1 88 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



up in all our large towns calling attention to the 

 opening of municipal technical schools and classes 

 but on almost every gate-post throughout rural Eng- 

 land similar notices may be found of county council 

 classes, not only in agricultural matters, such as 

 dairying and butter- and cheese-making, but in the 

 great variety of useful subjects permissible under the 

 Education Acts. 



The object of the Commission was especially to 

 bring before the English public the extent to which 

 foreign countries, particularly Switzerland and Ger- 

 many, were ahead of us as regards this kind of edu- 

 cation, upon which it was felt the future progress and 

 position of England as a manufacturing and commer- 

 cial nation depend, and how far the flourishing indus- 

 tries in these countries had been stimulated and sup- 

 ported by the technical education which had there 

 been developed. By that is meant education in the 

 principles of the arts and sciences underlying industry 

 and commerce. 



No one whose opinion is of value pretends that the 

 technical school can supplant the workshop or the 

 factory. To be an adept in any handicraft the experi- 

 ence of long continuous work in the shop or at the 

 loom is, of course, essential. The school teaches the 

 principles, scientific, mechanical, or artistic, upon which 

 the industry is based. The workshop puts those prin- 

 ciples into practice. The school does not consider 

 economy of production ; at any rate it cannot carry out 

 economy in detail ; whilst in practice economy, that is, 

 the proper relations between production and expendi- 

 ture and between quality and quantity, is an essential 

 condition of successful work. 



Respecting this difference between the teaching in 

 a technical school and the information as to manu- 



