IIL] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 73 



to take an apprentice, I suppose you would like to 

 get a good healthy lad, ready and willing to learn, 

 handy, and with his fingers not all thumbs, as the 

 saying goes. You would like that he should read, 

 write, and cipher well ; and, if you were an intelligent 

 master, and your trade involved the application of 

 scientific principles, as so many trades do, you would 

 like him to know enough of the elementary principles 

 of science to understand what was going on. I sup- 

 pose that, in nine trades out of ten, it would be useful 

 if he could draw ; and many of you must have la- 

 mented your inability to find out for yourselves what 

 foreigners are doing or have done. So that some 

 knowledge of French and German might, in many 

 cases, be very desirable. 



So it appears to me that what you want is pretty 

 much what I want ; and the practical question is, 

 How you are to get what you need, under the actual 

 limitations and conditions of life of handicraftsmen in 

 this country ? 



I think I shall have the assent both of the em- 

 ployers of labour and of the employed as to one of 

 these limitations ; which is, that no scheme of tech- 

 nical education is likely to be seriously entertained 

 which will delay the entrance of boys into working 

 life, or prevent them from contributing towards their 

 own support, as early as they do at present. Not 

 only do I believe that any such scheme could not be 

 carried out, but I doubt its desirableness, even if it 

 were practicable. 



The period between childhood and manhood is full 



