162 SCIENCE TEACHING. 



and while it has no direct bearing upon one specific industry or com- 

 mercial undertaking, it must be regarded as an essential preliminary 

 for all. Technical instruction of this form is, as a rule, provided in 

 day institutions for young persons who have not yet entered on an 

 industrial or commercial career. It is the form in which the Secondary 

 Schools of the country can chiefly contribute to the efficiency of a 

 national system of technical instruction. 



(2) The second form of technical instruction has more direct bearing on 

 specific industries : and to this form the term technical instruction is 

 often restricted. Thus, in connection with agriculture, experiments 

 may be conducted, and the lessons learned therefrom may be directly 

 brought before the notice of farmers and others interested. Lessons 

 may be given in engineering, materials tested on a commercial scale, 

 and the methods of testing the efficiency of machinery and designing 

 new forms practised in the school workshops. Students of the 

 building trades may be taught the mechanics of structures, may test 

 the strength and properties of materials, and learn how to design 

 buildings with due regard to strength and ornamental features suit- 

 able to the object in view. The boot and shoe operative may be 

 instructed in the anatomical construction and functions of the human 

 foot ; last making, cutting of skins, preparing of uppers, the mechanism 

 of the machines, the use and construction of tools, materials, &c., 

 would all form the subjects of lessons. Again, the business man may 

 study the principles of book-keeping, the principles which underlie the 

 flow of trade, commercial, shipping, or banking law, with statistics 

 and economic science generally. In the same way household subjects 

 may be taught, especially cookery, laundry, and dressmaking. In 

 short, whenever and wherever an industrial, commercial, or domestic 

 class of students can be found, instruction of a kind which enables 

 them to do their work more efficiently, and thus holds out a prospect 

 of improvement in earnings or position, should be one of the first 

 considerations of a scheme of technical instruction. 



These are the usual forms of technical instruction. But the conditions of 

 industry, especially in the rural districts of Ireland, will for a time necessitate 

 some departures from these forms in this country. The funds of the Depart- 

 ment will, to a certain extent, and at first tentatively, have to be employed in 

 assisting local eff"ort in inquiries designed on the one hand to spread a know- 

 ledge of markets for existing industries, and of the readiest means of reaching 

 them ; and on the other to discover whether, say, the nature of certain soils, 

 the natural products of a locality, the accessibility of power, or the conditions 

 and amount of labour available, would favour the introduction of new and 

 profitable industries. 



It will thus be seen that this is a large and complex problem, and that the 

 preliminary steps towards solving it must be slow and carefully measured, if 

 permanent, and not a specious and ephemeral success, is to be secured. 



As has already been pointed out, the establishment of a system of technical 



instruction in Ireland in connection with industries other 



Conditions than agriculture, presents exceptional difficulties. In 



of the Problem. England and Scotland the growth has been gradual, and 

 in both these countries ordinary educational facilities 

 existed which, it may be said without reproach, were far superior to those of 

 Ireland. Before the widespread movement of some dozen years ago in favour 

 of technical instruction, a system of science and art instruction had for many 

 years been at work in those countries. Further, in both were the widespread 



