1887 THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE 5 



to establisli something whicli should play the same part 

 in regard to the advancement of industrial knowledge 

 which has been played in regard to science and learning 

 in general, in these realms, by the Royal Society and the 

 Universities. ... I pictured the Imperial Institute to 

 myself as a house of call for all those who are concerned 

 in the advancement of industry ; as a place in which the 

 home-keeping industrial could find out all he wants to 

 know about colonial industry and the colonist about home 

 industry ; as a sort of neutral ground on which the 

 capitalist and the artisan would be equally welcome ; as 

 a centre of intercommxmication in which they might enter 

 into friendly discussion of the problems at issue between 

 them, and, perchance, arrive at a friendly solution of them. 

 I imagined it a place in which the fullest stores of in- 

 dustrial knowledge would be made accessible to the 

 public ; in which the higher questions of commerce and 

 industry would be systematically studied and elucidated ; 

 and where, as in an industrial imiversity, the whole 

 technical education of the country might find its centre and 

 crown. If I earnestly desire to see such an institution 

 created, it is not because I think that or anything else 

 wiU put an end to pauperism and want — as somebody 

 has absurdly suggested,— but because I believe it will 

 supply a foundation for that scientific organisation of our 

 industries which the changed conditions of the times 

 render indispensable to their prosperity. I do not think 

 I am far wrong in assuming that we are entering, indeed, 

 have already entered, upon the most serious struggle for 

 existence to which this country has ever been committed. 

 The latter years of the century promise to see us em- 

 barked in an industrial war of far more serious import 

 than the military wars of its opening years. On the east, 

 the most systematically instructed and best-informed people 

 in Europe are our competitors ; on the west, an energetic 

 offshoot of our own stock, growm. bigger than its parent, 

 enters upon the struggle possessed of natural resources to 



