March i-\ 1885] 



NATURE 



437 



ably extirpated, and it is hard to see a satisfactory result 

 of these efforts in the long run. A singular mischief has 

 recently been commented upon by Prof. Graham Bell 

 (see Nature, No. 795 , arising from the system of teach- 

 ing deaf-mutes a language and literature, intelligible 

 among themselves, but not familiar to the general public. 

 Hence they prefer their own society, and are trying to 

 form deaf-mute settlements which must result in heredit- 

 ary transmission to the whole community of this terrible 

 degeneracy. It will be a curious experiment if allowed 

 to take its course. 



A most healthy sign of the times is that the increase of 

 students at the schools of science is far larger than the 

 increase in the number of establishments. It shows a 

 general appreciation of their work, and in an enterprising 

 country like America will soon bring about an increase in 

 the number of schools. Institutions are becoming more 

 general which undertake to train students for the higher 

 schools of science. The cost of laboratories and appa- 

 ratus and the scarcity of teachers are two of their diffi- 

 culties, indicating at the same time the high standard of 

 work they aim at. We note with pleasure that the sole 

 purpose of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station 

 is the discovery of new truths and laws which may be of 

 benefit to agriculture, and farming is taught there as a 

 scientific pursuit. In the Storrs Agricultural School at 

 Mansfield, Conn., though of less ambitious character, 

 " students receive instruction both in the class-room and 

 on the farm. In the class-room they study those branches 

 of natural science which have a directly useful bearing on 

 New England farming, such as general and agricultural 

 chemistry, natural philosophy, farm mechanics, surveying, 

 botany, zoology, geology, animal physiology, mineralogy, 

 and theoretical agriculture, stock-breeding, and composi- 

 tion.^ The general principles of these sciences are taken 

 up first, and afterwards their special applications to 

 practical agriculture, which includes the improvement of 

 the soil by tillage, draining, manuring, and irrigation ; 

 the culture and handling of the various field, garden, and 

 orchard crops of New England — grass, grain, roots, 

 vegetables, and fruits — from planting to market ; the use, 

 care, and repair of farming tools, implements, and ma- 

 chines ; the breeding, rearing, training, and feeding and 

 use of live stock ; the best methods of dairying, the busi- 

 ness and management of the farm in all its details. . . . 

 The intellect being called into play, farm work is divested 

 of its monotony and robbed of the repressive influence 

 derived from it when viewed as mere physical labour." 



It is well urged in favour of an institution like the St. 

 Louis Manual Training School, that through the minute 

 division of labour which necessarily attends our increased 

 machinery, the old method of teaching a trade is rapidly 

 and inevitably disappearing ; that it is only at a technical 

 school that the toute ensemble of a trade can be learned so 

 as to be intelligently carried on and fresh inventions led 

 to ; that there is an idea afloat that it requires no educa- 

 tion to be a mechanic, and hence the despising of both 

 craft and craftsman, whereas the thorough understanding 

 of both theory and practice of a skilled industry makes its 

 owner " the peer of the statesman ; and from the union of 

 his head- and hand-work come a large part of the civi- 

 lising agencies of the nineteenth century.'' 



The English Commissioner on Technical Education 

 reports on the efficiency of the American workman, which 

 is mainly attributed, by all who have inquired into the 

 subject, to the primary education acquired,by them during 

 a prolonged attendance at school, and now the idea is to 

 be traced through all the Report upon the subject, that to 

 teach the pupil his trade should henceforth be the work 

 of a school ; as much one part of education as the three 

 R's the other part. 



And not the work of a primary school only, but it is 

 even urged that it should be the work of the Universities 

 to send forth young men, fitted by technical training to 



lead in the development of the State ; its fields, mines, 

 quarries ; its railroads and water-power ; its manufactures 

 and commerce." And already at Cornell University, as 

 well as at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, electrical 

 engineering is taught sufficiently extensive to prepare a 

 man for ordinary electric work or advanced study. To 

 Terre Haute, Ind., a small town of 26,000 inhabitants, the 

 splendid legacy of a property bringing in 25,000 dollars a 

 year was left for a technical school, in the starting of 

 which great care as well as energy have been shown. 



Very different, however, from these buoyant views is 

 the record to be found also in this Report, that in Austria 

 the higher schools for technical instruction have been 

 decreasing for the last few years. 



Nor again is science only, but art also in its more 

 marketable shapes is becoming rapidly the work of 

 schools. A public art school, under the direction of Mr. 

 C. G. Leland, has been trying an experiment as to what 

 children, nine-tenths of them from thirteen to fifteen years 

 of age, could do in the way of art manufactures by being 

 taught designing and art processes. Besides developing 

 inborn talent, this school not only finds a commercial 

 value in their productions, but insists upon what is becom- 

 ing generally observed, that technical teaching, though 

 shortening school hours for other work, by no means reduces 

 the amount of progress made in the latter, brighter wit 

 and interest being excited by hand-work at intervals with 

 head-work. Elsewhere in the Report a protest is quoted 

 from Harvard University which will be re-echoed from 

 the breast of many an English paterfamilias, against 

 athletic sports being made too much a business or pro- 

 fession, instead of a recreation. Besides the waste of 

 time which, it is urged, might be given to other things, 

 such a standard of ey.cellence as the few- attain makes the 

 game very exclusive and confined to a small number. Of 

 course we know the reply often made to this, viz. that the 

 best players are also the best workers ; but do not these 

 simultaneous experiences strongly suggest that some 

 technical art might take the place of a dangerous game, 

 thus infusing intelligence into the former, and providing 

 the student with a means of competency in case of 

 reverses ? Many arts are more intellectual and less 

 laborious than football or agriculture as carried on at 

 Rugby, England, or Rugby, Tennessee. 



The unsatisfactory condition of the medical profession 

 in the United States, which has been remarked upon in 

 previous reports, is in this one traced back to the thin- 

 ness of population a century ago ; a population also of 

 vigorous physique occupied in clearing and settling an 

 enormous territory, and free from most of the diseases 

 that afflict humanity of lower vitality, and under less 

 favourable circumstances. The early colonial physician 

 often combined other functions with those of healing : 

 sometimes he was a minister of the Gospel, sometimes a 

 farmer, a shopkeeper, or a mechanic. The bulk of the 

 profession at the beginning of the century, and for many 

 years afterwards, did not possess any medical degree. 

 The result followed that men of natural boldness revolted 

 against the frequent ignorance and numerous errors of 

 such physicians, and became followers and advocates of 

 special medical doctrines, and supported the "botanic" 

 school of practice, that of Hahnemann — hydropathy, 

 physiopathy, vitopathy, electropathy, or other " medical 

 heresies." Degrees have been too easily obtainable 

 through numerous schools competing for popularity, and 

 offering them for little money and less work, with the 

 natural result of their being little valued. The Report, 

 therefore, after going largely into the subject, and depre- 

 cating the present state of things, urges fewer schools 

 and higher degrees, which will be worth jealously guard- 

 ing. t<i he ;_ r iven by State-appointed examiners only, on 

 the attainment of a much higher standard. Since we 

 are told that ten colleges have agreed upon a uniform 

 entrance examination to the great help of masters pre- 



