Februakv 8, 1900J 



NA7URE 



357 



men of the more competent type is becoming more serious every 

 diy, because the demand for skilled mechanicians increases with 

 the introduction of improved machine tools, and the problem is, 

 in what way can we hope to insure a supply of thoroughly well- 

 trained competent machinists. 



It will of course be said by a certain class of critics that the 

 worksh>p is the only place in which such a training must be 

 obtained, but this is not the opinion of some of the best-informed 

 American engineers. 



A movement is on foot in America for securing a special 

 training, by the founding of schools for the purpose of training 

 machinists thoroughly from the earliest stages upwards. On 

 this point a most valuable (laper has recently been contributed 

 to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers on " The 

 Education of Machinists, F'oremen, and Mechanical Engineers," 

 by Prol M P. Higgins, of Worcester, Mass., U.S.A., in 

 which, after recommending the forniation of workshop schools, 

 he says, "America his made a strong beginning as an export 

 nalit)n of high grade machines. There are many evidences of 

 keen interest amounting to surprise and alarm on the part of 

 our European rivals. It is interesting to note their efforts to 

 discover the cause of this sudden uprising of a new and evidently 

 po>verful rival in a field heretofore ail their own. 



" The cause of our supremacy." he says, "has not been alto- 

 L;ether the superiority of our high-class engineers, for they also 

 have highly educated engineers. But it has largely resulted 

 from the superior character and makeup of our niechinics, 

 which has come from the chance which America gives the 

 workmen, and in the liberal and wise provisions to train 

 .\rnerican boys, giving each a fair field and open path to rise 

 from one plane to a higher one, as his abilities and circumstances 

 may warrant. 



'• We must not allow ourselves to rest secure in the belief that 

 our Old World competitors will be slow to discern this cause 

 or slow to profit by the example. Therefore, what more potent 

 steps can we take for our protection than to keep this path open 

 from the bottom, and to better our methods all the way up through 

 the successive stages?" 



/;/ -what way may the schools help to more effectually prepare 

 our youths for the task which lies before them ? 



The Elementary School. — I begin at the elementary school 

 because the problem before us is one which can only be solved 

 by laying a good foundation at the very beginning, and pro- 

 ceeding upwards by a properly organised system of training 

 towards the result which we desire to obtain. 



Our British system of elementary school training is probably 

 ccjual to that of any country in the world, but we have to 

 regret the very early age at which the majority of boys pass 

 away from the influences of the school. This is in part due no 

 doubt to the feeling on the part of parents, especially of the 

 lower classes, that after having passed the ordinary standards 

 there is no necessity lor any further stay at school, as the 

 subjects taught are assumed to have little or nothing to do with 

 the immediate requirements of life outside the school. 



The opening in many large centres of Higher Grade Schools, 

 in which pupils who have reached the higher standards may 

 receive instruction at low fees, in science and in manual work, 

 has been generally productive of much good, by retaining in the 

 school pupils who would otherwise have left at an earlier age ; 

 and in these Higher Grade Schools pupils of exceptional ability, 

 as tested by the ordinary system of examinations, have been 

 selected, and in many cases specially trained, for scholarships or 

 for examinations admitting them to the universities. But an 

 idea is beginning to dawn upon us that perhaps, after all, there 

 may be, among the very large majority of boys who are never 

 among those selected to receive any special training to pass 

 university examinations, and who have no special aptitude in 

 the direction of acquiring book knowledge, much real ability in 

 other directions, in fact, that they may be, as it were, a kind of 

 unworked mine of possibilities and resources. 



Hitherto they have been looked upon as the wasters of the 

 school, but it is almost certain that the great inventors and 

 mechanicians of our time have not usually come from the class 

 of boys who are looked upon as the most successful students. 

 Usually the " clever boy " is the one who. by his ability, in 

 the particular direction by which the schools measure ability, 

 succeeds in escaping from the workshop and in doing, as 

 he would consider, better for himself by obtaining other 

 employment. 



NO. 1580. VOL. 6 I "I 



Every Higher Grade School iji which work is carried to the 

 exteiit of providing school laboratories for, say, chemistry and 

 physics, which, by the way, is a very good and necessary 

 provision, should provide also an alternative course in a school 

 workshop for the type of boy well known to teachers whose 

 tendencies are more mechanical than scientific, who would 

 be likely to make much more progress if trained in a work- 

 shop than in a chemical laboratory ; and who would certainly 

 pay for such training. 



Every teacher who has had experience with the teaching of 

 science to boys knows that the class consists of two distinct 

 types ; first, those who are fitted by careful training to become 

 successful students, and to take a more or less high position 

 in public examinations, who in fact are aiming at passing 

 some examination as a means to their future progress ; and 

 secondly, those who have no prospect of such success, and 

 whose future success will depend, if they succeed at all, upon 

 other qualifications. 



Now this latter class includes the majority of the pupils. 

 They contain also the class from which will be drawn in the- 

 future the workers, and in some cases the leaders, in out- 

 industries, and these boys have, equally with the other boys,, 

 a reasonable claim upon all that the school can do for theni to- 

 prepare them for their future. To meet then the case of 

 these boys the workshop course should be an altogether 

 different course from that hitherto provided. It should be 

 equipped with as much care and as much completeness, in its . 

 way, for the purpose of training this type of boy, as is the 

 chemical or physical laboratory, and the educational value of 

 such training need be in no sense inferior to that of any other 

 course of study. 



It is assumed that boys in such a school have already done a 

 woodwork course, and if so they would here receive an iron- 

 work course in a workshop supplied with a good selection of 

 tools, including some small but good types of machine tools 

 driven by a gas engine or electric motor. The effect of pro- 

 viding such a course of instruction would be to select, by a 

 natural system, the type of boy likely to profit by the training 

 received, and to retain these boys for a much longer period than 

 would otherwise be possible. But the success of such school 

 workshops would depend largely upon the course of instruction 

 given, and upon the quality of the teacher giving it. The 

 course should include practical work in the shops, the arithmetic 

 of machines, geometry, machine drawing and design, and 

 elementary applied mechanics. Each of these subjects is capable 

 of indefinite extension, but it is of great importance that the 

 early teaching should lay a good foundation upon which the 

 future may be built, and that nothing should be learned which, 

 will afterwards require to be unlearned. 



UNI VERS! TY AND EDUCA TIONA L 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



It is announced that a copy of the charter and statutes which are 

 to govern the new University of Birmingham, has been laid on 

 the table of the House of Commons. This contains a list of 

 honorary and other officers covered by the terms of the charter, 

 but only three persons are mentioned who have been definitely - 

 appointed to positions in the new University. The first Chan- 

 cellor will be Mr. Chamberlain. No name is associated with 

 the office of Principal, which is to be a Crown appointment, 

 made through the Lord President of the Council, but the Vice- 

 Principal nominated is Dr. R. S. Heath, who has been acting 

 Principal of Mason University College. The appointment of 

 the first Dean of the Faculty of Medicine has been conferred on 

 Dr. B. C. A. Windle, F.R.S. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, December 7, 1899.— "Gold Aluminium 

 Alloys." By C. T. Heycock, F.R.S. , and F. H. Neville, F.R.S. 



The freezing point curve for mixtures of gold and aluminiunn 

 consists of seven branches, each branch corresponding to equili- 

 brium between liquid and the first solid which forms as the system 

 cools. Seven substances can al.so be detected by a micro.'^copic 

 examination of the solid alloys. They are gold, AU4AI, AugAl,, 

 or perhaps AugAlj, Au„Al, a body which is probably AuAl, 

 Roberts-Austen's purple AuAl,, and aluminium. With th e 



