84 



NA TURE 



[March 17, 1910 



I do not mean that these technical colleges are all new 

 since 1899 ; most of them, possibly all, were in existence 

 before that time, but their importance is now more fully 

 realised, and the magnitude of their task more completely 

 ^rasped, by those who are responsible for their maintenance 

 and progress. 



Turning to London, we have the University with its 

 colleges, University College, King's College, and the East 

 London College, struggling to realise under no small 

 difficulties the ideal of a great teaching university, and 

 doing it with increasing success ; the Imperial Technical 

 College, with its constituent parts ; the Royal College of 

 Science ; the Royal School 01 Mines ; and the City and 

 Guilds College, which has just started with high aims on 

 its difficult task ; and the numerous technical colleges too 

 many to mention, some of them old institutions inspired 

 to new endeavours by the wise action of the Charity Com- 

 missioners, the generosity of city companies, the vivifying 

 influence of the whisky money, or the foresight of the 

 education authority for the county. 



A list containing the names of these institutions through- 

 out the country, showing the funds administered on their 

 behalf, their staff of teachers, and their roll of students, 

 would prove a formidable document, and if the list were 

 compared with a similar one drawn up ten or fifteen years 

 ago the amount of progress would be obvious. I am 

 aware, of course, that if we compared it with a similar 

 list drawn up for Germany or America, our numbers and 

 resources would appear but small. 



I do not direct attention to our growth in any spirit of 

 self-glorification or with any view to suggest that we ought 

 to be satisfied, but rather that you who are so well qualified 

 to advise and to judge may take stock of the position, 

 may ask yourselves whether your efforts are in all cases 

 being well and wisely directed, what ought to be your aims, 

 and what your own position relative to the other agencies 

 around which have the same general object in view. 



This is, I take it, the more necessary because of the 

 probable large influx of additional work with which in 

 the course of a few years educational authorities in all 

 parts of the country will probably be called upon to deal, 

 while here in London the need for some general considera- 

 tion is the more urgent because of the work which the 

 Royal Commissioners for the University of London are 

 now engaged upon. 



What are the aims which we whose work lies mainly 

 with the technical institutions of the country have to set 

 before ourselves? What is our position in the scheme 

 of education which is gradually being evolved? 



Now there are two s^ts of individuals, for each of which 

 a somewhat dififerent course of training is needed, those 

 who are to be leaders in industrial pursuits and those who 

 will ever remain among the rank and file. While it should 

 always be possible for the workman to rise to the rank 

 of leader — and your scheme of education must give full 

 opportunity for this — the methods of a trade school aimed 

 chiefly at giving to the workers in its district that fuller 

 knowledge which makes their labour skilled must clearly 

 differ from those of a college designed to give the highest 

 technical training to those who are to lead and guide the 

 workers. 



M. Leduc, in a recent paper published in the Bulletin 

 de la SocUti pour I'Industrie nationale — the Society of 

 Arts of France— directs attention to the four-fold division 

 of German instruction in technological science : — 



(i) The comprehensive training which is to turn out the 

 future captains and leaders of industry. 



(2) The provision for putting trustworthy information on 

 technological matters at the disposal of traders. 



(3) Central institutions established for the scientific and 

 practical study of special industries, and 



(4) Local technical schools adapted to the special needs 

 of particular localities. 



_ In Germany, as we know, the great technical institu- 

 tions have developed almost independently of the ancient 

 universities. 



The term university was, we are told, in the Middle Ages 

 used to denote any community or corporation regarded 

 under its collective aspect, but finally it came to mean a 

 community of teachers and scholars whose corporate 

 existence had been recognised and sanctioned by civil or 

 NO. 2107, VOL. 83] 



by ecclesiastical authority, or by both. In its earliest stage 

 it was probably a* scholastic guild, a spontaneous com- 

 bination of teachers and scholars formed on the model of 

 the trades guilds or guilds of aliens, in great measure for 

 mutual protection. In still earlier days learning flourished 

 mainly, if not entirely, in the monasteries and cloisters, 

 and the earlier universities took their rise in the endeavour 

 to provide instruction beyond the range of the monastic 

 schools. For the most part they were organised under the 

 four faculties of theology, law, medicine and philosophy, or 

 the arts, and they retained this constitution until the last 

 century. 



In Germany the activity and importance of the universi- 

 ties dates from the time after Jena, 1806, when, as we 

 were reminded by Sir Norman Lockyer in his presi- 

 dential address to the British Association in 1903, King 

 Frederick William III. and his counsellors, among them 

 Wilhelm von Humboldt, founded the University of Berlin 

 " to supply the loss of territory by intellectual effort." 

 In the main, however, it was founded on the ancient lines, 

 and when later on in the century the problems of the 

 application of science to industry had to be faced, and 

 the technical high schools came into existence, they were 

 developed independently of the universities. 



By 1903 the separation from the universities had become 

 definite. In Prussia the Emperor had recognised it by 

 giving certain of the great schools the right to grant the 

 degree of Doctor of Engineering, thus putting them on an 

 equality with the universities, and by admitting the prin- 

 cipals to the Prussian House of Lords, giving them the 

 title of His Magnificence. 



Now there are in Germany ten of these technical 

 universities, at Dantzig, Berlin (Charlottenburg), Aix, 

 Hanover, Munich, Carlsruhe, Dresden, Stuttgart, Darm- 

 stadt, and Brunswick, all over the length and breadth of 

 the land, with nearly 12,000 fully qualified day students 

 between them, and more than 2000 in addition whose 

 qualifications are not complete. Last year 1668 diplomas 

 were granted, and of those who received the diploma 130 

 took the degree of Doctor of Engineering. 



The age at which these students begin their work is 

 from eighteen to nineteen years, and the " matriculation 

 for fully qualified students at German technical universi- 

 ties is the completion of the full nine years' secondary- 

 <-chool course at a classical, semi-classical, or modern 

 secondary school." Besides these, there are the twenty 

 older universities, with 48,000 students, of which a large 

 number study chemistry and, to use a Cambridge official 

 phrase, " other branches of physics." The students work 

 for four years, usually after a minimum period of one year 

 in works, and the aim of the institutions is to train experts, 

 inventors, high technical State and municipal officials, 

 captains of industry, owners of great works, professors, 

 secondary teachers, engineers, architects, chemists, &c. 



Besides these ten technical universities, there are special 

 engineering and other technical schools for the training 

 of owners and managers of small works, foremen, clerks 

 of works, surveyors, draughtsmen, and the like. 



Now I have not referred to this merely to mark our own 

 deficiencies, but rather to afford some guidance as to the 

 lines along which we are to develop. Are we to look 

 forward to the growth of .technical universities in each 

 town arising naturally out of the colleges with which we 

 .•ire connected, but independent of, and at the same time 

 rivals of, the universities which in many cases exist 

 already alongside our own colleges? 



The answer to this question must, I think, be in the 

 negative, with possibly one or two exceptions — we will put 

 aside, for the present, London and the two ancient uni- 

 versities — it would, I think, be suicidal to suggest that 

 in Manchester or Birmingham, Leeds or Liverpool, there 

 should be two degree-giving bodies, one connected with the 

 arts, literature, and pure science, the other with those 

 applications of science on which industry depends ; and for 

 this reason, among others. The universities of England 

 are modern creations animated by modern ideas, and con- 

 trolled by men whose main endeavour is to bring home 

 to the mass of their countrymen the blessings of know- 

 ledge. The seclusion of the mediaeval cloister, the quiet 

 of the monastery, or even of the courts and quadrangles 

 by the Isis and the Cam are not for them. They are 



