Railways a National Industry 421 



engineering course (four years). The classes of the Institute 

 (exclusive of those for ambulance work) were attended in 

 1910-1 1 by over 500 students. Examinations are conducted by 

 the Union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes, the Royal 

 Society of Arts, the City and Guilds of London Institute, and 

 the Board of Education, and numerous prizes and exhibitions 

 are awarded. 



Useful service from an educational standpoint is also 

 rendered by the Institution's engineering and scientific club, 

 at whose meetings the papers read and discussed have been on 

 such subjects as " Prevention of Waste in Engineering," 

 " Evaporation and Latent Heat," " Electric Motor-cars and 

 their Repairs," etc. Other affiliated societies or clubs include 

 a photographic society, an ambulance corps and a miniature 

 rifle club (also affiliated to the National Rifle Association 

 and the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs). Popular lectures 

 are given on six Saturday evenings during the winter session. 



Other railway institutes are to be found at Swindon (Great 

 Western Railway), at Vauxhall and Eastleigh (London and 

 South- Western Railway), at York and various other centres 

 on the North-Eastern Railway, and elsewhere. 



I pass on to deal with recent developments of the higher 

 education movement in the railway service as operated (i) by 

 the companies themselves, or (2) by the companies in com- 

 bination with outside educational authorities. 



The Great Western Railway Company, on the recommenda- 

 tion of their general manager, Sir James C. Inglis, inaugurated 

 at Paddington station in 1903 a school of railway signalling, 

 designed to offer to the employees of the company a definite 

 means by which they could acquire technical knowledge of 

 railway working and management. The classes are conducted 

 by the company's signalling expert, and the instruction given 

 is based on the object lessons afforded by a model railway 

 junction, furnished with a complete set of signalling appliances 

 on the standard lines as laid down by the Board of Trade 

 requirements. The experiment was so complete a success 

 that similar schools, provided with similar models, have since 

 been set up at various centres throughout the company's 

 system. 



In the " Great Western Railway Magazine " for November, 

 1911, it was announced that a revised circular dealing with 



