86 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



ordered elementary school devoutly wishing that, in his 

 young days, he had had the chance of being as well 

 taught as these boys and girls are. 



But while, in view of such an advance in general 

 education, I willingly obey the natural impulse to be 

 thankful, I am not willing altogether to rest. I want 

 to see instruction in elementary science and in art more 

 thoroughly incorporated in the educational system. At 

 present, it is being administered by driblets, as if it 

 were a potent medicine, "a few drops to be taken 

 occasionally in a teaspoon." Every year I notice that 

 that earnest and untiring friend of yours and of mine, 

 Sir John Lubbock, stirs up the Government of the 

 day in the House of Commons on this subject; and 

 also that, every year, he, and the few members of the 

 House of Commons, such as Mr. Playfair, who sympa- 

 thise with him, are met with expressions of warm 

 admiration for science in general, and reasons at large 

 for doing nothing in particular. But now that Mr. 

 Forster, to whom the education of the country owes so 

 much, has announced his conversion to the right faith, 

 I begin to hope that, sooner or later, things will mend. 



I have given what I believe to be a good reason for 

 the assumption, that the keeping at school of boys, 

 who are to be handicraftsmen, beyond the age of thirteen 

 or fourteen is neither practicable nor desirable; and, 

 as it is quite certain, that, with justice to other and 

 no less important branches of education, nothing more 

 than the rudiments of science and art teaching can be 



