October 15, 1903] 



NATURE 



583 



laboratories have come into being. My predecessor in the 

 Chair likes to call laboratories " workshops." I have no 

 objection, but the reverse; for the word " laboratory," like 

 " research," sounds too magnificent for what is really 

 meant, and all education should more or less be carried 

 out in workshops. 



The increase is as satisfactory as it is remarkable. It 

 was only possible to increase the numbers in early days by 

 gentle pressure and prophesying smooth things which, 

 happily, did eventually come to pass. In later days the in- 

 crease has been almost automatic. The Technical Instruc- 

 tion Act has called into being technical instruction com- 

 mittees who in many cases have taken up science instruc- 

 tion in their districts in earnest. They, too, have had 

 public money to allocate, and not a little has gone in the 

 encouragement of practical education. It may, however', 

 be remarked that had it not been for the preliminary work 

 that had been done by the Science and Art Department it 

 is more than probable that the Technical Instruction Act 

 of 1887 would never have seen the light. 



.\ reference must now be made to the removal of what 

 anyone will see was a great bar to the spread of sound 

 instruction in every class of school where science was 

 taught. So long as the student's success in examination 

 was the test which regulated the amount of the grant 

 paid by the State, so long was it impossible to insist on 

 all-round practical instruction. It was impracticable to 

 hold practical examinations for tens of thousands of students 

 in some twenty different subjects of science. The practical 

 examination in chemistry told its tale of difficulties. It was 

 only when the Duke of Devonshire and Sir John Gorst in 

 iSq8 substituted for the old scheme of payments payment 

 for attendance, and in a large measure substituted inspec- 

 tion for examination, that the Department could still further 

 press for practical instruction. For all elementary instruc- 

 tion the test of outside examination does more harm than 

 good, and any examination in the work done by elementary 

 students should be carried out by the teacher, and should 

 be made on the absolute course that has been given. It 

 seems to be useless or worse that an examination should 

 cover more than this. Instruction in a set syllabus which 

 for an outside examination has to be covered spoils the 

 teaching and takes away the liberty of method which a 

 gccd teacher should enjoy. The literary work involved of 

 answering questions, for an outside examiner, is also against 

 the elementary student's success, and cannot be equal to 

 that which may properly be expected from him a couple 

 of years later. 



.Vdvanced instruction appears to be on a different foot- 

 ing. The student in advanced science must have gradually 

 obtained a knowledge of the elementary portions of the 

 subject, and it is not too much to ask him beyond the 

 inspection of his work to express himself in decent English 

 and to submit to examination from the outside ; but even 

 here the payment for such instruction should be by an 

 attendance grant tempered in some degree by the results of 

 examination, since examiners are not always to be trusted. 



The attendance grant was not viewed by some with great 

 favour at first, and protests were received against its adop- 

 tion, a favourite complaint being that it was sure to entail 

 a loss of grant. One became suspicious that some of those 

 who protested were aware that the last bulwark which 

 defended the earning of grants by cram was being re- 

 moved, and that inspection might prove more irksome than 

 examination. This is past history now, and the new system 

 works as smoothly as the old and with not more complaints 

 than are to be always expected. 



As I have said, grants were for very many years supposed 

 to be confined to aiding the instruction of the industrial 

 classes, but this limitation was more nominal than real. 

 It might probably be imagined that it was no very difficult 

 task to distinguish an artisan and his children from students 

 who belonged to the middle classes. This was not the case, 

 however. Children belonging to the industrial class were, 

 on joining a science class, obliged to state the occupation 

 of the father, and it was no uncommon thing for fathers 

 to be given brevet-rank by their children. Thus, a brick- 

 layer's son would describe his father as a " builder," which, 

 if true, ought to have brought him into the ranks of the 

 middle class. These unauthorised promotions were one of 

 the difficulties the inspector had to face when judging as 

 to the status of the parents. This difficulty was largely 



NO. 1772, VOL. 68] 



met by a rule that all those who attended evening classes 

 were supposed to be of the industrial class ; but as day 

 classes increased the numbers of those who by no possibility 

 could be of the artisan class also increased, and it became 

 a very invidious duty of the inspector to put M.C. (Middle 

 Class) against the names of many. It was determined by 

 superior authority that only those students or their parents 

 who could claim exemption from income-tax should be 

 reckoned as coming within the category of industrial 

 students. In early days the qualification for abatement on 

 income-tax was a much lower figure than it is to-day, and 

 almost each succeeding Chancellor of the Exchequer has 

 raised the figure of the income on which the abatement 

 could be claimed. To-day it is, I believe, 700^ a year, 

 bringing the official definition as to membership of the 

 industrial classes to an absurdity. It became evident to the 

 official mind, which some people are good enough to say 

 works but slowly, that the definition must be amended or 

 the limitation abolished. The progress of events happily 

 made the abolition the better plan, and was the means of 

 allowing inroads of science instruction to be made into 

 secondary day schools. 



The history of these inroads I shall now give. Instruc- 

 tion given in so-called organised science schools was origin- 

 ally aided by the Department by means of a small Capita- 

 tion Grant. These schools were supposed to give an 

 organised course of science instruction, and the successes 

 at examination determined the payment. They were not 

 satisfactory as at first constituted, and they so dwindled 

 away in numbers that in 1890 only some one or two were 

 left. A small increase in Capitation Grant in 1892 revived 

 some of them, and a fair number existed in the following 

 year. There was no doubt, however, that the conditions 

 under which they existed were most unfavourable for a 

 sound education, which ought not only to include science 

 but also literary instruction. The latter was, in many 

 schools, wholly neglected, owing to the fact that the grants 

 earned depended on the results of examination, and so all 

 the school time was devoted to grant earning. 



Mr. Acland, at this time Minister for Education, was 

 made aware of this neglect to give a good general educa- 

 tion, and as I was at that time responsible for science 

 instruction I was directed to draw up a scheme for re- 

 organising these schools and forcing a general as well as 

 scientific education to be carried out. Baldly the scheme 

 abolished almost entirely ^ payments on results of examin- 

 ation, and the rate of grant depended on inspection and 

 attendance. Further, a certain minimum number of hours 

 had to be given to literary subjects, and another minimum 

 to science instruction, a great deal of it being practical and 

 having to be carried out in the " workshop." The pay- 

 ments for science instruction were to be withheld unless the 

 inspector was satisfied that the literary part of the educa- 

 tion was given satisfactorily. 



The scheme was accepted and promulgated whilst the 

 Roval Commission on Secondary Education was sitting, 

 and, if I may be allowed to say so, Mr. Acland's tenure of 

 office would be long remembered for this innovation alone, 

 since in it he took a wide departure from the traditional 

 methods of the Department and created a class of secondary 

 school which differed totally from those then existing. 

 Needless to say the scheme was not received with favour 

 on all sides, more especially by those who thought that 

 serious damage would be done to secondary schools by the 

 competition from this new development of secondary 

 education. I am not ashamed to say that the disfavour 

 shown on some sides made me rejoice, as it indicated that 

 a move had been made in the right direction. At first it 

 was principally the higher-grade Board Schools that came 

 under the scheme, and in the first year there were twenty- 

 four of them at work. This type of school gradually in- 

 creased until about seventy of them, and chiefly of a most 

 efficient character, were recognised in 1900. Their further 

 increase was only arrested by the Cockerton judgment, now 

 so well known that I need only name it. But here we come 

 to a most interesting development. State aid, as already 

 said, was at first limited to the instruction of the industrial 

 classes, but no limitation as to the status of the pupil was 

 made in this new scheme for the schools of science, and 

 logically this freedom was extended in 1897 to all instruc- 

 tion aided by the Department — the date when all limitation 

 1 Within the next four years they will entirely cease. 



