Sept. 1 8, 1879] 



NATURE 



49; 



wai the most necessary in education was to awaken the iiitcre.-it 

 of the children in the subject taught. The children would be 

 '.aught to think for themselves. Therefore, he had always sup- 

 ported science teaching in schools not only for its great utility, 

 but from a belief that if science teaching was coupled with the 

 ordinary literary teaching of schools, a knowledge of the 

 literary subjects would be more easily acquired. It did not 

 surprise him to hear that there was a good deal in our national 

 education system that needed reform. They had just heard from 

 a successful and accomplished teacher in this town that science 

 could not be taught, because the inspectors themselves discour- 

 aged the teaching of it. Young gentlemen fresh from the 

 Universities — some of them very accomplished — were made the 

 inspectors of the whole elementary schools in the country, by a 

 system of patronage and not^of selection. They were very highly 

 paid, and they were appointed inspectors because perhaps their 

 fathers or near relatives had rendered a service to some particular 

 political party whichever it might be. But that was altogether a 

 wrong state of matters with reference to education. In London 

 he was now constantly hearing a cry as to whether we are not 

 over-educating the people. Although all present might acquiesce 

 to-day in this discussion, throughout society the cry was, " We 

 are over-educating our people." The real truth was, that people 

 had yet to learn to begin to educate children. They were all 

 very proud of what had been done by the Education Act of 1S70, 

 and he should be the last man to undervalue that Act. But as 

 for having an edncational system, he declared they liad none. 

 To begin with, they should have a Minister of Education who 

 would deal with education solely, and who would know some- 

 thing .-ibout his business. Education ought not to be mixed up 

 in the Education Department with vaccination and cattle plague, 

 and other things. Itseemed that all the heterogeneous things there 

 was no room for in other departments had been sent to the 

 liducation Department. He not only supported science teaching 

 in schools, but he wanted to see it carried to a higher state than 

 the mere teaching of it in schools. Should the British Associa- 

 tion visit this town some twenty years hence, they might reason- 

 ably expect to find " home-bred " scientific men who would 

 appreciate more highly the Association's labours. 



Prof. S. I'. Thompson read a paper On Apprentice Schools in 

 Prance. — The problem to be solved was — how to give that 

 technical training and scientific knowledge to artisan children 

 w hich 'their occupation demanded, without detaining them so 

 long at their schooling as to give them a distaste for manual 

 labour. There were four solations of the problem, all of which 

 had been tried, and illustrations of which could be seen in Paris. 

 They were (i) send the children to work in the factory or work- 

 shop at an earlier age, making it obligatory all through their 

 apprenticeship that they should have every day a certain number 

 of hours' schooling in a school in the workshop or attached to 

 it. (2) Keep the children at school as long as their education 

 was unfinished, but set up a workshop in the school where they 

 should pass a certain amount of time every day so as to gain at 

 least an aptitude for manual labour. (3) Organise a school and 

 a workshop side by .side and co-ordinate the hours given to study 

 with an equal number ^of hotirs devoted to systematic manual 

 laboiu- ; and (4) send the children half the day to the existing 

 schools, and the other half to work half-time in the workshop or 

 factory. Schools of the first type had existed in France for 

 nearly thirty years, and at the close of 1878 there were no fewer 

 than 237 schools of this character. So far as he was anare, 

 there was only one school of the second type — the Ecole com- 

 munale d'Apprentis, in the Rue Tovu-nefort, Paris. The pecu- 

 liarity of this school was that workshop training was being given 

 to _lads who had not yet completed a course of elementary 

 education. _ Of the third type some admirable examples were 

 to be seen in Paris. Some very interesting particulars were given 

 of the progress of the horological school at Besan9on. The 

 fourth type or half-time school, which was English in its origin, 

 was rarely to be found in France. Since the old apprenticeship 

 had virtually lapsed, there was nothing to save the young artisan 

 of the rising generation from degenerating into a mere machine, 

 unless a new agency could be practically organised. What was 

 elaimedfor the apprenticeship school was that its pupils do not 

 jjossess just a bare minimum of knowledge sufficient to procure 

 them means of subsistence in one narrow department of one 

 restricted industry, but that they possess both manual dexterity 

 and a fair technical knowledge which would en.-iblc them not 

 only to earn more and to turn out better work, but also to be 

 less at the mercy of the fluctuation of trade for the means of 



subsistence. Besides the new apprenticeship being betler for real 

 instruction in technical principles, it was also better for practical 

 work in so far as it shortened the needlessly long years of the 

 apprenticeship, and imparted at an earlier age all the manual 

 capacity that apprenticeship in any form could impart. There 

 were not wanting on our horizon signs of significance in the pro- 

 blem of the relation of science to labour. We had really skilled 

 workmen, and no foreignworkmen were their equals, but they were 

 only units in a crowd. Take which view they would, technical 

 education, and above all, the technical education of the artisan 

 classes was a sifte quA non of the future industrial prosperity of 

 Great Britain. What steps then must be taken to give effect to 

 the new apprenticeship ? Two things would determine the suc- 

 cess or failure of the school — (l) the obtaining of the right kind 

 of teachers, and (2) the adoption of a system of instruction 

 based upon drawing, which was the language of the manufac- 

 tures, the handicrafts, the constructive industries of all kinds. 

 It was evident that the first step would be the foundation of a 

 system for training competent teachers. Then there must be a 

 central technical college, 'for through such an institution alone 

 could community of thought and method of work be obtained. If 

 such a system of technical education as he pointed out was to 

 be instituted, the nation must move towards its accomplishment 

 with a spirit very diflTerent from that in which it had viewed 

 technical education during the last quarter of a century. Crisis 

 after crisis had passed, and capitalists and unionist artisans 

 either would not, could not, or dare not confess that the core of 

 all the rottenness was the failure of the old apprenticeship to 

 cope with the requirements of the age and the new social con- 

 ditions brought about by the fierce rivalries of industry. 



AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



'T'lIE twenty-eighth meeting of the American Association for 

 -*■ the Advancement of Science was commenced on Wednes- 

 day, August 27, at Saratoga Springs, N.Y. After the formal 

 opening in the Town Hall, the proceedings of the first day were 

 mostly concerned with organisation. We give below, in part, 

 the address of the retiring president, Prof. O. C. Marsh, which 

 was delivered on the evening of the 28th, and we hope shortly 

 to offer further intelligence of the scientific work of the 

 meeting. 



The new President is Prof. George F. Barker, of Philadelphia ; 

 the Vice-president in Section A (comprising Mathematics, 

 Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, and Rlineralogy), Prof. Langley, 

 of Alleghany ; and that in Section B (Geology, Zoology, and 

 Botany), Major Powell, of Wa.shington. Prof. Clarke was 

 chairman in Chemistry (sub-Section C), Dr. Morley in Micro- 

 scopy (sub-Section D) and Dr. D. Wilson in Anthropology (sub- 

 Section E). In addition to the presidential addresses and ordi- 

 nary work of the sections, we note from the programme 

 that Dr. Edison was to give, on the Saturday evening, an 

 illustrated paper on " The Electro-Chemical Telephone ; " while 

 Monday evening was to be devoted in general session to hearing 

 three papers by Professors Chandler, Hall, and Hunt on the 

 mineral waters of Saratoga. There is a goodly list of over 1 50 

 papers to be read before the various sections (and it is, by the 

 way, a commendable feature, that the time each would occupy in 

 reading is exactly stated). The following are, briefly, some of the 

 subjects : — In Section A : Experimental determination of the 

 velocity of light (Michelson) ; Cooling of the sun and the earth 

 (Peirce) ; Solubility of ozone (Leeds) ; A general law indicating 

 the location of planets, satellites, or annular rings round their 

 primary (Mar.sden) ; Metrology and the progress of science 

 (Barnard); Double stars (Hall); Identity of lines of oxygen 

 with bright solar lines (Draper) ; Binaural audition (Bell) ; 

 Conversion of mechanical energy into heat by magneto-electric 

 machines (Barker) ; Phenomena of heating metal in vacuo by 

 means of an electric current (Edison) ; Influence of light 011 

 electric conductivity of metals (Wright). In Section B : Suc- 

 cession of glacial deposits in New England (Upham) ; Histology 

 of insects (Minot) ; Conditions to be fulfilled by a theory of life 

 (Minot) ; Philosophy of the pupation of butterflies (Riley) ; Con- 

 sonantal expression of emotion (Blake) ; Microscopic crystals in 

 the vertebra of the toad (Bolton); The inter-oceanic canal 

 problem (Lull) ; Bornean orangs (Hornaday) ; Objects of sex 

 and of odour in fJowers (Meehaii) ; Remarkable crinoidal form 

 recently found in Tennessee (Safford) ; New unpolarisable elec- 



