May 5, 1887] 



NATURE 



19 



intended to maintain for the governing body of the Imperial 

 Institute will secure the wise administration by it of funds of 

 this kind, dedicated to the extension and perfection of national 

 establishments for technical education, and to the encourage- 

 ment of its pursuit, in the ways above indicated, by those whose 

 circumstances would otherwise prevent them from enjoying the 

 advantages secured to their fellow-workers in other countries. 

 Several other directions readily suggest themselves in which the 

 judicious administration of resources in aid of the technical 

 training of eligible men of the the artisan class could well form 

 part of the organised work of the Imperial Institute. 



By the establishment of an Education branch of the Intelli- 

 gence Department, which will form a very prominent section of 

 the Imperial Institute, the working of the colleges and schools of 

 applied science in all parts of the United Kingdom will be 

 harmonised and assisted, and the information continuously col- 

 lected from all countries relating to educational work and the 

 application of the sciences to industrial purposes and the arts 

 will be systematically distributed. A well-organised Inquiry 

 Department will furnish to students coming to Great Britain 

 from the colonies, dependencies, and India, the requisite infor- 

 mation and advice to aid them in selecting their place of work 

 and their temporary home, and in various other ways. The 

 collections of natural products of the colonies and India, main- 

 tained up to the day by additions and renewals at the central 

 establishment of the Institute, will be of great value to students 

 in the immediately adjacent educational institutions, and will, 

 moreover, be made subservient to the purposes of provincial 

 industrial colleges by the distribution of thoroughly descriptive 

 reference catalogues, and of specimens. Supplies of natural pro- 

 ducts from the Colonies, India, or from other countries, which 

 are either new or have been but imperfectly studied, will be 

 maintained, so that the material may be readily provided to the 

 worker in science or the manufacturer, either for scientific 

 investigation or for purposes of technical experiment. 



The existence of those collections and of all information re- 

 lating to them, as well as of the libraries of technology, inven- 

 tions, commerce, and applied geography, 'in immediate proximity 

 to the Government Museums of Science and Inventions, Art, and 

 Natural History, to the Normal School of Science, and to the 

 Central Technical Institute, present advantages so obvious as to 

 merit some fair consideration by those who have hitherto de- 

 clined to recognise any reason in favour of the establishment of 

 the Imperial Institute at South Kensington. 



In the powerful public representations which have of late 

 been made on the imperative necessity for the greater dissemi- 

 nation and thorough organisation of industrial education, the 

 importance of a radical improvement in commercial education, 

 as distinguished from what is comprehended under the head of 

 technical training, has scarcely received that prominence which 

 it merits. It is true that, in some of our colleges, there are 

 courses of instruction framed with more especial reference to the 

 requirements of those who propose to enter into mercantile 

 houses, or in other ways to devote themselves to commercial 

 pursuits ; but as a rule the mercantile employt's, embraced under 

 the comprehensive title of clerks, begin their careers in life but 

 ill prepared to be more than mechanical labourers, and remain 

 greatly dependent upon accident, or upon their desire for self- 

 improvement which directs them in time to particular lines of 

 study, for their prospects of future success in commercial life. 



This impressed itself strongly upon the Royal Commission on 

 the Depression of Trade and Industry, who state as the result 

 of evidence collected by them that our deficiency in the matter 

 of education as compared with some of our foreign competitors 

 relates "not only to what is usually called technical education, 

 but also to the ordinary commercial education which is required 

 in mercantile houses." The ordinary clerk in a merchant's 

 oftice is too often made to feel his inferiority to his German 

 colleague, not merely in regard to his lamentable deficiency in 

 the knowledge of languages, but in respect to almost every 

 branch of knowledge bearing upon the intelligent performance 

 of his daily work and upon his prospect of advancement. The 

 preliminary training for commercial life on the Continent is far 

 more comprehensive, practical, and systematic than that which 

 is attainable in this country, and the student of commerce 

 abroad has, afterwards, opportunities for obtaining a high scien- 

 tific and practical training at distinct branches of the polytechnic 

 schools and in establishments analogous to the technical colleges 

 such as the High Schools of Commerce in Paris, Antwerp, and 

 Vienna. 



It will be well within the scope of the Imperial Institute, as 

 an organisation for the advancement of industry and commerce, 

 to promote a systematic improvement and organisation of com- 

 mercial education by measures analogous to those which it will 

 bring to bear upon the advancement of industrial education. 



The very scant recognition which the great cause of technical 

 education has hitherto received at the hands of our administrators 

 has, at any rate, the good effect of rousing and stimulating that 

 power of self-help which has been the foundation of many 

 achievements of greatest pride to the nation, and we may look 

 with confidence to the united exertions of the people of this 

 country, through the medium of the representative organisation 

 which they are now founding, for the early development of a 

 comprehensive national system of technical education, of the 

 nature foreshadowed not long since by Lord Hartington, in that 

 important address which has raised bright hopes in the hearts of 

 the apostles of education. 



In connexion with some of the views which have been of late 

 put forward regarding the possible scope of the Imperial Institute, 

 the antagonism which has been raised and fostered against its 

 location in the vicinity of some of our national establishments 

 most intimately connected with the educational advancement 

 of the Empire, has developed a tendency to circumscribe its 

 future sphere of usefulness, and to place its functions as a 

 great establishment of reference and resort for the commercial man 

 in the chief foreground. I have endeavoured to indicate directions 

 in which its relations to the Colonies and India, to the great 

 industries of the country, and to the advancement of technical and 

 commercial education, cannot fail to be at least as important as its 

 immediate connexion with the wants of the commercial section 

 of the community, and those are most certainly quite independent 

 of the particular locality in which it may be placed, excepting 

 in so far as the command of ample space, and the advantages to 

 be derived from juxtaposition with the great national establish- 

 ments to which I have referred, is concerned. At the same time, 

 there is not one of the directions in which the development of the 

 resources and activity of the Institute has been thus far indicated, 

 which has not an immediate and important bearing upon the 

 advancement of the commerce of the Empire. There are, how- 

 ever, special functions to be fulfilled by the Institute, which are 

 most immediately connected alike with the great commercial 

 work of the City of London and with that of the provincial 

 centres of commerce. The provision, in very central and readily 

 accessible positions, of commercial museums or collections of 

 natural or import products, and of export products of different 

 nations, combined with comprehensive sample-rooms and 

 facilities for the business of inspection, or of commercial, chemical 

 or physical examination, is a work in which the Institute should 

 lend most important aid. The system of correspondence with 

 all parts of the Empire which it will develop and maintain will 

 enable it to collect and form a central depot of natural products 

 from which local commercial museums can be supplied with 

 complete, thoroughly classified economic collections, and with 

 representative samples of all that, from time to time, is new in 

 the way of natural products from the Colonies and Dependencies, 

 from India, and from other countries. In combination with this 

 organisation, the distribution to commercial centres of in- 

 formation acquired by a central department of commercial 

 geography will constitute an important feature in the work of 

 the Institute, bearing immediately upon the interests of the 

 merchant at home, in the Colonies, ani in India. 



The formation of specially commercial institutions, of which 

 inquiry offices, museums, and sample-rooms with their accesso- 

 ries, will form a leading feature, and which will supply a want 

 long since provided for by the nations with whom we compete 

 commercially,, is already in contemplation in the Cities of 

 London and Newcastle ; other great commercial centres will 

 also doubtless speedily take steps to provide accommodation for 

 similar offshoots from the central collections of the Institute. 

 So far as the Indian Empire is concerned, the organisation of 

 correspondence by provincial committees which already exists in 

 connexion with economic and geological museums established in 

 the several Presidencies, affords facilities for the speedy elabora- 

 tion of the contemplated system of correspondence in connexion 

 with the Institute, and the establishment of similar org-inisations 

 in the different Colonies will, is is hoped, be heartily entered 

 upon and speedily developed. 



The system of correspondence to which I have more than once 

 alluded in indicating some of the work of the Institute, in 

 relation to technical education and industry, and which will form 



