of the 

 Imperial College, in hringing to success some scheme such 

 as this is no easy one. It will lighten it immensely if you 

 can assure him that in his task he has your own support 

 and that of the men to whose active help the success of 

 the City and Guilds Institute is so largely due. 



You may rest assured that in this way you are assist- 

 ing in no small degree to render the advances of science 

 available for the promotion of the best interests of our 

 nation, in strengthening our position in the world, and 

 in carrying on that great work of education in which the 

 City Guilds have taken so admirable a share. 



But there is another aspect of my subject, the relation 

 of science to industry, for which I have left too little 

 time. A second way in which science may help industry 

 is, as I have said, by the establishment of institutions 

 where scientific questions bearing on industry may be 

 studied. 



The National Physical Laboratory is such a place, and 

 when the chairman of the committee invited me to speak 



