TECHNICAL EDUCATION 181 



want of such an official diploma subjects Englishmen abroad to 

 a serious disadvantage. The French or German candidate for 

 work pulls out his official diploma for inspection, while our 

 Englishman has nothing to show but an informal note from 

 somebody saying he is an excellent man in a general way. 

 What wonder if the duly accredited engineer be preferred, so 

 that we find the French and Germans boasting that foreign 

 Powers now always send to them for engineers, and no longer to 

 England! I believe this is a fact, and that the absence of 

 degrees to a great extent explains it. I hope, therefore, that 

 this Society will give its hearty support to the institution of 

 these new and much-wanted academical distinctions. 



I will now very briefly review the several recommendations 

 which I have ventured to make. 



After approving the report of the Schools Inquiry Commis- 

 sion, by which real public schools of all grades would be esta- 

 blished throughout Great Britain, I drew especial attention to 

 mechanical drawing as the branch of elementary scientific edu- 

 cation which I thought most important to our workmen and 

 foremen ; I suggested that the Government schools of fine art 

 should be extended so as in all cases to include a series of classes 

 for instruction in all the branches of draughtsmanship ; I re- 

 commended that these classes should be taught by practical 

 draughtsmen, not by men whose profession it was to teach ; that 

 prizes should be offered for each branch of drawing, with 

 national exhibitions and national prizes ; and that the more 

 costly and permanent articles required in the class should be 

 provided for the student. 



I further suggested that this branch of elementary scien- 

 tific knowledge is peculiarly well adapted for introduction into 

 primary schools, because it stimulates accurate observation, 

 giving a boy the means of expressing his ideas accurately, and 

 of acquiring information from books and periodicals, and because 

 it is suited to the genius of this country ; I endeavoured to show 

 that this important step could be made at once, by putting this 

 kind of drawing on a par with reading, writing, and arithmetic, 

 in the payment for results. 



Passing to the higher professional training, I deprecated the 

 establishment of special colleges, but, on the one hand, called 



