February 4, 1892] NATURE 



329 



the human tool for subsequent grinding and polishing in the 

 works. 



And this necessity for the teacher having himself passed 

 through the shops has especial weight when we are dealing with 

 the technical instruction of workmen, for in such a case there 

 are three requirements absolutely necessary : first, knowing how 

 to teach ; second, possessing a fair knowledge of scientific 

 principles ; and thirdly— and this is, perhaps, the most important 

 of all — knowing exactly what it is that the particular workman 

 ought to learn in order to help him in his particular trade. 



Schoolmasters may have the first two requisites, and so may 

 do valuable work in connection with the variety teaching at a 

 polytechnic ; but they are not in touch with the workshop, and 

 therefore, no matter what may be their scholastic attainments, 

 no matter what the extent of their experience in training the 

 young, they are not the persons to give the real technical educa- 

 tion to workmen. 



In addition, then, to the polytechnics, we must have special 

 schools for special industries, where workmen are taught the 

 application of science to their special trades ; and everything 

 taught in such a school must be taught as bearing on the par- 

 ticular industry which the school is intended to benefit. A 

 teacher of physics, for instance, must remember that he is not 

 training physicists, but workmen whose use of physical prin- 

 ciples will be bounded by their application to their special trade. 

 For the great danger of such teachers is that, carried away with 

 enthusiasm for their own subject, they will not subordinate it 

 properly to the end in view, viz. helping the workman to know 

 what will be useful to him in his work. 



Indeed, as Prof. Huxley pointed out in his original report to 

 the Livery Companies' Committee, " Success in any form of 

 practical life is not an affair of mere knowledge. Even in the 

 learned professions, knowledge/.?/' se is of less consequence than 

 people are apt to suppose. ... A system of technical educa- 

 tion may be so arranged as to help the scholar to use his intel- 

 ligence, to acquire a fair store of elementary knowledge which 

 shall be thorough as far as it goes, and to learn to employ his 

 hands, while leaving him fresh, vigorous, and content, and such 

 a system will render an invaluable service to all those who come 

 under its influence. 



" But if, on the other hand, education tends to the encourage- 

 ment of bookishness, if it sets the goal of youthful ambition, not 

 in knowing, but in being able to pass an examination, especially 

 if it fosters the delusion that brain work is, in itself, a nobler or 

 more respectable kind of occupation than handiwork, and leads 

 to the sacrifice of health and strength in the pursuit of mere 

 learning, then such a system may d ) incalculable harm, and 

 lead to the rapid ruin of the industries it is intended to serve." 



And I venture to think that not merely at technical schools 

 for workmen, but at technical colleges for engineer^, it should 

 be ever remembered that the main object of the training is not 

 the cultivation of mental gymnastics, but to enable the student 

 to acquire knowledge and habits which shall be professionally 

 useful to him in after life. 



" Useful learning usefully taught " would be no bad motto for 

 technical institutions, seeing that those who favour the com- 

 pulsory teaching of Greek are apparently willing to ^accept the 

 converse as the motto for the University. For example, Mr. 

 Butcher, in his address delivered at the end of last session at 

 University College, Bangor, said : " We may claim it as a dis- 

 tinction that in the seats of academic learning little or nothing j 

 useful is taught " ; and in an article in last month's Fortnightly 

 Rroicw, congratulating Cambridge on its recent victory over the ! 

 barbarian, Mr. Bury says quite candidly, "Greek is useless; I 

 but its uselessness is the very strongest reason for its being a j 

 compulsory subject in the University course." And he adds, in 

 italics, " For the true function of a University is the teaching of \ 

 useless learning. " \ 



A few of the County Councils have realized that the real 

 teaching of the application of science to a special industry, 

 which is what the British workman is so much in need of, can- 

 not be given, as well as a host of other subjects, out of limited 

 funds. For example, Bedfordshire has decided to spend its 

 grant of £^ZA'i niainly on agriculture, market gardening, the 

 straw trade, domestic economy, and industries for women ; 

 Cambridgeshire and Cheshire devote themselves largely to the 

 teaching of agricultural pursuits. 



But other places aim at issuing vast comprehensive programmes 

 and turning out yearly a mighty array of students, knowing, it 

 may be, the something of everything, but who certainly will not 



NO. II62, VOL. 45] 



know the everything of something. For example, the Holland 

 division of Lincolnshire has decided, out of only ;{^ 2000 a year, 

 to make grants for dairy schools, University extension and art 

 schools, agricultural science, domestic economy, mechanics, 

 commercial subjects, and ambulance teaching ; while Bootle, 

 with a yearly expenditure of only the same amount, maintains 

 classes in five commercial subjects, in sixteen science and art 

 subjects, in cookery, wood- working tools, as well as four courses 

 of University extension lectures. 



Because a certain building in Regent Street famed for its 

 ghost and its diving bell was years ago named " The Poly- 

 technic," the majority of the new technical institutions which 

 are being established in London at such vast cost are also called 

 "Polytechnics," and will, I fear, give only an English poly- 

 technic course. Now, such recreative education, although 

 admirable for those who seek relief from work in the use of their 

 minds, is not generally sufficient for those of your workmen who 

 use their minds in their daily occupation. 



It ought, then, to be thoroughly recognized that there is an 

 entirely new problem to be solved, and that the solution of this 

 problem, in so far as it has been worked out at the Finsbury 

 College and at other places giving practical teaching in the 

 evening, must, in the language of the mathematician, be re- 

 garded simply as " the singular solution," and not the general 

 solution, of the problem of technically educating the British 

 workman. 



Let us gratefully accept the English polytechnics, for they will 

 undoubtedly confer benefit on our country, and all credit be to 

 those who have so generously established them. But do not let 

 us be misled by the similarity between their generic name and 

 that of the German " polytechnicum " into fancying that the 

 recreative courses of the one are equivalent to the serious educa- 

 tion given by the other. 



Like Oliver Twist, let us ask for more ; for, on behalf of the 

 large number of minds already employed in the electrical in- 

 dustry, and on behalf of the still larger number that will in the 

 future be so employed, it is our duty to secure that ample pro- 

 vision be made in this country for the practical teaching of 

 electrotechnics on a scale comparable with that afforded in the 

 technical high schools of Germany and the institutes of tech- 

 nology of the United States. 



On the screen you see projected' a photograph of the facade 

 of the Technical High School at Charlottenburg (Berlin), which 

 appears extensive and grand ; and yet, as you will see from the 

 next photograph, it was only a small portion of the whole build- 

 ing that you were looking at on the first photograph. This is 

 but one of the many technical high schools in different towns of 

 Germany, and yet it covers an area more than five times as large 

 as that occupied by the Central Technical Institution in Exhi- 

 bition Road, London, cost four times as much to erect, and has 

 more than four times as much spent on its yearly maintenance. 



The next photograph shows a building devoted wholly to the, 

 training of electrical engineers, being that of the Electrotechnical 

 Institution Montefiore at Liege, which Prof. Gerard kindly took 

 me over this last summer, and which has since been opened. 

 When I tell you that there are rooms for small direct- current 

 dynamos, separate rooms for large direct-current dynamos, 

 separate rooms for alternators, and that every three students have 

 a separate little laboratory, with the necessary measuring in- 

 struments, all to themselves, your educational mouths will water, 

 as mine did. 



We now cross the Atlantic to the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology, Boston, which, as you see, consists of several dis- 

 tinct buildings, the centre one being that which contains the 

 electrical laboratories. The dynamo room now seen on the 

 screen has many small and large dynamos in it, and yet there is 

 ample room to walk about, for this dynamo roo.m occupies a 

 space many times as large as that devoted to dynamos at the 

 Central Technical Institution of London. 



Prof. Cross was so good as to mention in a letter that was 

 shown me some two years ago, that several of the devices that 

 had been worked out for the electrical laboratories of tlie City 

 and Guilds Institute had been reproduced at Massachusetts ; 

 but there is one device that Prof. Cross has succeeded in work- 

 ing out, and which I should be most glad to see copied by the 

 City and Guilds Institute, and that is, having one assistant for 

 every five students working in the physical laboratories. 



Franklin Hall, presided over by Prof. Nichols, is devoted 

 solely to the department of pure and applied physics at the 

 Cornell University, Ithaca. You see how large this four-storied 



