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357 



THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 191.6. 



RESEARCH IX INDUSTRY AXD THE 

 FUTURE OF EDUCATION. 

 ' I ""HE demand for a drastic review of the whole 

 of our educational policy and methods, 

 having regard to the results, grows apace. The 

 events of the war have served to reveal in startling 

 fashion our shortcomings in production, especially 

 in the domain of the applied sciences, and notably 

 in the extent to which, by reason of our neglect 

 to train adequately those engaged in scientific in- 

 dustries, we have found ourselves almost slavishly 

 dependent upon our chief industrial and com- 

 mercial rival — with whom, alas ! we are now 

 engaged in deadly strife — for some of the most 

 vital necessities of our industries. Of this regret- 

 table fact the great textile industries of Lanca- 

 shire and Yorkshire (so large a proportion of 

 which are engaged in manufacture for export), 

 many important departments of chemical and 

 engineering enterprise, the manufacture of 

 chemical and optical glass and endless other pro- 

 ductions of service in medicine and in the arts of 

 life, not to speak of the grave difficulties with 

 which we have been confronted in the supply of 

 high explosives, furnish abundant evidence. 



Could it be shown that this failure on our part 

 arises from some special advantages of climate or 

 of natural resources possessed by Germany, it 

 might be accepted as in the order of Nature and 

 as a satisfactory, though regrettable, explanation, 

 but the very reverse is the case ; nor is it to be 

 found in any lack of intellectual ability in the 

 English child. The real solution is to be found 

 in the more effective provision for the education 

 of all classes, such as that prevailing in Germany, 

 whether of the rank and file or of those intended 

 to be the directors of industry or of commerce. 

 Hence the provision in Germany of (i) a complete 

 system of elementary education applying without 

 compromise to the children of the industrial class 

 up to the close of their thirteenth year and con- 

 tinued under specialised conditions, within the 

 normal working time, for at least six to eight 

 hours per week in continuation schools until the 

 age of eighteen is reached ; we, on the contrary, 

 allow some two and a quarter millions of our 

 youth between the ages of twelve and eighteen 

 to cease entirely their attendance at school; 

 (2) ample facilities for all forms of secondary 

 education, covering, from the tenth year, six or 

 nine years, and leading up, so far as the higher 

 schools are concerned, direct to the universities 

 and technical high schools, with a preparation on 

 the part of the matriculated students far in excess 

 of that which, generally speaking, obtains with 

 NO. 2435, VOL. 97] 



us, since the average length of secondary-school 

 life in England does not exceed three years. 

 These facilities for general education are crowned 

 by magnificent provision for scientific training in 

 the universities and technical high schools, not 

 to mention numerous special schools dealing 

 exclusively with mining, agriculture, forestry, or 

 with the textile or other industries. 



The easy optimism of some of the Speakers 

 at the recent conference of the British Imperial 

 Council of Commerce is somewhat disturbing in 

 view of the actual facts as to the students in 

 attendance at German technical high schools, ex- 

 cluding those in the universities, as compared 

 with those in all British institutions. 



It may be admitted at once that since 1902 

 there has been a great and gratifying increase in 

 the number and efficiency of the institutions in 

 Great Britain giving scientific and technical train- 

 ing, and in the number of students participating 

 therein, but so, too, has been the advance in 

 Germany. A useful and striking comparison may 

 be found in the statistics collected by the Assoc;; 

 tion of Technical Institutions in 1902. Informa- 

 tion was obtained from ninety-nine institutions 

 in the United Kingdom, including all the universi- 

 ties, as to the number of day students of fifteen 

 years of age and upwards engaged in scientific 

 and technical studies, no matter what their 

 character, and the figures supplied were compared 

 with those obtained from nine German technical 

 high schools, with results absolutely startling in 

 their significance. In no case were the students 

 in the German schools less than eighteen years of 

 age, whilst of these almost the entire number pre- 

 sented certificates of attendance on a nine vears' 

 classical or modern course, and their ranges of 

 study were confined in the main to civil and naval 

 architecture, engineering and chemical subjects. 

 The total number of such students was 12,422, 

 whilst the immatriculated students numbered 

 3020, or a total of 15,442, including a large body 

 of foreign students. 



Contrast this with figures relating to the ninety- 

 nine British institutions, including the universities 

 (the German universities were not included), 

 which showed 3873 enrolled of fifteen years of 

 age and upwards taking many subjects not in- 

 cluded in the German return. Of this number 

 2259 took engineering and 667 chemistry, includ- 

 ing dyeing and metallurgy. The number of 

 third-year matriculated students in the nine Ger- 

 man schools was 2021, in all the English institu- 

 tions 535; in the fourth year it was 1800 and 113 

 respectively (in the Charlottenburg school alone 

 there were 477 third- and fourth-year students). 

 To seek another comparison, there were in the 



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