SCIENCE TEACHING. 161 



Instruction Acts, 1889 and 1891. In Ireland, however, where the residue of 

 what is commonly known as the Beer and Spirit duties was not handed over 

 to the local authorities to be applied as in England, but was given to the 

 Commissioners of National Education and the Board of Intermediate 

 Education as part of their endowments, the expenditure on Technical 

 Instruction amounted during the same year to only a little over ^^7,000. Of 

 this sum £^4,577 Qs. 3^. was contributed out of the local rate levied in some 

 dozen districts under the Technical Instruction Acts, which was supple- 

 mented by a grant in aid from the Science and Art Department, amounting 

 to ;^2,6l3 los. id. 



This contribution of the Science and Art Department is a survival of the 

 old Parhamentary grant which was made under the provisions of the Tech- 

 nical Instruction Act, 1889, and which was withdrawn as regards England, 

 when the residue of the Beer and Spirit duties became available as men- 

 tioned above for the promotion of technical instruction in England. The 

 grant was continued in Ireland by the Department of Science and Art 

 under a minute issued in April, 1892, which provided that a grant-in-aid 

 would be made to schools aided by the local authority, and would be equal 

 in amount to the sum contributed by the local authority for instruction in 

 subjects other than those ordinary Science and Art subjects for which the 

 Department gave its ordinary Science and Art Grants, provided that the 

 Department approved of the subjects taught in each district, and of the 

 accommodation provided, etc. The administration of this grant in aid of 

 Technical Instruction and of the ordinary Science and Art grants, and of the 

 Royal College of Science was transferred to the Department of Agriculture 

 and Technical Instruction for Ireland by the Act of 1 899, which also placed 

 at the Department's disposal an annual income of ;£^5 5,000 to be expended 

 in conjunction with local contributions on the promotion of Technical 

 Instruction. 



The following extract from the First Annual General Report gives a good 

 general idea of the main lines on which the Department will work both in 

 the administration of its various Technical Instruction and Science and Art 

 grants and endowments : — 



While agencies for technical instruction may do much to assist existing 

 industries and promote new ones, especially in those 

 Aims of Technical localities where commercial knowledge and experience 

 Instruction. are not, so to say, intensified, it should be fully under- 



stood that the main direct object of technical instruction 

 is to give a training in those principles which govern industrial processes, and 

 which determine the conditions of commerce and influence its flow. In fact 

 the increase of useful knowledge, but especially the development of practical 

 intelligence, of manual skill, and of an enlightened attitude towards industrial 

 and commercial problems form the essential purposes of any system of tech- 

 nical instruction. 



With such ends in view technical instruction, as a rule, assumes two forms. 



(i) Instruction of a general nature, involving — {a) the teaching of practical 

 science, {b) practice in exercises requiring skill of hand and eye, such 

 as the various forms of drawing and designing, and manual instruc- 

 tion in wood, metal, leather, and other kinds of material, and 

 (c) instruction in Economics. This form of technical instruction is 

 educational ; it concerns itself with the development of practical 

 intelligence, of the intelligent disposition, and of manipulative skill ; 



M 



