88 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



equal excellence, and not a few stand much in need of 

 instruction themselves, not only in the subjects which 

 they teach, but in the objects for which they teach. I 

 daresay you have heard of that proceeding, reprobated 

 by all true sportsmen, which is called " shooting for the 

 pot." Well, there is such a thing as " teaching for the 

 pot " teaching, that is, not that your scholar may know, 

 but that he may count for payment among those who 

 pass the examination ; and there are some teachers, hap- 

 pily not many, who have yet to learn that the 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 pro- 

 motes 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 suppres- 

 sion 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 knowledge is spreading by 

 what the alchemists called a " distillatio per ascensum;" 



