October 15, 1903] 



NATURE 



581 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 

 SECTION L. 



EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 



Opening Address by Sir William de W. Abney, K.C.B., 

 D.C.L., D.Sc, F.R.S., President of the Section. 



The Section over which I have the honour to preside 

 deals with every branch of education. It is manifest that 

 in an Address your President cannot deal with all of them, 

 and it remained for me to choose one on which I might 

 remark with advantage. As my official work during the 

 last thirty-three years has been connected with education 

 in science, I think I cannot do better than take as my 

 subject the action that the State has taken in encouraging 

 this form of education, and to show that through such 

 action there has been a development of scientific instruction 

 amongst the artisan population and in secondary day 

 s'-hools. The development may not indeed have been to the 

 \tent hoped for, but it yet remains that solid progress has 



'■n made. 



I have chosen the subject deliberately, as I find that there 

 are very few of those who have the interests of education 

 strongly at heart, or who freely criticise those who have 

 borne the burden of the past, that have any knowledge of 

 the trials and difficulties (some of its own creating, but 

 others forced on it by public opinion) which the State, as 

 represented by the now defunct Science and Art Depart- 

 ment, had to contend with in its unceasing missionary 

 efforts in the cause of scientific instruction. I shall not 

 attempt to do more than show that whatever its defect may 

 have been in tact, whatever its shortcomings in method, 

 that Department still deserved well of the country for the 

 work that it did in regard to the fostering of scientific 

 instruction in the country at large. 



As far back as 1852 the Government of the day, in- 

 fluenced very largely by the Prince Consort, realised that 

 it had an educational duty to perform to the industrial 

 classes. Whether it was influenced by philanthropic 

 motives or from the evidence before it that if Great Britain 

 was to maintain its commercial and industrial supremacy 

 scientific instruction was a necessity, it matters little. The 

 fact remains that it determined that the industrial classes 

 should have an opportunity of acquiring that particular kind 

 of knowledge which would be of service to them as crafts- 

 men. In this year 1852 the Speech from the Throne con- 

 tained these words : " The advancement of Fine Arts and 

 of Practical Science will be readily recognised by you as 

 worthy of a great and enlightened nation. I have directed 

 that a comprehensive scheme shall be laid before you, 

 having in view the promotion of those objects towards 

 v/hich I invite your aid and co-operation." 



It is somewhat remarkable that the then Ministry, of 

 which Lord Derby was the chief and Mr. Disraeli the 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer, did not survive to promulgate 

 the scheme, which proposed theoretical rather than practical 

 science, but that their successors, under Lord Aberdeen, 

 issued it and commenced to carry it into effect. In 1853 

 the Department of Science and Art was established under 

 the direction of Mr. Cole. Since 1835 so-called Schools of 

 Design had been in being. These came under the new 

 Department, and it was determined to establish science 

 classes for instruction in science, Dr. Lyon Playfair, the 

 well-known chemist, being charged with' the duty. Play- 

 fair resigned in 1858, and in 1859 Mr. Cole induced a young 

 Engineer officer, Lieut. Donnelly, to undertake the inspec- 

 tion and organisation of science instruction throughout the 

 country. It was through this officer's untiring energy and 

 zeal that the classes in science flourished and were added 

 to at this early stage of the new Department's history. 

 The same energy was displayed by Donnelly during the 

 whole of his long career in the service of the State, and I 

 feel that it was fortunate for myself to have served so 

 many years as I did under one to whom the country at 

 large owes a deep debt of gratitude. 



Not long ago he passed away from us, and there will be 

 no more lasting memorial to him than that which he him- 

 self erected during his lifetime in the fostering of that form 

 of education which is of such vital importance to the 

 national well-being. 



To revert to history, I may record that the first science 



examinations conducted by the State took place in May, 

 1861, and, the system of grants being made on the results 

 of examination having been authorised, the magnificent 

 sum of 1300/. was spent on this occasion on the instruction 

 of 650 candidates, that number having been examined. 

 Thus early was the system of examination commenced in 

 the Department's career, and the method of payments on 

 the results of these examinations stereotyped for many 

 years to come. There is reason to believe that the educa- 

 tional e.xperts of that day considered that both were essential 

 and of educational value, a value which has since been 

 seriously discounted. Employers of labour in this country 

 were not too quick in discerning the advantages that must 

 ultimately ensue from this class of education if properly 

 carried out and encouraged. Theoretically they gave 

 encouragement, but practically very little, and this survives 

 to some extent even to the present day. Some of the fore- 

 most employers, however, gave material encouragement to 

 t'li formation of classes, insisting on their employees attend- 

 ing evening instruction ; but conspicuous above all was Mr. 

 Whitworth, who, in 1868, placed in the hands of the De- 

 partment the sum of loo.oooZ., to be devoted to the creation 

 of scholarships, which were to be awarded at the annual 

 May examinations. The proviso made by him was that 

 all competitors were to have had experience in practical 

 work in an engineering establishment. Such candidates, 

 it was evident, must have found out their own weakness in 

 education, and, by working in science classes, could make 

 up their deficiencies, and the award of these scholarships 

 would enable them to study further. Sir J. 'Whitworth was 

 far-seeing and almost lived before his age, but the benefits 

 that he has conferred, not only on individuals, but on 

 science and industries, by his generosity will make his 

 name to be remembered for generations to come. To have 

 been a Whitworth scholar gives an entree into various 

 Government and engineering posts, and we have in the 

 front rank of science men who have held these scholarships 

 and whose names stand prominent in the development of 

 engineering. 



Incidentally, I may say that no country but this, for very 

 many years, considered that instruction in science for the 

 artisan was-a large factor in maintaining and developing 

 industry. The educational interests of the employer and 

 the foreman were, in some countries, well provided for, 

 but the mechanic was merely a hand, and a " hand " 

 trained in merely practical work he was to remain. He 

 could not aspire to rise beyond. We may congratulate our- 

 selves that such a " caste" system does not exist amongst 

 ourselves. 



For the first twenty-five years of the Department of 

 Science and Art the grants given by Parliament for science 

 instruction were distributed almost entirely amongst those 

 who were officially supposed to belong to the industrial 

 classes, and no encouragement was offered to any higher 

 class in the social scale. 



It would take me too long to show that at first the 

 industrial classes were very shy of seizing on the advantages 

 offered them. Suffice it to say that they had to be bribed 

 by the offer of prizes and certificates of success to attend 

 instruction, and it was not for several years that the even- 

 ing classes got acclimatised and became popular. 



The evening instruction was then largely attended by 

 adults. That this was the case may be judged by the fact 

 that the average age of candidates who obtained successes 

 in advanced chemistry was about twenty-five and in 

 elementary chemistry about twenty-one. I have alluded to 

 the apathy displayed by employers and by the artisans in 

 th-j early days of the Department of Science and Art. The 

 causes which dispelled it in both employers and employed, 

 in regard to science instruction, will be found in the follow- 

 ing extract from a report by the Department of Science 

 and Art : — 



" The Paris Exhibition (1867) caused the work of this 

 country to be brought into close comparison with that of 

 the rest of the Continent, and in many points both of 

 manufacture and of skilled labour it was found England 

 did not stand in such a good position as she had done a few 

 years back. Dr. Playfair, in a letter to the Times, drew 

 attention to this, attributing much if not all the evil to the 

 deficiency of our technical education among the artisan 

 class. The substance of this letter was taken up by many 



NO. 1772, VOL. 68] 



