TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 1 



THE resolutions arrived at by the Conference on Technical 

 Education, and the able address of your President, prove that 

 this Society is fully alive to the necessity for improved scientific 

 instruction throughout the country. I will not, therefore, 

 detain you with any arguments upon general principles which 

 have been affirmed by every class of society, but taking it for 

 granted that we are all of one mind in believing that the educa- 

 tion of our artisans, our manufacturers, and our engineers should 

 be improved by the improved and extended teaching of science, 

 I purpose to-night to confine myself chiefly to practical sugges- 

 tions of steps which I think might be immediately taken towards 

 the object which we have all in view. 



I well know the difficulty and danger of making practical 

 suggestions. The man who confines himself to general prin- 

 ciples, and the critic who assails existing abuses, is sure to 

 carry a large portion of his audience with him. The abuses 

 are often palpable, and the general truths soon become popular 

 truisms ; but the man who brings forward new proposals for 

 definite action, cannot and ought not to expect an equally ready 

 adhesion to his schemes. They must in their turn run the 

 gauntlet of criticism, and be subject to many successive amend- 

 ments, before any large body will consent to put them in prac- 

 tice ; but a man who will thus subject himself to criticism, with 

 the object of attaining an avowedly good end, may at least ask 

 for an indulgent hearing before the criticism begins, and this 

 indulgence I ask from you to-night. 



Probably the general improvement in the scientific education 

 of the community at large can only be effected by the adoption 

 of some such scheme as that proposed by the Schools Inquiry 

 Commission, having for its result a complete system of schools of 



1 An address read before the Royal Scottish Society of Arts in Edinburgh, 

 Jan. 11, 1869. 



