80 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LECT. 



examiners of the Department regard them as poachers 

 of the worst description. 



Without presuming in any way to speak in the 

 name of the Department, I think I may say, as a 

 matter which has come under my own observation, 

 that it is doing its best to meet all these difficulties. 

 It systematically promotes practical instruction in the 

 classes ; it affords facilities to teachers who desire to 

 learn their business thoroughly; and it is always 

 ready to aid in the suppression of pot-teaching. 



All this is, as you may imagine, highly satisfactory 

 to me. I see that spread of scientific education, about 

 which I have so often permitted myself to worry the 

 public, become, for all practical purposes, an accom- 

 plished fact. Grateful as I am for all that is now 

 being done, in the same direction, 'in our higher 

 schools and universities, I have ceased to have any 

 anxiety about the wealthier classes. Scientific know- 

 ledge is spreading by what the alchemists called a 

 " distillatio per ascensum ; " and nothing now can 

 prevent it from continuing to distil upwards and per- 

 meate English society, until, in the remote future, there 

 shall be no member of the legislature who does not 

 know as much of science as an elementary school-boy; 

 and even the heads of houses in our venerable seats 

 of learning shall acknowledge that natural science is 

 not merely a sort of University back-door through 

 which inferior men may get at their degrees. Perhaps 

 this apocalyptic vision is a little wild ; and I feel I 

 ought to ask pardon for an outbreak of enthusiasm, 

 which, I assure you, is not my commonest failing. 



