298 



NATURE 



[December 28, 19 



ordinary priniary-»cljooI maiter can only teach the«e boyf 

 at he hat taught them already, and special kindt of 

 inttruction arc being given In many placet which really 

 fit the boy of fifteen for science class work. 



I knew, a!i others did, about this great college of yourt, 

 an«l I wdfKlrri-*! whrrc yt>u would find apprrntir«'<i hTc: 

 who were fit to take these evening classes. But 1 have 

 made a discovery. You here are actually taking boys of 

 thirteen in the day time and giving them just that kind 

 of Instruction which will fit them perfectly for their work ; 

 and these boys when apprentices will, I hope, come to 

 your evening classes. This is a temporary expedient, forced 

 upon you, for it is n pity to devote your space to such 

 elementary work ; but it is very important that this 

 example should be set. Four years ago I found that the 

 Hull Institute had this system. A boy who is from i 

 twclvp to thirteen years of age, and has perhaps passed j 

 thr sixth standard, may attend the institute in the day 

 linip until ho is fifteen years of a^^e. He does sonu- i 

 freehand drawing, practical plane and solid geometry, and ! 

 mechanical drawing ; there is what is called a mathc- I 

 matical laboratory ; I pay the mechanical laboratory work I 

 a high compliment when I say that it is there as well ] 

 done as it is here ; there is laboratory work in heat, elec- } 

 tricity, and chemistry. The results are very wonderful. 

 I had to use a high standard when I asked the boys ques- 

 tions. They could write an account of the work they were 

 doing in decent English ; their reasoning powers were 

 evidently well developed ; they had power to use elementary 

 algebra and trigonometry in new problems. I could not 

 imagine a better training for boys who intended to enter 

 the shipbuilding and mechanical and electrical and other 

 engineering works of Hull. 1 am glad to think that you 

 are doing this also in Belfast. 



Just as in Scotland, this problem of * the ignorant 

 apprentice has been attacked in the north of England 

 during the last six years by means of contirmation schools, 

 ;ind many important institutes are now able to fill their 

 spaces in the evening with boys of fifteen who have already 

 passed the kind of standard presented by what is called the 

 Lancashire and Cheshire Union. It results that later, in 

 the six years from fifteen to twenty-one, there are numerous 

 students who are acquiring a scientific and practical know- 

 ledge of engineering which is much superior to what is 

 obtainable in the best American and German science 

 colleges of university rank. I say superior, because these 

 British boys are not only being given a practical know- 

 ledge of higher mathematics and of science, and not only 

 is there more common sense in our use of laboratories, but 

 these boys become skilled in their trades because they learn 

 their trades in real workshops working side by side with 

 real workmen, doing work which has to be paid for. 



If you want to know how much can be done in evening 

 classes, I advise you to visit the great Glasgow Science 

 College or th« Heriot-Watt College at Edinburgh, which 

 have also large day classes. Graduates of the universities 

 in engineering come to the evening classes of these colleges 

 to get post-graduate instruction, and yet these colleges 

 cannot themselves confer degrees. The great success of 

 these evening classes is due to the dogged persistence of 

 the Scotch people in introducing common sense into their 

 primary-school teaching and in coordinating it with the 

 science-class teaching. 



You have seen these laboratories, but it is possible that 

 many of you do not quite understand what- an important 

 work they are doing. In secondary schools and colleges 

 we used to teach only 5 per cent, of our students, those 

 who were capable of abstract reasoning, and we called 

 them the clever students. We called the others stupid 

 until they thought themselves stupid, and we did not 

 recognise the fact that these others were in many cases 

 very much the cleverer. They refused to reason about 

 things they did not understand — that they were not familiar 

 with. And so their honest minds refused to follow their 

 teachers in geometry and other parts of mathematics ; they 

 refused the study of what is often called natural science 

 in schools. Yes, and in spite of the mental training which 

 is always bragged about by Latin masters and other 

 teachers of philology and grammar, the average bov was 

 stupefied by all the scholastic work he did. and if it had 

 not been for their sports, their teaching of themselves by 



NO. 2200, VOL. 88] 



obiervation and experinMiit out of tcbool, we ^kmiI . 

 stupefied them for their live*. 



1 have always felt that my best work wat in teachin. 

 that average student whom moat teachert call ttupH ^■ 

 whom I regard as the oioat earnest and hard*u 

 and honest, and altogether beat of all students. An 

 in every university, in every polytechnic of Gcrm.r 

 science college of America, there are great labor.! 

 and in most of them the average sti^ent still has \ 

 chance. Teachers will not exercise their common tenv 

 Why, a man can train a monkey or a dog or a be.t: 

 because he studies the animal ; he never studies the averse 

 boy, whose mental powers are infinitely greater : he catb 

 him stupid. 



In mechanics we deal with mere matter and its motion. 

 The fundamental ideas of time, length, area, volur 

 weight, force, velocity, &c., are quite familiar to all 

 and yet the average boy cannot be taught the simpb 

 combinations of these ideas, such as momentum. And 

 stupefied boy, who is to become a mechanical engineer, 

 now placed in an engineering laboratory, where the experi-^ 

 ments are simple enough, but they give him no new ideas ; 

 and because the big testing machines, which are perfect! 

 easy to understand, cannot be seen anywhere else, he . 

 said to have had a complete laboratory training. 



If things are bad in mechanics, think of the training 

 an electrical engineer ! Of course, an e!'*^''-''--' """•-■ 

 must first and foremost be a good mechan; 

 he must also know about the laws of c> 

 he is placed rmong the most delicate apparatus used 

 testing, consisting of reflecting galvanometers and resist- 

 ance coils and Wheatstone bridges, and he does a lot r ' 

 exercises and passes an examination, and after two yea- 

 work he knows absolutely nothing of the simple principle- 

 of electricity ; his mind if in a state of confusion on th'' 

 whole subject. 



Now before teaching geometry you ought to make a b 

 familiar with geometrical notions by his own drawing a' 

 measurement and computation, and so you ought 

 familiarise a boy with notions of current and electromoti\ 

 force and resistance by letting him play and m 

 the simplest kinds of electrical apparatus. For 

 are really abstract notions, and they cannot L. ^,...,,. 

 hended at all easily by the average boy. 



If you ask a boy " What is force? " and he gives y<^ 

 the answer, " Force is the rate of change of that vec; 

 which we call momentum,'' you must give him full mark 

 If you ask * What is Ohm's law?" and he ."• 

 " Current is electromotive force divided by resi- 

 again you must give him full marks. And yet it ii 

 before the engineer knows thoroughly well what these wor 

 mean, and many a student who takes prizes never gets 

 know what these words mean. 



Now all through the laboratory work here you will ^ 

 that there is an effort to make a student really und 

 the few fundamental principles which underlie all er 

 ing work. These principles are few and simple-I' 

 but if a man knows them thoroughly well, as v. 

 example, as he knows his way about his own li 

 the dark, then there is scarcely any new problem, howev 

 complex, in his engineering work that he cannot «of^• 

 and it is only the student who has fiddled with simp' 

 trical apparatus, making simple measurements and 

 ments, who can understand how to use your delic) 

 ing apparatus or electric generators and motors, 

 fundamental principles are part of his mental mr. 

 he will have no difficulty in comprehending th- 

 difficult things. 



Although we speak of our ways of teaching as " p- 

 geometry," •' practical mechanics," "practical elec- 

 &c., you must not get the idea that these are degra- 

 iects. Academic people had the names *' gee: 

 " mechanics," &c.. for subjects taught in the old w... . 

 subjects are the old subjects taught in a new way, and 

 has been abundantly proved already that the new way 

 the only way by which the average student can learn at 

 all : and not only this, but it is the very best way for all 

 students. Almost no student, however great he may be 

 as a mathematician, taught in the old way, has a real 

 knowledge of mechanics : force and momentum are alwavs 

 abstractions to him; mental phenomena are his only stuc 



