i84 



NATURE 



[Dec. 26, 1889 



and act as teachers to pupils. In the ancient charters the word 

 " Universitas " is used for the modern designation of Guild. 

 University simply means a teaching corporation, whether for 

 professional or trade purposes. In both cases the teacher is 

 termed a "master," and the pupil an "apprentice " from 

 apprendre, to learn. The function of teaching by the Guilds 

 was gradually lost. The master became the capitalist, the 

 pupil the workman. The capitalist does not consider it part of 

 his duty — quite the contrary — to teach the workman his craft, 

 and thus the latter, though handy in one branch, never becomes 

 a craftsman ; intelligence is wanting, and the industry suffers 

 when placed in competition with that for which the craftsman 

 has been intelligently trained. 



But now the Guilds have recovered their long lost ground, and 

 by a natural process of evolution they are now engaged separately 

 and collectively in nobly carrying out the work for which to a 

 great extent they were originally constituted. 



This new departure, or rather this recurrence to the ancient 

 type, we know as technical education, and we define it as 

 the instruction in those arts and sciences which underlie the 

 practice of the industry or trade, this instruction being given in 

 the technical school. 



No attempt is there made to teach the trade or industry itself; 

 this is done, and can only be done, in the factory or workshop. 

 The school teaches how to make the best article ; the workshop, 

 how to make that article cheapest. The school ignores econo- 

 mical production, whilst this is the all-important factor in the 

 workshop. 



In my remarks this evening I propose to consider how the 

 Guilds are now carrying on this work, and to point out the rela- 

 tion which that work bears to the general question of technical 

 education in the country, which is now acknowledged on all 

 hands to be one vitally affecting our industrial supremacy 

 amongst the nations. 



This acknowledgment has now received a national recogni- 

 tion in the passing of the Technical Instruction Act of last session 

 of Parliament, and thus has materially changed the whole aspect 

 of affairs. Now technical instruction, which has hitherto been 

 sporadic may become systematic, for private effort has received 

 national authorization, and sooner or later a complete scheme for 

 technical instruction must be forthcoming. 



The commencement of such a scheme has indeed already been 

 made by the efforts of the City Guilds. Your Institute, with its 

 various branches, is the nucleus of such a system, the importance 

 of which will perhaps only be recognized when the history of this 

 great educational movement comes to be written. 



Starting from small beginnings, this work has already attained 

 dimensions which exceed the most sanguine expectations of its 

 founders. 



The extension of your technological examinations has been 

 so rapid that now no fewer than 12,000 students are receiving 

 instruction in 500 registered classes in 1 13 towns in the Kingdom, 

 whilst 6000 students passed the examinations last year. 



Of the value of these examinations as stimulating a knowledge 

 of the rationale of practical processes there can be no doubt. 

 The age of empiricism is past, rule-of-thumb is dead, and a new 

 rule, that of scientific training or organized common-sense, has 

 taken its place. 



These examinations serve to spread that scientific training 

 amongst the masses of our population, and though they do not 

 accomplish all, they accomplish much, and the classes if not all 

 first-rate are still vastly better than none at all, and it is satis- 

 factory to note that the employers of skilled labour are beginning 

 to find out that the men thus trained are of greater value than 

 those who have not had such training. 



To quote one example of this among many, a pupil of the 

 Manchester Textile School gained at the last examination the 

 silver medal in honours. He was simply a " cotton operative," 

 but since that time he has obtained the post of manager of 11 70 

 looms under a large manufacturing firm, and the determining 

 factor in his success over a great number of competitors was his 

 possession of the silver medal first-class certificate in honours of 

 this Institute. 



But, after all, the attendance on these classes is only the 

 beginning. A more thorough training is needed ; for this the 

 Institute has founded the admirable model "Intermediate" 

 Technical School in Finsbury, where the course is a real pre- 

 paration for entering the workshop, and thus the pupils begin 

 industrial life under more favourable conditions than otherwise 

 would have been the case. 



It is much to be hoped that the Institute may not only be able to- 

 continue grants to this most useful school, but may see its way 

 to plant other similar schools in various parts of the metropolis, 

 which after all is the greatest industrial centre in the Kingdom.. 



But the Institute does not stand alone in carrying on this great 

 work of raising up the true craftsman, and thus helping to keep 

 down that dangertoour overcrowded centres of population — the 

 great army of unskilled labour. The Guilds are separately- 

 taking up the question, and if we rhay deplore the withdrawal 

 of some from the general scheme, we may well commend their 

 efforts in other directions. Witness the foundation by the Com- 

 pany in whose hall we are now assembled of a great technical 

 and recreative institute at New Cross, which bids fair to become 

 a centre of light and leading in a district dark and backward. 



Again, look at what the Drapers' Company have done, and 

 are doing, at the East End to place the People's Palace on a 

 sound financial basis ; or at the still greater work, if such things 

 can be compared, which the Clothworkers' Company has done 

 in Yorkshire and other districts to place upon sure scientific 

 foundations the clothworker's craft. 



Amongst these efforts to raise the industrial capabilities of our 

 population we must not forget the scheme of the Charity Com- 

 missioners for the application of the property of the City of 

 London charities. This arose out of an Act passed six years ago 

 at the instance of my friend Mr. Bryce, which directed that 

 the general funds of these charities should be applied to the benefit 

 of the poorer part of the population. 



No less a sum than ^^50,000 per annum is thus applicable, 

 and the scheme lately put forward by the Commissioners for the 

 appropriation of this sum is, on the whole, an admirable one, 

 which may, if wisely worked, end in the creation of what may 

 be termed a popular technical University for London. The 

 value of such an organization as is thus proposed will be appre- 

 ciated by those who have some knowledge of how these things 

 are managed on the Continent, and in how chaotic a state is the 

 whole of London education beyond the rank of the primary 

 school. 



All these efforts are truly " signs of the times ; " they point to 

 the recognition by the better endowed that not merely is it their 

 duty, but their self-interest, to see that those who have the power 

 know how to use it wisely, for it is on this that our national 

 stability and progress depend. 



But it is not enough simply to educate the craftsman ; his 

 employer needs it equally, if not more, and this task is, perhaps, 

 a more difficult one, for as the Royal Commissioners on Technical 

 Education report, ' ' Englishmen have yet to learn that an ex- 

 tended and systematic education, up to and including original 

 research, is a necessary preliminary to the fullest development of 

 industry," and this necessity your Council have fully acknow- 

 ledged, for, at the inauguration of your Central Institution, Lord 

 Selborne said : — "It is, however, in the appreciation of, and in 

 the facilities for higher technical instruction, that we in this 

 country are most deficient, and it is to supply this want that the 

 Central Institution has been established, ... in which new and 

 increased facilities will be afforded for the prosecution of original 

 research, having for its object the more thorough training of 

 the students and the elucidation of the theory of industrial pro- 

 cesses." 



I do not think that one could more emphatically or more 

 clearly define the character of the work needed for the highest 

 instruction of the future leaders of industry, than Lord Selborne 

 has done in these words. 



Now, the question arises. Is the Central Institution accom- 

 plishing the ends thus clearly marked out ? It must be admitted 

 that the supply of students has hardly been equal to the expecta- 

 tions formed by its friends at the outset. But if the work done 

 is of a high class, and if those who come within its walls are 

 there fitted for discharging the higher duties which modern in- 

 dustry requires, we may be satisfied, for the fact is that the 

 demand for high-class technical instruction has yet to be created. 

 Other difficulties beset this particular kind of teaching. One is 

 that, as in many new institutions, the students enter ill- prepared,, 

 and thus the instruction is forced into elementary lines, and the 

 time which can be given to higher work materially shortened. 



A second, is that of hitting off the happy inean between the 

 teaching of theory and that of practice, and in order that this 

 essential may be accomplished, it is necessary that the teachers 

 giving this higher technical instruction should be men who are 

 well known and respected in their several professions, and not 

 mere schoolmasters. In other words, that they shall know the 



