6o8 



NA TURE 



[April 30, 1896 



the largest proportion of skilled and inventive workmen. 

 It is in the elementary schools that the foundations of 

 natural knowledge should be laid, and there the faculty of 

 observation should be trained to feed the mind ; yet these 

 are the schools which the Bishop of London would shut 

 out from the light of science. For many years men 

 interested in scientific education have been striving for a 

 fuller recognition of science in our educational system, 

 and not without a certain measure of success. But now 

 comes Dr. Temple and says in spirit, if not in the exact 

 words, " Away with all these abominations. Purge the 

 elementary schools of everything scientific, and substitute 

 dogmas and subjects more fitted to the stations of life in 

 which it has pleased God to call the scholars." It is 

 difficult to believe that sentiments so antagonistic to 

 scientific study should have been uttered towards the 

 end of the nineteenth century, and by one who is re- 

 garded as a friend of educational progress. But it is 

 gratifying to know that Dr. Temple is only expressing 

 the desire of a few ecclesiastics when he declares for the 

 expulsion of science from elementary education. All 

 who have the good of the country at heart, and who 

 know the immense industrial harvest which Germany 

 has reaped, and is reaping, as the result of generous 

 provision for science in education, will regret that a man 

 in the exalted position of the Bishop of London should 

 have been the mouth-piece of words so narrow in their 

 signification as those we have quoted — words which really 

 lead one to think that he has not yet grasped the dififer- 

 ence between "education" and "instruction." As it 

 happens, we have received during the past week a copy 

 of the address delivered by the Right Hon. A. J. Mundella 

 to the members of the Association of Technical Institu- 

 tions at their last annual general meeting, and we subjoin 

 a few extracts from it, in the hope that they will lead Dr. 

 Temple and his friends to a better appreciation of the 

 value of scientific education. 



Germany and Switzerland have, for more than half a century, 

 been perfectmg their educational system. They have trained 

 up two generations in the most efficient and best manner that 

 these two nations can aftbrd, and they have profited very largely 

 by it. 



Now, to my mind, it is astonishing that this should be the 

 case with such comparatively poor nations, because they have 

 made their institutions accessible to every citizen, even to the 

 poorest. There has been a lavishness amounting almost to 

 extravagance in their expenditure. A few years ago I was in 

 Berlin, and I was talking to my old friend Prof. Hofmann, who 

 was then at the head of that great Charlottenburg Institution, 

 the first technical institution in Europe. I remarked to him 

 that I had been through various institutions in Germany and 

 Switzerland the previous year, and it seemed to me that they 

 were rather over-producing scientific men, the supply was in 

 excess of the demand. " It is true," he said, " that we are 

 producing more than we can absorb. We have a plethora of 

 scientific men ; only this year in my own department, two 

 hundred Doctors of Science have taken degrees in the 

 universities of Germany. But you must bear one thing in mind ; 

 •we have the export trade entirely to ourselves. " 



" Go where you will throughout the world, you will find the 

 German chemist at the head of every industry into which 

 chemical science enters. I was in America, making a journey 

 through the States some two or three years ago, and wherever 

 I went I was entertained by German chemists and German 

 scientific men, many of whom were old students of mine. 

 They were at the head of every industry to which scientific 

 knowledge is applicable, chemical works, gas works, breweries, 

 whatever it was a German was at the head of it." And he 

 said, " You know that pays. When a German scientific man 

 wants plant or machinery, and that plant is manufactured in 

 Germany, he goes to Germany for it, he does not go to 

 England." That is quite true. The position that the German 

 chemist, the German scientist, the German technologist has 

 taken throughout the world, has done much to assist German 

 industry. 



NO, 1383, VOL. 53] 



The extent to which Germany and Switzerland have profited 

 by technical teaching, is hardly realised by the English people. 

 We are beginning to learn it ; Switzerland, we are told by Sir 

 O. Adams, in his excellent book on the " Swiss Confederation," 

 exports a greater amount of manufactures per head for her 

 population, than any other country in the world. It seems 

 almost incredible that it should be so, that a country without 

 natural resources, without iron, without coal, without a port or 

 a navigable river, should nevertheless have a greater export of 

 manufactures than any other nation in the world, not excepting 

 England. But it is true, gentlemen, and she owes it entirely to 

 her education. . . . 



Look at Germany. What has Germany gained by her sacri- 

 fices ? I have been reading the most recent consular reports 

 from that country : they furnish a mass of testimony in proof 

 of the advantages she is reaping from her persistency in an 

 enlightened educational policy. Hamburg trades very largely 

 with English-speaking countries. Years ago she made English 

 a compulsory subject in her common schools. She has been 

 unsparing in expenditure for the equipment of her citizens, and 

 she is reaping her reward. If, thirty years ago, any one had 

 ventured to prophesy that in 1895 the tonnage of sea-going 

 ships touching at Hamburg would exceed that of Liverpool, we 

 should have laughed him to scorn; but this "striking fact" 

 was announced to us a few days ago. Our Consul at Stettin 

 reports that the educational authorities of that city propose to 

 devote four hours a week to the study of English in the common . 

 schools. What would be said in England if a School Board on \ 

 the north-east coast was to make German a compulsory subject? 



After stating a number of remarkable instances of the 

 efifects that foreign competition is having upon British 

 trade and employment, Mr. Mundella continued : — 



Let us ask ourselves why it is that our rivals are so success^'ul ? 

 In the first place their elementary schools are thoroughly 

 efficient. The teaching staff" consists of trained adults, 90 per 

 cent, of them being men. The scholars attend with astonishing 

 regularity, and the school-life is sufficiently long to permit of 

 their mastering the full curriculum of the school. When at the 

 age of fourteen (in Switzerland it is often fifteen) the continuation 

 school perfects, and adds to, the knowledge acquired in the 

 elementary school. Then follows the high school, the technical 

 school, and the university. There is no waste of effort ; no 

 overlapping ; everything is co-ordinated ; and everything is 

 accessible to "the youth of pregnant parts." Fees are suffi- 

 ciently low, or scholarships are provided, to admit of the 

 humblest scholar of promise securing a thoroughly sound 

 education. In Switzerland the high schools are free as well as 

 the elementary, and the fees at the Polytechnicum at Ziirich do 

 not exceed £4 per annum. . . . 



Well, gentlemen, what is our position ? We are still 

 the first industrial nation in the world. What is our edu- 

 cational position ? Are we first ? Comparisons are odious. 

 They are in this case ; one hardly likes to make them.^ 

 Having regard to our wealth, the magnitude of our industries 

 and of our commerce, the vast interests that we have in 

 our keeping, we ought to be the first. Why are we behind, 

 and what ought we to do to obtain supremacy in educa- 

 tion as well as maintain it in industry ? Well, you must begin 

 at the bottom, you must improve the elementary education. We, 

 to a great extent, owe the present condition of things to the early 

 leaving of school, to the half-time system, to the low standards 

 which prevail, especially in the country districts, where the 

 fourth standard is the standard of total exemption. Think of 

 the numbers that enter factories at eleven years of age. Think 

 how few stay at school until they are thirteen or fourteen. It is 

 true we have done excellent work under Forster's Act. We 

 should take shame to ourselves that we have not done more, 

 but we have done as much as the country would allow us ; and 

 we have been always, I think, in advance of the opinion of the 

 country. 



We trust that these extracts from Mr. Mundella's 

 address will bring the Bishop of London to a better 

 understanding of the place and value of science in 

 education. 



1 Dr. Virchow visited England four or five years ago, and on his return to 

 Berlin he reported, " England is a century before us in sanitation, and a 

 centurj- behind us in education." 



