Dec. 26, 1889] 



NATURE 



185 



practice as well as the theory of the subjects they profess. Such 

 men, as far as I am able to judge, your Council has found in 

 the present able staff of professors. 



Then again, in measuring the success of such a College, it 

 must be remembered that it is intended for the elite of the 

 industrial world, and that, as individual attention must be paid 

 to each student in the laboratories and drawing- offices, the 

 highest technical instruction of crowds is impossible. 



Little seems hitherto to have been done in the way of training 

 technical teachers, and for the obvious reason that the demand 

 for such is very limited, whilst that for competent men to enter a 

 more practical career is great. 



But whether the College is training teachers, or those who are 

 to carry out the lessons of such teachers into practice, does not 

 matter. The object is to train men who can improve our present 

 industries, and raise up new ones ; and this may be accomplished 

 by either or by both methods. Neither the one nor the other 

 can, however, succeed unless the student of technology has a 

 firm grasp of the scientific principles upon which his industry is 

 based. 



It is useless, and worse, to attempt to teach the applications 

 to pupils to whom the science itself is an unknown quantity. 



Hence arises the question. How and where can the preliminary 

 science training be best given ? and the answer to this raises 

 many difficult and some delicate matters. 



First, however, let me disabuse your minds of a notion which 

 may become general, and, if so, harmful — namely, the new 

 Metropolitan Polytechnic Institutions, as they are called, can 

 ever do this highest and most important kind of education. Do 

 not let us fancy that the establishment of these no doubt very 

 valuable institutions is the ultimatum to be aimed at in technical 

 education, or imagine that they can attempt to do what is done 

 in Germany, France, or Switzerland by institutions bearing the 

 same name. I look upon it as a misfortune that, by mere 

 chance, the name of the old Institution in Regent Street, known 

 to fame as the home of the diving-bell and of Prof. Pepper's 

 Ghost, should have been retained for institutions which neither 

 resemble it nor the high schools which form so marked a feature 

 in the Continental educational system. These latter are in our 

 country rather represented by the scientific departments of our 

 Universities, and by those of the metropolitan and local Uni- 

 versity Colleges, by the Royal Normal School of Science, and 

 by your own Central Institution^ We cannot too clearly under- 

 stand that whatever success attends the foundation of these 

 Metropolitan Polytechnics — and no one more cordially wishes 

 them success than I do — the work of the centres of the highest 

 education still remains to be done ; indeed, the greater the 

 popularity of the lower institutions, the greater the need and 

 scope for the higher ones. 



The rapid growth in London of this idea of the importance 

 of handicraft and recreative education is most remarkable, and 

 for this stimulus we are almost wholly indebted to Mr. Quintin 

 Hogg. 



The effect of this movement upon your Institute has been 

 severely felt, for it is clear that, whereas seven or eight years ago 

 the enthusiasm of the City Companies was strongly in favour of 

 the higher technical education in the Continental sense, it is now 

 all for this newer and more popular, I will not say less useful, 

 form of handicraft and recreative instruction. 



It is a fact which may as well be clearly stated, that the Central 

 Institution cannot do all it might do for want of a few thousands, 

 and that the scheme of technological examinations is crippled by 

 the loss of the support of those who at first nobly contributed 

 towards these objects. 



The Drapers prefer to support more popular institutions at the 

 East End, and the Goldsmiths do likewise in regard to their own 

 institution at New Cross, so that there is no doubt that the in- 

 terest formerly felt in the general and collective work of the 

 Institute is distinctly on the wane. 



Well, ladies and gentlemen, a consideration of these patent 

 facts leads one to the question, How are these things to go on ? 

 Are we never to have ' ' law and order " — about which we have 

 heard enough in other matters — introduced into affairs educa- 

 tional ? 



And in what I am about to say, let me premise that I merely 

 express my own individual opinion as an independent observer, 

 anxious only for the success of the good cause which we all have 

 at heart. Then may I say that I am dead against a cut-and- 

 dfied system of Governmental education such as we see in other 

 countries ? I am all for stimulating and developing local effort 

 to local requirements, and it is because I am fully aware of the 



dangers of centralization, and desire to promote adaptability ta 

 local needs, that I gave my hearty support to the Government 

 Technical Instruction Bill as amended in the House of Commons^ 

 in which the power of the locality to work out its own educational 

 salvation is fully safe-guarded. 



But holding these views I see clearly that there are things^ 

 which can only be satisfactorily accomplished by a central 

 authority. 



That our primary education can only be properly conducted 

 on a national basis has been admitted for more than a quarter of 

 a century ; so it will be with the higher or secondary education, 

 whether technical, commercial, or professional — we must have a 

 system. As I have said, the foundation of your Institute was 

 the beginning of such a system for technical instruction ; but has 

 it not already outstripped the bounds of your control ? Can it 

 be satisfactorily worked in the future on its present lines ? 



Let us look at the matter from an independent point of view. We 

 have now three Government Departments charged with educational 

 work — the Education Department for Elementary Instruction, 

 the Science and Art Department, and the Charity Commissioners. 

 One of the most important steps which could be taken to bring 

 these under effect ive control is the appointment of a Minister 

 of Education, of Cabinet rank, who would be in close touch with 

 every part of our now discordant educational system. But that 

 is not the immediate question before us. 



This refers more especially to the desirability of consolidating 

 the Science and Art Department. As you know, this controls and 

 stimulates, in what I think we may allow to be a satisfactory 

 manner, the teaching of elementary science and of art through- 

 out the country. Would it not conduce to the benefit of the 

 country, if the Guilds' technological examinations were to be 

 undertaken by the Department, and thus placed on a national 

 basis? Several of the subjects now included in the Directory of 

 the Department, on which grants are made, are of a distinctly 

 technical character, and therefore no objection can be raised that 

 the other subjects now under the Guilds Institute cannot equally 

 well be placed under the Department. 



The benefits which would thus accrue are great and palpable,, 

 the two systems of examinations in pure and in applied science 

 would then work side by side without friction or overlapping,, 

 and the extension of the technical examinations would be easy 

 and certain. 



If this were accomplished, I for one would strongly urge the 

 removal of the system of payment on individual results — a 

 method in all cases to be deprecated, but one which is especially 

 unsuited for testing the value of technical instruction. This can 

 be much more certainly effected by ascertaining the efficiency of 

 the whole class, of the teacher, and of his appliances, by in- 

 spection or otherwise. 



If once we get rid of this system of payment on individual 

 results in one set of subjects, we may look forward to its ultimate 

 extinction in the others, and no subject seems so suitable for 

 making a beginning as that of technical instruction. 



I would therefore suggest that the best means of securing the 

 permanency and the extension of the very useful technological 

 examinations which your Council — and all honour to them for it — 

 have started, is to request the Government to take them over, 

 thereby rendering the Science and Art Department more efficient, 

 and enabling that Department to make the improvements and 

 alterations in the system which it undoubtedly requires. 



May I go one step further in these suggestions, and ask if this 

 should be done, is it not a necessary corollary that the Central 

 Institution should likewise become a Government Normal School 

 for Applied Science ? There is much to be said in favour of such 

 a proposal. 



The very situation, close to the Royal Normal School of 

 Science, seems to forecast its ultimate destiny. Under separate 

 management, no consistent or well-arranged scheme of common 

 work is possible ; brought under one direction, the essential 

 alliance between pure and applied science, as regards teaching, 

 becomes easy of attainment. 



Students would pass and re-pass from the one school to the 

 other, obtaining at the one the knowledge of the scientific 

 principles, and, at the other, that of their applications. 



Of the national advantages of such a fusion there can, I think, 

 be little doubt. England would then be in possession of an. 

 institution which might, for completeness and efficiency, both 

 as regards the personnel and the appliances, soon be made 

 second to none on the Continent, and worthy of the greatest 

 industrial nation in the world. 



Your Institute would thus set itself free to extend its influence- 



