NATURE 



241 



THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1891. 



ORGANIZERS OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION 

 IN CONFERENCE. 



THE progress that has been made during the past 

 year by English County Councils in the application 

 of their grants under the Local Taxation Act to purposes 

 of technical education is attested by the map which 

 accompanies the fourth Annual Report of the National 

 Association for the Promotion of Technical and Second- 

 ary Education, and which we reproduce. It will be 

 seen from this map that the counties which have deter- 

 mined to use the whole of the new fund for education I 

 form a large majority of the whole number both in I 

 England and Wales ; and that London and Middlesex 

 enjoy an unenviable, and we hope temporary, distinction, 

 in having been the only counties to grab for the rates 

 the whole of the money which might have been used to 

 organize the secondary and technical education of their 

 districts. 



But while the map and the Report offer sufficient 

 evidence of the good intentions of the County Councils, 

 the solid progress already achieved is still more em- 

 phatically shown by the Conference of organizing secre- 

 taries which followed the annual meeting of the Association 

 on the 3rd of this month. The very post of organizing 

 secretary is the creation of the past few months. A year 

 ago no county had dreamt of appointing an official to 

 look after its education, and the Technical Instruction 

 Act was only in operation in a few scattered centres. 

 Now nearly twenty counties and county boroughs have 

 special educational departments, with paid organizing 

 secretaries. We need hardly point out the wisdom of 

 making such appointments, in view of the unwonted 

 duties cast on County Councils by recent legislation. 

 The task is one which needs all the ability which is 

 available, and this ability is of a highly specialized cha- 

 racter, not to be expected of the average County Coun- 

 cillor or Clerk of the Peace, who besides have not the 

 time for the necessary detailed work of organization. To 

 leave the work to clerks would be to court failure, for the 

 work to be attempted within the next few years must be 

 largely tentative, and the direction of the experiments 

 must be in the hands of men of knowledge, ideas, and 

 resource, as well as of tact and judgment. 



The selection of such men is not easy, and we are glad 

 to find that the secretaries of the Technical Association 

 are prepared to suggest candidates to County Councils 

 which may be in need of them. The appointments made 

 hitherto have been of two kinds : as temporary organizers, 

 to inquire into claims and applications, to visit every dis- 

 trict in the county, and to draw up a detailed scheme as 

 the result of such inquiry ; and as permanent secretaries 

 to the Technical Instruction Committees, charged with the 

 work of carrying out the schemes and inspecting the 

 instruction, either personally or through the employment 

 of experts. 



About two-thirds of the gentlemen who had been ap- 

 pointed up to the date of the Conference accepted the 

 invitation to be present, the districts represented being 

 Lancashire, Cumberland, Surrey, Sussex, Derbyshire, 

 NO. 1 133, VOL. 44] 



Devonshire, Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire, and Hamp- 

 shire, besides a few county boroughs. The Conference 

 was private and informal, its object being rather the inter- 

 change of views and the comparison of notes than the 

 adoption of any formal resolution. 



The subject chosen for consideration was the relation 

 of the local taxation grant to secondary schools — the 

 most difficult, as well as the most important, of the ques- 

 tions with which the organizer finds himself face to face 

 when preparing a scheme. Since Matthew Arnold wrote, 

 the disgraceful condition of secondary education in Eng- 

 land has been a common-place ; but how inefficient 

 many of the schools are, and what tracts of country 

 are entirely without even such facilities as they offer, 

 is probably scarcely realized by any except those who 

 have made a minute study of the educational wants of 

 an average county. The country grammar-school, with 

 small endowment and ill-paid and lethargic head master 

 assisted by a worse paid and more inefficient usher, is all 

 thatstandsfor secondary education in manya market-town. 

 Many are without even the semblance of a school above the 

 elementary rank, and the mass of the inhabitants, it is to 

 be feared, hardly feel the want of anything more. Here 

 and there an energetic master or governing body has 

 succeeded in building up a good school in despite of local 

 apathy and lack of funds, but the fee has to be pitched 

 at a point which excludes wage-earners, and such schools 

 are consequently "middle," not only in the character of 

 their instruction, but also in the class by which they are 

 attended. Meanwhile, the clever boy of the village 

 national school, who might profit the nation, by his brains 

 and energy, is doomed, for lack of opportunity, to leave 

 school at twelve for the hopeless rut of farm labour. 



A country-side the general education of which is 

 as here described is not a promising field for special 

 technical instruction. A stupid set of uneducated farmers, 

 and a scarcely less stupid class of uneducated labourers, 

 form hardly a good soil in which to plant lectures on 

 agricultural chemistry or the natural history of insect 

 pests. And thus thoughtful observers have been driven 

 everywhere to the conclusion, no less in country than in 

 town, that access to good secondary schools is an even 

 more crying need at the present day than the specialized 

 instruction to which, indeed, a sound general education is 

 the necessary preliminary. 



What, in short, is wanted, is that within reach of every 

 inhabitant of every county should be a good secondary 

 school, with fees such as may be reasonably expected to 

 be paid by small farmers and tradesmen, and to which 

 all sons of artisans and labourers who can pass a reason- 

 able examination before the age of twelve can have 

 access by means of scholarships. 



The question before the Conference was the best means 

 of promoting this object under the powers given by the 

 Technical Instruction Acts. It will be remembered that 

 the definition of technical instruction in the Act of 1889 

 is sufficiently wide to cover most of the subjects taught in 

 a secondary school, and it is therefore clear that aid can 

 be given to such schools, provided that the County Council 

 can be represented on the governing bodies, and that the 

 schools are not conducted for private profit. As regards 

 the erection of new schools, it is doubtful if the whole 

 work of building could be undertaken, even if desired, by 



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