V IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 223 



that has been suggested, I think that the school- 

 boards will have quite as much on their hands as 

 they are capable of doing well. The influences 

 under which the members of these bodies are 

 elected do not tend to secure fitness for deaUng 

 with scientific or technical education; and it is 

 the less necessary to burden them with an uncon- 

 genial task, as there are other organizations, not 

 only much better fitted to do the work, but already 

 actually doing it. 



In the matter of preliminary scientific educa- 

 tion, the chief of these is the Science and Art 

 Department, which has done more during the last 

 quarter of a century for the teaching of elemen- 

 tary science among the masses of the people than 

 any organization which exists either in this or in 

 any other country. It has become veritably a 

 people's university, so far as physical science is 

 concerned. At the foundation of our old univer- 

 sities they were freely open to the poorest, but the 

 poorest must come to them. In the last quarter 

 of a century, the Science and Art Department, 

 by means of its classes spread all over the country 

 and open to all, has conveyed instruction to the 

 poorest. The University Extension movement 

 shows that our older learned corporations have 

 discovered the propriety of following suit. 



Technical education, in the strict sense, has 

 become a necessity for two reasons. The old ap- 

 prenticeship system has broken down, partly by 



