vin TECHNICAL EDUCATION 199 



up in ignorance, and to become inferior in intellectual 

 training." "The display of that helmet," said the 

 Director, " never fails to bring the blush of shame to 

 the cheeks of my students, and to rouse their 

 patriotism and their zeal for their studies." 



This story was at the time widely circulated, and 

 often served to "point a moral and adorn a tale." 

 My friend and colleague on the Commission, Sir Swire 

 Smith, who perhaps has been more constant than any- 

 one else in successfully preaching on the subject of 

 educational progress in England, has often quoted this 

 story to assemblies of students in this country. " Could 

 not you," he asked on one occasion, "draw from it 

 a moral for yourselves? You may be spared the 

 humiliation of a warlike invasion, but it depends upon 

 you whether we may not have to face an invasion 

 even more serious than that of armed forces, if by 

 ignorance, idleness, and lack of scientific training we 

 fall behind our foreign competitors in the arts of peace. 

 I cannot show you German helmets picked up in your 

 streets, but I can r go to your shop windows and stores 

 and gather together electrical appliances, dye-wares, 

 and piles of articles ' made in Germany ' ; silks, cash- 

 meres, gloves, works of art from France ; butter and 

 cheese from Denmark ; and I could say as truly as was 

 said by the French schoolmaster, it has been in con- 

 sequence of the greater scientific and artistic knowledge 

 and more systematic technical training of your industrial 

 rivals that these commodities, representing many, many 

 millions sterling annually, find their way to this country, 

 and that it is only by intellectual training and industrial 

 efficiency equal to theirs that this foreign invasion can 

 be stayed." 



No sight witnessed by us in our tours of inspection 

 abroad was more striking than that of the crowded 



