July 23, 1903] 



NA TURE 



275 



become critics. Our manufacturers, on the other 

 hand, are learning to value young men who have had 

 a sound training, and it is becoming less and less 

 difficult each year to find suitable places for students 

 of this kind, even though many of the students are 

 prolonging their training longer than was the case 

 some years ago, though still for a far shorter period 

 in most cases than is the case with the German 

 students. 



In estimating the amount of assistance which the 

 State gives to higher technical education in this country 

 we are confronted with a serious difficulty, for the in- 

 stitutions in which such education is given are seldom 

 concerned with this work only. The technical institu- 

 tions spend much of their energy and financial re- 

 sources on elementary work in evening classes, while 

 in some cases they also include preparatory day de- 

 partments, which are simply secondary schools of a 

 modern type. In the university colleges which provide 

 higher technical education, such work represents, as 

 a rule, only a small fraction of their activity. 



It is, however, quite certain that comparatively little 

 of the grants made to technical institutions and uni- 

 versity colleges can be considered as given specifically 

 for higher technical education. Indeed, in so far as the 

 former are concerned, the present policy of the Board 

 of Education is to give high grants for secondary 

 schools and elementary evening classes with numerous 

 pupils, and but little aid to the day classes for adults, 

 which form the most important part of the work of 

 the best technical colleges. 



The Scottish Education Department, on the contrary, 

 has recently altered this for Scotland by selecting the 

 institutions at Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee, and 

 putting them in a position of great liberty to develop 

 their higher work, while promising to give aid, not 

 so much for thousands of students doing elementary 

 work as for the high quality of the advanced work 

 done by a smaller number of persons. May we not 

 hope that in England the authorities will soon adopt 

 a similar policy? 



As to Germany, Dr. Rose's report mentions the 

 following facts. The Prussian State gave to the Berlin 

 Technical High School alone, in 1871, an annual sub- 

 vention of 851 li.; this grant has been gradually in- 

 creased until, in 1899, it amounted to 33,675?., while 

 in the same year the total grant to the three Prussian 

 technical high schools reached the sum of 65,350^, 

 being more than half the total revenues of these in- 

 stitutions. But besides these amounts, sums are in- 

 dependently voted by the Prussian Ministry of Finance 

 towards meeting extraordinary expenses incurred for 

 new buildings, machinery, apparatus, &c. If these 

 sums be taken into consideration, we reach the grand 

 total of 121,348?. a year. It must be remembered that 

 these figures relate not to the whole of Germany, but 

 simply to the kingdom of Prussia, with an industrial 

 population many times less than that for which we 

 have to provide leaders in the United Kingdom. 



One of the tables in Dr. Rose's report shows in a 

 remarkable way the great progress which has been 

 made in the matter of higher education in Germany 

 since the Franco-Prussian War. For the attendance 

 of students at the German universities, technical, 

 agricultural, and veterinary high schools, &c., has 

 increased from 17,761 in 1870 to 46,520 in iqoo; or 

 to state the matter in another way, there were in such 

 institutions in 1870 about nine students for every 

 10.000 male inhabitants of Germany, while in 1900 

 there were nearly seventeen students' for every 10,000 

 male inhabitants. The rate of increase has been much 

 more rapid in the technical high schools, though the 

 universities also have made progress ; the actual figures 

 given by Dr. Rose are :— for the universities, 13,674 

 students in 1870, and 32,834 in 1900; for the technical 



NO. 1760, VOL. 68] 



high schools, 2928 in 1870, and 10,412 in 1900, irre- 

 spective in each instance of students in agricultural 

 and mining high schools and other higher institutions. 

 We see, then, that the attendance at the technical 

 high schools has increased nearly fourfold during the 

 thirty years, while in the same period the university 

 students have become only about two and a half times 

 as numerous. 



An important point in Dr. Rose's report is that in 

 Germany the technical high schools are independent 

 of universities, although in some of the largest towns, 

 such as Berlin and Munich, universities and technical 

 high schools both flourish, existing side by side, and 

 in some cases appareiltly overlapping, but not really 

 so doing, since the object of the two institutions is 

 not the same. The university students may be sup- 

 posed to ^eek knowledge mainly for its own sake, 

 while students in technical high schools propose to 

 put their knowledge to commercial uses. 



There is no doubt that this separation of technical 

 work from the control of the university professors has 

 been a good thing for both classes of institutions, 

 which are now recognised as of equal standing in 

 Germany by the action of the Emperor, as King of 

 Prussia, followed shortly after by the King of 

 Wiirttemburg, whereby the technical high schools 

 have the right of conferring the degree of doctor of 

 engineering, thus putting them on a par with the 

 universities in this respect. This action was taken 

 notwithstanding the strong opposition of the Prussian 

 universities, and the Emperor at the same time 

 admitted the principals of the Prussian technical high 

 schools to the Prussian House of Lords, and bestowed 

 upon each of them the title of " His Magnificence." 



Perhaps the most important lesson to be learnt from 

 Dr. Rose's report is the need for the strengthening 

 of the best technical institutions in England which 

 provide for the training in day classes of our industrial 

 leaders. 



The report shows that in Germany higher technical 

 education is concentrated in a limited number of in- 

 stitutions, and these the State makes thoroughly 

 efficient. The result is the gathering into a single 

 institution of such a large number of students that 

 it is possible to provide for them buildings, equipment, 

 and teaching staff on a scale far in advance of any- 

 thing found here. Thus the teaching staff of the 

 three Prussian technical high schools numbered in 

 1899 "O i^ss than 554, being one teacher for each nine 

 students in attendance. This liberal staffing enables 

 the German teachers to specialise, greatly to the 

 advantage of the country, the students, and the 

 teachers themselves. In Germany a man is not — as 

 is the rule here — expected to deal with the whole range 

 of such enormously wide subjects as, e.g. electrical 

 engineering. One teacher has a thorough knowledge 

 of central station equipment, another of telephony, a 

 third of electro-motors, a fourth of electro-plating, and 

 so on. 



It is evident, then, that, if we wish our higher 

 technical training to be as good as that of the Germans, 

 we must concentrate our students. But this has been 

 ditTicult, because our technical education has been so 

 largely in the hands of local authorities ; these bodies 

 are naturally anxious to give the highest form of 

 training for many industries within their own limits, 

 but they are not. as a rule, willing to expend the very 

 large sums needed to make this possible; nor would 

 such an expenditure be wise. We have, therefore, 

 in the United Kingdom a comparatively large number 

 of institutions each attempting — for the most part in- 

 efficiently — to do the highest work in many branches 

 of technology. 



If imperial patriotism would but outweigh local 

 partiality, the sums already available might go further 



