33^ 



NA TURE 



[January 31, 1901 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN MANCHESTER. 



TN no English city is a more sensible or more thorough pro- 

 ■*■ vision for technical education to be found than in Man- 

 chester. Whatever standard of comparison is adopted, be it the 

 number of students under instruction in proportion to the popula- 

 tion, the amount of annual expenditure, the number of the 

 schools, or the enthusiasm of its administrators and teachers, 

 Manchester will take one of the foremost places in the educa- 

 tional ranks of the country. In some particulars, indeed, 

 Manchester stands almost alone. In the arrangements which 

 the Technical Instruction Committee of its City Council and its 

 School Board jointly have made to secure the co-ordination of 

 all educational efforts within their borders, and so avoid that 

 over-lapping which is such a prolific source of loss and dis- 

 appointment in many other districts, this centre of the great 

 cotton industry may well serve as an example of a community 

 where the first object of public men is to secure educational 

 efficiency and not to assist the glorification of a particular board 

 or committee. 



This success is largely to be attributed to the recognition of 

 the fact that any successful system of technical instruction must 

 be adequately based upon a graduated supply of elementary and 

 secondary education. It is too often imagined that technical 

 education is independent of the work of the public elementary 

 and the grammar schools. But in Manchester it has been for 

 years borne in mind that it is only those youths who have re- 

 ceived a thorough preliminary education who reap any advantage 

 from the lectures and laboratory work of the technical school, be 

 it never so perfectly equipped and staffed. The student of educa- 

 tion consequently finds, when he endeavours to account for the 

 satisfactory system of technical instruction in Manchester, that, in 

 addition to the ordinary public elementary schools, supplying 

 besides the three R'san elementary introduction to the principles 

 of physics and chemistry, the School Board have provided four 

 higher grade schools, all of them furnished with a " School of 

 Science," and, as readers of Nature know, the curriculum of 

 schools of this type is eminently suitable as an introductory 

 course for boys and girls who will later proceed to the technical 

 school. 



Adequate provision is also made for the children of a higher 

 social status. Manchester is well provided with secondary 

 schools. Its Grammar School and its High School for Girls 

 both deservedly occupy high places among the public schools of 

 the country. Manchester Grammar School, moreover, appears 

 to have been one of the first to teach practical chemistry, for it 

 possessed a small laboratory as long ago as 1868. 



There is, too, every facility offered to bright children of the 

 elementary schools to pass forward either to the Higher Grade 

 School or to the Grammar School — this desirable end being 

 secured by a sensible scheme of scholarships. By the same 

 means a vital connection is assured, by way of the secondary 

 schools, between the elementary schools and the Municipal 

 Technical School and the University College. 



Nor are the educational needs of youths who have begun the 

 serious business of life neglected. AH the schools, to the work 

 of which brief reference has been made, are intended for young 

 people who have as yet entered neither trade nor profession. 

 But in all manufacturing districts the great mass of the workers 

 have to complete their education by well-sustained efforts in 

 evening classes of one kind or another. The authorities in 

 Manchester are fully alive to this fact, and a wonderfully com- 

 plete system of evening classes has grown up, in which it is 

 interesting to note that the School Board and the Technical 

 Instruction Committee can work together without friction and 

 with the best results. Two sets of these classes are in vogue. 

 First, there are the classes with which the School Board are more 

 directly concerned — the evening continuation schools in which 

 youngsters from twelve to sixteen years of age, who have left the 

 public elementary school for the shop, the warehouse, or the factory, 

 are either preparing themselves for the more advanced classes of 

 the technical school, or are perfecting and continuing the work 

 they did at school with a view to making themselves of greater 

 value to their employers. Secondly, there are the evening classes 

 of the technical school, intended for young men and women of 

 sixteen and upwards, of which it is difficult to give an adequate 

 idea in a few sentences. To really appreciate what is being done 

 iri such classes every winter's evening in large manufacturing 

 districts, it is necessary to visit the schools where they are held. 

 The determined efforts the young men and women, who, be it 



NO. 1631, VOL. 63] 



remembered, have generally spent a laborious day earning their 

 daily bread, will make in order to become acquainted with the 

 principles of science on which their work depends, or to become 

 familiar with the canons of art they hope to apply in designing, 

 is well calculated to inspire the hope that this country will some 

 day take its former position in the industrial contest among the 

 nations. 



The students of the Day Technical School and Day School 

 of Art are composed chiefly of the sons of middle class parents. 

 In the majority of cases they do not enter seriously into the work 

 of manufacture and distribution until after completing their 

 studies. It is gratifying to be able to report that there are some 

 exceptions to this rule. Some enterprising employers have made 

 arrangements for sending certain of their employees to the tech- 

 nical school during the day — the employers themselves bearing 

 the expense thereby incurred. It is much to be desired that this 

 far-seeing policy may be more generally adopted. And there 

 are also the scholarship-holders from the higher grade schools. 

 Such is, in skeleton form, the system of technical education 

 which has been gradually evolved in Manchester. The accom- 

 panying pictorial representation gives a bird's eye view of the 

 whole arrangement. The illustration, which was prepared by 

 Mr. J. H. Reynolds, the Director of the Manchester Technical 

 and Art Schools, was awarded a gold medal by the International 

 Jury of the Paris Exhibition. 



Another cause of the high state of development of education 

 in Manchester is the broad view which the Technical Instruction 

 Committee have taken of their duties. On at least two separate 

 occasions they have arranged for their Director, with certain 

 members of the committee, to visit foreign countries to study 

 other systems of technical instruction, and on another occasion 

 they have sent him alone to visit the United States. In this way 

 these Manchester authorities have become practically acquainted 

 with German and American ideas of education. They have not 

 endeavoured to follow slavishly such methods in their entirety, 

 but have not hesitated to import notions they considered suitable 

 for the peculiar needs of their own district. 



The same committee have also taken a large part in the 

 formation of public opinion in matters educational in Lancashire. 

 At their instigation several conferences have been held of repre- 

 sentatives of the numerous county boroughs in their immediate 

 neighbourhood. Resolutions have been adopted and widely 

 circulated urging the need of legislation to ensure that secondary 

 (including technical) education shall be placed under the control 

 of municipal councils, though the desirability of co-opting upon 

 the Educational Committee an effective minority of persons of 

 special experience in all grades of instruction, as well as of 

 encouraging the joint action between the authorities of county 

 boroughs and that of the administrative county have been recog- 

 nised. But, if they would consider this question more from the 

 national point of view, this enterprising local authority for edu- 

 cation might come to a different conclusion. What is the state of 

 affairs in south-east Lancashire ? For the sake of example let 

 Manchester be taken as a centre, and consider chiefly the technical 

 education of the district. In this central city there will shortly 

 be, in full working order, a technical school, erected and equyDped 

 at a cost of upwards of a quarter of a million, and really pro- 

 vided w ith accommodation enough for all the advanced technical 

 students which the whole area under consideration could pro- 

 vide. Yet, within easy walking distance, there is the Salford 

 Royal Technical Institute, also admirably organised and gener- 

 ously staffed, and this simply because Salford happens to be a 

 separate borough. The other boroughs of this same area are, 

 moreover, very close together. Stockport, with its own technical 

 school, is within about five miles, and has a splendid train service 

 connecting it with Manchester. Bury, Bolton, Oldham, Roch- 

 dale, and other boroughs are sufficiently near for their advanced 

 students to be drafted to Manchester for instruction — the railway 

 fares could easily be provided by means of scholarships. It would 

 certainlyseem as though, in thebestinterestsof technical education, 

 an area much larger than that of a county borough is desirable. 

 With boroughs so near as they are in south-east Lancashire there 

 is bound to fje duplication and re-duplication of buildings and 

 appliances. To have a school, like the new technical school at 

 Manchester will be, engaged in elementary work, which could 

 be done equally well at much less cost elsewhere, is to lose a 

 grand opportunity of providing one centre at least for advanced 

 technical instruction, of which the country stands in growing 

 need. Experience shows, too, that the same staff cannot 

 successfully undertake to teach crowds of. elementary pupils and 



