DECEMBER 10, 1903] 
INAD ORT: 
141 
experts, and it was hoped that the combined effort of the 
trustees of the Rosebery scheme, the Government, the great 
city companies, and the London University would produce 
a school which would be worthy of London. There would 
be no overlapping, but they would try to fill up the gaps, 
and the polytechnics would be linked to this higher school. 
A Scuoot Nature-Stupy Unron has been established to 
utilise and make better known facilities which already exist 
to encourage the study of nature by pupils in primary and 
secondary schools, and to supplement by work in several 
new directions the efforts of existing associations. The 
prospectus of the Union states that it is proposed to promote 
addresses to children by supplying lantern slides and speci- 
mens to teachers desirous of giving lessons on natural 
objects, and by providing qualified tecturers where desired ; 
to assist in the organisation of school rambles and journeys, 
in the establishment of school museums and in the arrange- 
ment of conferences and natural history field days. The 
inauguration of a junior department, of reading circles, of 
circulating libraries for teachers, is also contemplated, as 
well as the publication of an official organ. Sir George 
Kekewich, K.C.B., is the president, and the Rev. C. 
Hinscliff, Bobbing, Sittingbourne, is the hon. secretary of 
th> Union. 
At the annual meeting of the governors of Yorkshire 
College on Monday, reference was made to the charter for 
the new university. Donations amounting to 36,o00l. have 
been promised, provided that the sum of 100,000l. is raised. 
It is essential that their annual income should be largely 
increased if the new university is to take the position to 
which its central position among the industries of York- 
shire entitles it. Lord Allerton, who presided, remarked 
that they had reached the stage when they might consider 
the charter assured. The only point raised against the title 
of ‘‘ The Victoria University of Yorkshire’’ was that it 
might clash with that of the Victoria University of Man- 
chester, but Lord Allerton thought the distinction was well 
marked. A resolution was passed authorising the council to 
make any alterations in the draft charter which might appear 
to them desirable, and to promote a Bill for the incorporation 
of Yorkshire College in the university when founded, and 
to take such steps as would tend to secure the foundation 
of a university for Yorkshire. 
Sir W. Anson, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary to the | 
Board of Education, distributed the prizes to the students 
at the Goldsmiths’ Company’s Technical Institute, New 
Cross, S.E., on December 2, and delivered an address on 
education, during which he urged the claims of a wide 
culture and of a broad curriculum. In the course of his 
remarks Sir William remarked it was no disparagement to 
language, to history, and to literature to say that they did 
not explain the wonders of the world around them. It was 
no disparagement to science to say that it did not reveal to 
us the great facts and the great thoughts of the men of the 
past. He believed that practical business men were 
beginning to find that a liberal education was a good found- 
ation for subsequent scientific and technological study when 
that had to be applied to business. They were beginning 
to discover that a man who had had what he would call a 
liberal education in language, history and literature 
had thereby laid a good foundation for scientific study or 
technological study, and that he was more useful for 
practical purposes than the man who had devoted his whole 
life to the limited area of one subject of scientific or techno- 
logical pursuit. 
A CONFERENCE of Welsh county councils’ representatives 
on the question of establishing a school of forestry for Wales 
and Monmouthshire was held recently at Haverfordwest. | 
Mr. E. Robinson, of Boncath, who inaugurated the move- 
ment, explained that their object was to plant waste and 
at present unproductive woodlands in Wales. <A school 
could be established with 100 to 200 acres of land to start 
with, and the option of acquiring a further 500 or 800 acres, 
and the total capital outlay ought not to exceed soool. to 
8oool., which could be contributed by the councils accord- | 
ing to their rateable values. He believed the Government 
would contribute about half the amount required, and he 
assumed that an annual grant of tool. from each of the 
councils would be sufficient to cover all out-of-pocket ex- 
NO. 1780, VoL. 69] 
penses, and give a good return on capital. There were 
about a million acres of waste land in the Principality-which 
could grow timber. The planting would cost not more than 
6l. an acre. Spread over thirty years, that would require 
a yearly grant of 100,000l. from the Government, the money 
to be repaid in that period by half-yearly instalments, and 
by the end of that time they should have plantations worth 
from 30,000,0001. to 40,000,0001. In the whole country there 
were 21 million acres of waste land and quite 8 millions 
suitable for planting, which in fifty years would be worth 
fully 650,000,0001. sterling. A resolution was adopted that 
it was desirable to establish a school of forestry for the 
whole of South Wales and Monmouthshire. 
Mention has already been made (p. 70) of the conference 
of teachers to be held on January 7-9 under the auspices 
of the Technical Education Board of the London County 
Council. The meetings will be held, as in previous years, at 
the South-western Polytechnic, Manresa Road, Chelsea, 
S.W. The arrangements for the first day have been made 
in conjunction with the Geographical Association, and those 
for the second day in conjunction with the Modern Language 
Association. The subjects to be discussed in connection 
with the teaching of geography were announced in our 
previous note on the meetings. At the sixth meeting, on 
Saturday, January 9, at 2 o’clock, Prof. J. Perry, F-R.S., 
will take the chair. Addresses will be delivered by Mr. 
W. Hibbert on ‘‘ New Apparatus for the Teaching of Elec- 
tricity and Magnetism,’’ and by Mr. R. W. Bayliss on 
“Practical Work in the Teaching of Geometry.’’ A large 
exhibit of maps, globes, slides and apparatus illustrative 
of practical methods of teaching geography has been 
collected by the Geographical Association. Short explan- 
atory lectures will be given on the collection on Tuesday 
afternoon, January 5, and every subsequent afternoon 
during the week. There will also be an important art ex- 
hibition, including an interesting loan collection of fifteenth 
and sixteenth century herbals and finely illustrated botanical 
works, together with a number of plant drawings by John 
Ruskin and his pupils. No charge will be made for 
admission to the conference or exhibitions. Application for 
tickets of admission should be made to Dr. Kimmins, 116 
2 
| St. Martin’s Lane, W.C., or Mr. C. A. Buckmaster, 16 
Heathfield Road, Mill Hill Park, W. 
In an address at the Municipal Technical Institute, West 
Ham, on Thursday last, Sir William White remarked that 
both elementary and higher technical education are necessary 
for national progress. There is the technical education 
which belongs to those who are trained from the first with 
the idea of becoming directors, managers, heads of busi- 
nesses. This may be called the higher technical training 
for those who are intended to be captains of industry. Both 
kinds of training are necessary. The time has passed when 
the idea prevailed that technical instruction for the artisan 
should be limited to the workshop or the factory. Skill in 
handicraft and knowledge of practice and precedent no 
longer suffice. Every man engaged in industrial work 
should have the opportunity, if he so desires, of acquiring 
a knowledge of principles as well as of processes. For the 
workers themselves such knowledge is advantageous. Wori< 
done intelligently must be better done. From well-instructed 
workers better results are obtained than from others not so 
well informed. It is reasonable, also, to anticipate that 
from trained men should come more valuable suggestions 
for improvements in methods and processes that mav reduce 
the cost of production and advance manufacture. In the 
stress of industrial competition, ever increasing in severity, 
it is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of our national 
position in the markets of the world that no advantage 
which technical training can give should be unrealised. 
Elementary technical instruction adapted to the working 
| classes is by common consent a necessity of any scheme of 
State-aided technical instruction, and it seemed to Sir 
William White that to devote attention solely to higher 
technical instruction and to lavish our resources upon it 
exclusively, or even chiefly, would be a fatal mistake in the 
national interest. For sixty years the Admiralty has had 
a system of technical training for dockyard apprentices at 
the Royal dockyards, and there is no system of elementary 
| technical education in existence that, in his judgment, has 
| been so thoroughly proved. It is no exaggeration to say 
