Ill] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 69 



to follow them in their high philosophical excursions, 

 though we know the risk of being snubbed by the 

 inquiry whether grovelling dissectors of monkeys and 

 blackbeetles can hope to enter into the empyreal 

 kingdom of speculation. But still we feel that our 

 business is different ; humbler if you will, though the 

 diminution of dignity is, perhaps, compensated by the 

 increase of reality ; and that we, like you, have to get 

 our work done in a region where little avails, if the 

 power of dealing with practical tangible facts is want- 

 ing. You know that clever talk touching joinery will 

 not make a chair ; and I know that it is of about as 

 much value in the physical sciences. Mother Nature 

 is serenely obdurate to honeyed words ; only those 

 who understand the ways of things, and can silently 

 and effectually handle them, get any good out of 

 her. 



And now, having, as I hope, justified my assump- 

 tion of a place among handicraftsmen, and put myself 

 right with you as to my qualification, from practical 

 knowledge, to speak about technical education, I will 

 proceed to lay before you the results of my experience 

 as a teacher of a handicraft, and tell you what sort of 

 education I should think best adapted for a boy whom 

 one wanted to make a professional anatomist. 



I should say, in the first place, let him have a good 



English elementary education. I do not mean that 



he shall be able to pass in such and such a standard 



that may or may not be an equivalent expression 



but that his teaching shall have been such as to 



