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NATURE 



[January 13, 1898 



Progress in Wales. 



The whole of the sum of 38,000/. available under the Local 

 Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, is devoted to the 

 purposes of intermediate and technical education, together with 

 an estimated sum of 20,000/. raised by rate under the Technical 

 Instruction Acts, 1889 and 1891. In addition to these sums, an 

 amount of over 17,000/. is raised under the provisions of the 

 Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889, which sum is met by 

 a contribution from the Treasury not exceeding the amount 

 payable out of the county rate, and based upon the efficiency of 

 the schools aided by the local authorities. The total sum which 

 is annually appropriated to intermediate and technical education 

 in Wales is, therefore, about 92,000/. 



In Cardiff, by an agreement between the Corporation and the 

 University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, the 

 entire responsibility of providing technical instruction is placed 

 upon the college, in consideration of a large annual grant, to- 

 gether with all fees and grants earned by, or on behalf of, the 

 students. The work of the college in this connection comprises 

 the maintenance of a large number of evening science and art 

 and technical classes, a women's technical department, and a 

 higher technical department, and the establishment of scholar- 

 ships and studentships. 



Expenditure on Technical Education in Scotland. 

 Of the total amount of 39,000/. distributed to local authorities 

 under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, an 

 estimated sum of 28,000/. is devoted to technical and secondary 

 education. This, with the addition of an amount of 60,000/. 

 available under the provisions of Section 2 of the Education 

 and Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act, 1892, makes the 

 total sum devoted to technical and secondary education in Scot- 

 land 88,000/., excluding those sums which are applied to 

 technical education by six School Boards out of the school 

 fund under the Technical Schools (Scotland) Act, 1887. 



The Position of Ireland. 

 The year 1897 has been one of disappointment to those 

 interested in technical education in Ireland. In February a 

 large and representative deputation, organised by the Technical 

 Education Association for Ireland, waited upon the Lord- 

 Lieutenant. His Excellency, who was much impressed by the 

 influential character of the deputation, and the arguments which 

 they advanced, announced that it was the intention of the 

 Government to introduce a Bill in the coming session which 

 would deal with agricultural instruction, and promised to use 

 his influence with his colleagues to introduce a Bill dealing 

 with technical education at the earliest possible opportunity. 



This promise was fulfilled, for not only was a Bill introduced 

 to create a Board of Agriculture and Industries for Ireland, but 

 provision was made in the Budget for an endowment of tech- 

 nical education. But the hopes, which the action of the Govern- 

 ment raised, were doomed to disappointment. The Agriculture 

 and Industries (Ireland) Bill, being unfavourably received by 

 the Irish Members of Parliament owing to its financial clauses, 

 was withdrawn ; an announcement was made by the First Lord 

 of the Treasury that as an alternative policy a Local Govern- 

 ment Bill would be introduced during the following session, and 

 the provision made in the Budget for technical education was 

 otherwise appropriated. 



At the end of November a still larger and more representative 

 deputation, organised by the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, 

 and representing all the Chambers of Commerce, the principal 

 municipalities, and the leading agricultural and industrial 

 organisations of Ireland, waited on the Chief Secretary for Ire- 

 land and pressed upon the Government the need of establishing 

 a Board of Agriculture and Industries during the forthcoming 

 session. The strongest representations were made as to the 

 urgency of the matter. But the Chief Secretary, though admit- 

 ting the urgency, informed the deputation that the Government 

 were pledged to the Local Government Bill, and that it would 

 not be fair to buoy up those interested in the movement with the 

 hope that there was any reasonable prospect that the Govern- 

 ment would be able to deal with two first-class Irish measures in 

 the one session. The encouraging feature about the situation 

 is that public opinion is thoroughly aroused upon this question, 

 and there is, therefore, no fear that the matter will be allowed 

 to drop. 



Early in the year the Lord-Lieutenant appointed a Commis- 



NO. 1472, VOL. 57] 



sion to " inquire and report with a view to determining how far, 

 and in what form, manual and practical instruction should be 

 included in the educational system of primary schools under the 

 Board of National Education in Ireland." The Commission 

 have held sittings in the principal Irish towns, as well as in 

 England and in Scotland, and have sent experts to report upon 

 the position of manual and practical instruction in connection 

 with elementary education in Germany and France. It is ex- 

 pected that their report will be submitted to the Lord-Lieutenant 

 sufficiently early in the year to allow the Government to make 

 provision in the estimates to carry out the recommendations of 

 the Commission. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Prok. G. Krause, of Halle, has been appointed ordinary 

 professor of botany to the University of Wlirzburg, in the place 

 of the late Prof J. Sachs. 



Among the measures to be laid before the Prussian Diet 

 during the session opened on Tuesday is one on the vexed sub- 

 ject of disciplinary procedure against University Lecturers. In 

 the Speech from the Throne this is alluded to as a '• legislative 

 regulation of the circumstances concerning the position of 

 University lecturers." 



The Duchess of Fife opened the new Municipal Technica- 

 School at Brighton on Saturday last. The Duke of Fife, re 

 plying on behalf of the Duchess to a vote of thanks passed to 

 her Royal Highness, remarked that in establishing the school 

 Brighton had placed itself in line with all the great centres of 

 population in the country, and showed itself alive to the great 

 educational necessity of the day. 



Si'EAKiNG at the annual dinner of the Yorkshire College, 

 Leeds, on Friday last, Lord Londonderry .said that England was 

 only slowly waking up to the fact that a technical, as distin- 

 guished from a commercial or literary, education was becoming 

 more and more essential every day. A great deal had been done 

 by the Yorkshire College, which had to deal with a county vast 

 in its dimensions, and containing within its limits every variety 

 of trade industries. The College had come to the assistance of 

 all these industries. It had rendered valuable assistance to 

 dyeing and weaving as well as to the application of art to the 

 textile industries, and thanks to the grant by the Clothworkers' 

 Company of 50,000/. for the establishment of this department, 

 no less than 2500/. a year was expended to make the College 

 the first weaving and dyeing school in the country. Many more 

 such institutions as the Yorkshire College are needed before 

 technical education is sufficiently provided for the needs and 

 requirements of the country. 



Teachers of science and science classes in higher-grade and 

 public elementary schools, held a meeting on Friday last in the 

 rooms of the Society of Arts. Mr. C. J. Addiscolt, President of 

 the National Union of Teachers, occupied the chair ; and in his 

 opening address he remarked that what is needed at the present 

 time is a sound, workable system of technical instruction, based 

 upon science and art teaching, which itself must be based upon 

 a solid foundation of primary instruction. He discredited the 

 idea that our primary system should be so moulded that it 

 should lead necessarily to a secondary system, believing that the 

 needs of the class with which they had to deal were outside 

 what he conceived to be secondary education, and that the satis- 

 faction of those needs would be found in the development of 

 the primary system through the higher-grade Board school or 

 organised science school on to the technical institute. The 

 main factor for successful progress in this direction must be a 

 central authority, which should be sympathetic, which should 

 know the needs and the 'difficulties of each class at each stage of 

 the journey. A number of resolutions were passed, one of them 

 being opposed to the recent action of the Science and Art De- 

 partment in giving instructions to inspectors to report any case 

 where 25 per cent, of the first year students leave the schools at 

 the end of the year, or more than that percentage of the second 

 year students leave at the end of the second year, in order that 

 the department might consider whether such schools should 

 continue to be recognised as schools of science. 



The Association of Directors and Organising Secretaries for 

 Technical and Secondary Education met on Friday last at the 

 Guildhall, Westminster. Mr. C. H. Bothamley (Somerset) was 



