164 
NALS CC eka 
[ DECEMBER 17, 1903 
between the supply of technical education in this country and 
in Germany was made in a valuable article which appeared 
in the issue of that journal of November 9. 
Most of the English technical schools have, says the 
writer in the Times, for their principal object the teaching 
of actual industries. In Germany, on the other hand, the 
term has come to be associated more and more with pure 
knowledge, and is now commonly reserved for those 
advanced academies which teach the science underlying in- 
dustries, but not the industries themselves. What we 
generally call technical schools are in Germany called 
“ Fachschulen,’’ or Gewerbeschulen, that is, “‘ trade 
schools,’’ which fall into two main groups. The first group 
provides instruction for apprentices in the hand trades and 
for artisans, and may be called ‘* lower trade schools.’’ The 
second ~roup is large and of great direct importance to the 
manufacturing industries. The ‘‘ technical schools ’’ in our 
large manufacturing towns correspond most nearly to these 
institutions, which may be called ** higher trade schools.”’ 
Then above these is the highest class, namely, the “‘ technical 
high schools,’? which do not correspond to any of our 
educational institutions. This classification gives a clear 
view of the special educational provision for industrial life 
in three broad divisions :—(1) ordinary workmen; (2) those 
above the grade of workmen from foremen to manu- 
facturers; (3) the high scientific experts, consultants, and 
innovators. 
The main differences between the higher trade schools 
and the corresponding English technical schools are two— 
they are more specialised, and are chiefly intended for 
and used by superior students. There is some provision for 
workmen, but, as a rule, comparatively little advantage is 
taken of it. The classes proper are held in the day, and 
cannot be attended by men at work ; those thronged evening 
lecture-rooms and laboratories filled with young fellows out 
of the factories and workshops which may be seen in any 
large manufacturing town in England are almost unknown 
in Germany. ‘The real meaning of this is that the English 
schools cater for students in a lower rank of life and teach 
a much larger number of subjects. The German schools of 
this class, on the contrary, are quite clearly differentiated. 
They are not quite so restricted as the description applied 
to them suggests. The ‘‘ weaving ’’ schools, for instance, 
generally embrace all the main textile processes. But they 
are strictly devoted to some special branch of industry, and 
their main function is to enable students, who are to occupy 
superior positions, to acquire a thorough mastery of the 
skilled processes. Our own textile schools do excellent 
work, and, so far as affording opportunities to the working 
classes is concerned, they do far more than the German 
ones, but they do not command the same superior material. 
The reason for this is that there is not yet the same induce- 
ment to young men who have had a superior liberal educa- 
tion to take up the career of manufacturers’ expert. This 
fact is really at the bottom of the question of scientific 
education. Given the demand, the supply will follow. The 
lesson to be learnt from Germany is to make industrial 
science a sufficiently attractive career for those who have 
received a superior general education, and particularly a 
full classical one. The Germans have no belief in the 
American plan of teaching trades wholly in schools. With 
regard to finances, these schools are supported by fees, 
endowments, municipal and State grants, but the general 
tendency is towards more and more State support and State 
control. 
The technical high schools, of which there are nine, 
with two more in preparation, represent a further step. As 
the superior grade of trade schools has been developed from 
a lower, so the high schools have been developed from trade 
schools to meet still higher requirements. They have the 
status of universities, are self-governing, and do for the 
industrial professions what the universities do for the learned 
professions—that is, impart the highest training in those 
principles which form the theoretical groundwork of 
practice. The technical high schools do not supersede or 
overlap the universities : they supplement them. 
The technical high schools have no uniform curriculum, 
but all of them teach architecture, civil and mechanical 
engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and physical science. 
Exceptional subjects are naval architecture (Berlin), mining 
NO. 1781, VOL. 69] 
(Aachen), forestry (Stuttgart), agriculture (Munich). Phar- 
macy is taught at Brunswick, Karlsruhe, and Stuttgart, and 
at the last there is a railway, post, and telegraph course. 
Previous practical knowledge is generally required, as in 
the trade schools, and more rigidly insisted on. The high 
school is even less than the trade school a substitute for 
apprenticeship. 
The two really important departments of the technical 
high schools are chemistry and electrical engineering. It 
is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the first; it 
enters into every branch of manufacture, and becomes more 
potent every day. At the high school teaching and experi-_ 
ment are pushed to the furthest theoretical limits, and the 
value to Germany is incalculable. Her chemical industries” 
are reckoned to bring in fifty millions a year, but the appli- 
cation of chemical knowledge goes far beyond that and 
extends into a thousand channels. Nor can any man tell 
what it may bring forth to-morrow. This is the great 
lesson in industrial science that the high school has to teach. 
But it must not be forgotten that chemistry can be, and is, | 
equally well taught at the universities. So, too, electrical 
engineering, which has also been of immense value to 
Germany; but her rapid industrial advance in that line, 
compared with ourselves, is due less to superior knowledge 
than to the gratuitous retardation of the home industry by 
Government regulations. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Physical Society, December 11.—Mr. James Swinburne, 
vice-president, in the chair.—A method of mechanically re- 
inforcing sounds, by the Rev. T. C. Porter. If a tuning- 
fork be sounded and placed in a flame, there is a very marked 
reinforcement of the sound. 
to resonance in the ordinary sense, but to the change from 
continuous to intermittent combustion. In certain circum- 
stances the impulses given to the air external to the flame, 
by the waves of burning gas, are more forcible than those 
given by the unaided sounding body. Thus a new way of 
reinforcing the sounds given by a vibrating body is found, 
and the rest of the paper demonstrates this for the phono- 
graph, a flame being used instead of the ordinary trumpet. 
Coal-gas and air are brought by tubes into the chamber 
of the ‘* reproducer ’’ and thence to a jet, where they are 
burnt. The vibrations of the reproducer are thus impressed 
on the issuing gas and air, which burn synchronously with 
them, the sounds thus emitted being easily heard over a 
large room. In practice it is found best to spread out the 
flame by a second jet of air, or of mixed air and gas, placed 
close to the first jet and at right angles to it. The author 
describes the nature and quality of the sounds emitted by 
the flame, and the modifications of these which may be 
produced.—The Simmance-Abady “‘ flicker ’’ photometer, by 
Messrs. Simmance and Abady. The principle of the 
flicker photometer, discovered by Prof. O. N. Rood ten 
years ago, has frequently been remarked on, but attempts 
to design a trustworthy apparatus depending upon this 
principle have hitherto been unsuccessful. The authors, 
guided by the following rules, have designed a photometer 
which is capable of balancing and comparing the most 
violently contrasted tints:—The light-effects must be in 
juxiaposition without any apparent division line, and must 
move, oscillate, or rotate so that the point of juncture of 
the rays of the two lights passes and returns entirely across 
the vision field. Any hiatus, or longer exhibition of one 
light than the other, biases the result. The observation 
surfaces, or surfaces upon which the light rays fall, must 
be at exactly the same distance from the eye, at exactly 
the same angle in relation to the line of sight, and must 
be of pure white, such as is afforded, for example, by a 
clean chalk, plaster of Paris, magnesium carbonate, or 
barium sulphate ; any tint affects the accuracy of the result. 
The observation surfaces must also themselves in turn 
occupy the field of vision; an apparent movement or optical 
illusion does not afford accurate results.—Mr. Rollo 
Appleyard exhibited a ‘‘ conductometer ’’ the theory and 
mechanical details of which are fully described in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. cliv., 
session 1902-3, part iv.—Prof. L. R. Wilberforce exhibited 
This is proved not to be due _ 
