November ii, 1915] 



NATURE. 



301 



lu-ioin of sister marriage in the royal Egyptian and 

 Semitic families, which, as she pointed out, were not 

 " j^arded as unusual when recorded by native histo- 

 ians, and traced the customs to a more prolonged 

 irvival of inheritance in the female line in roval 

 imilies. Dr. Nadine Ivanitzky's communication on 

 The System of Kinship among Primitive Races in 

 connection with their Mode of Grouping " dealt with 

 le manner in which economic and social factors act 

 ind react on the recognition of kinship in a group by 

 ietermining the size of a group, its relation to other 

 md competing groups, and the relation of the indi- 

 viduals within the group. 



In physical anthropology, in addition to the paper 

 by Prof. Keith, to which reference has already been 

 made. Dr. Manson exhibited photographs and skia- 

 graphs of members of a family showing hereditary 

 syndactalism and polydactalism, and Dr. G. W. Ham- 

 bleton discussed chest types in man in relation to 

 disease. Prof. Guiffrida-Ruggeri's "Notes on the 

 Neolithic Egyptians and Ethiopians." criticising the 

 theories of Prof. Elliot Smith and others on the 

 physical affinities of the -early inhabitants of Egypt, 

 and Prof. Elliot Smith's communication on "The 

 Earliest Human Remains from India," owing to lack 

 of time, were taken as read. 



-At the close of the proceedings, the section, at the 

 invitation of the Ribchester Museum Committee, 

 visited the Roman camp at Ribchester for the formal 

 opening by Prof. F. J. Haverfield of the recentlv com- 

 pleted Museum of Roman Antiquities. Prof. Haver- 

 field then delivered an address on the purpose of the 

 small castella or forts, found scattered over all the 

 north from Chester to Carlisle and from the vale of 

 York to Tyneside, of which Ribchester is an example, 

 as purely military units controlling the country from 

 Strategic points. 



THE RELATION OF EDUCATION TO 

 INDUSTRY.^ 



AT the last meeting of the British Association in 

 Manchester, in 1887, the president, Sir Henry 

 Roscoe, in his opening address, referred to national 

 education with patriotic candour, in the following 

 prophetic sentence: — "The country is beginning to 

 see that if she is to maintain her own commercial and 

 industrial supremacy the education of the people from 

 top to bottom must be carried out on new lines. The 

 question as to how this can be most safely and securely 

 accomplished is one of transcendent national import- 

 ance, and the statesman who solves this educational 

 problem will earn the gratitude of generations yet to 

 come." 



A generation has passed since Sir Henry Roscoe 

 uttered his prophecy, and still our national education 

 is, though improved, far from being carried out on 

 the principles and methods which will ensure our in- 

 dustrial supremacy. In other words, "the states- 

 man " has not yet appeared ! 



By national education we mean, of course, the educa- 

 tion' of the whole people, not of a class only. From 

 1872 until as late as 1889 no attempt was made by 

 Government to provide secondary and technical educa- 

 tion in continuation of the elementary stage, and in 

 consequence of this the progress made in scientific 

 knowledge bearing on industry and commerce was 

 withheld from our own people who most needed it, 

 and left to other nations who were better qualified to 

 reap the advantage. The results, it is well known, 

 have been lamentable, for it so happened that it was 



J Abridgfd from a paper ri;ad before the Section of Educational Science of 

 the Briii-h Association at Manchester on September ii, by the Right Hon. 

 S.r William Mather. 



NO. 2402, VOL. 96*1 



during this very period that the most remarkable dis- 

 coveries and development in science were revealed to- 

 the world, and their practical application demonstrated. 

 During that period, and indeed long before, notalfly 

 in Faraday's lifetime, England produced some of the 

 most eminent men of science in the world, who opened 

 out to us the immeasurable possibilities of adding to 

 the m^iterial wealth and prosperity of our country by 

 the adoption of their discoveries. 



Only two countries, however, were ready to take 

 practical advantage of these discoveries owing to their 

 widespread facilities for education ranging through 

 the elementary to secondary and technical schools up 

 to scientific teaching in the' universities. These coun- 

 tries were .America and Germany. 



Consequently the great discoveries relating to the 

 utilisation of those subtle forces of electricity and mag- 

 netism achieved their first triumphs in these two 

 countries, where the spirit of education had long 

 before penetrated the lives of the people and prepared 

 them to adopt and apply the new revelations of science 

 to the common needs of human life. 



These great movements stirred our Government at 

 last to send out a Royal Commission to investigate 

 the educational facilities in the secondary and tech- 

 nical schools of foreign countries. Oh, the pity of it! 

 That a country which had enjoyed the greatest oppor- 

 tunities for the application of scientific discoveries and 

 methods to industry through the undisturbed monopoly 

 of engineering, chemical, and other industries extend- 

 ing over a full century, should have neglected the only 

 means of retaining that position by the adoption, 

 during the years of expanding wealth and prosperity, 

 of a system' of universal, free, and enlightened educa- 

 tion open to every class throughout the land ! The- 

 reports brought back from Europe by the Royal Com- 

 mission, and one from America, written by myself 

 after eight months' investigation, spread alarm 

 throughout the United Kingdom and the British 

 Empire. These reports were published in 1884. No- 

 action was taken by Parliament until 1889, \yhen 

 happily a Technical Instruction Act was passed, within 

 two davs of the close of the session, but almost by a 

 fluke even then, owing to the efforts of a few desperate 

 men on both sides of the House who believed that 

 "through lack of knowledge the people perish." 



Probably no Act of Parliament was ever seized upon 

 with such aviditv as this Technical Instruction Act, 

 for, as the municipalities themselves were by the Act 

 constituted the local administrative authorities, the 

 large manufacturing districts, notably Manchester, 

 Salford, and other parts of Lancashire, were especially 

 eager in pressing for its adoption. The following year 

 the "whisky and beer tax" was earmarked for the 

 support of 'technical education, which resulted in 

 numerous fine institutions being erected in many parts 

 of the country. In 1902 secondary education was 

 adopted permi'ssively in a new Elementary Education 

 Act, and though not adequate to meet the wants of 

 the countrv, it was received with thanks for small 

 mercies owing to the fact— which in some other coun- 

 tries would have been foreseen— that no system of 

 thorough technical education can be carried out where 

 secondary education is a missing link, so that for a 

 time our rational system of public elementary and 

 technical education minus the secondary was more 

 like "a rope of sand than a chain of welded links." 



As a result of the passing of the Technical Instruc- 

 tion Act of 1880. the development of technical instruc- 

 tion was so rapid that in 1895 an .Association of Tech- 

 nical Institutes was formed. A large number of new 

 schools have been erected solely for the purpose of 

 technical instruction, and are equal in equipment and 

 staff to the average of those in the United States and 



