XVII TECHNICAL EDUCATION 



organisation of this system in London, and I am 

 glad to think that, after all these years, I can look 

 back upon that period of my life as perhaps the 

 part of it least wasted. 



No one can doubt that this system of primary 

 education has done wonders for our population ; 

 but, from our point of view, I do not think any- 

 body can doubt that it still has very considerable 

 defects. It has the defect which is common to all 

 the educational systems which we have inherited 

 it is too bookish, too little practical. The child is 

 brought too little into contact with actual facts and 

 things, and as the system stands at present it con- 

 stitutes next to no education of those particular 

 faculties which are of the utmost importance to 

 industrial life I mean the faculty of observation, 

 the faculty of working accurately, of dealing with 

 things instead of with words. I do not propose to 

 enlarge upon this topic, but I would venture to 

 suggest that there are one or two remedial measures 

 which are imperatively needed ; indeed, they have 

 already been alluded to by Mr. Acland. Those 

 which strike me as of the greatest importance are 

 two, and the first of them is the teaching of draw- 

 ing. In my judgment, there is no mode of 

 exercising the faculty of observation and the 

 faculty of accurate reproduction of that which is 

 observed, no discipline which so readily tests error 

 in these matters, as drawing properly taught. 

 And by that I do not mean artistic drawing ; I 



