February i, 1906] 



NA TURE 



333 



had conducted on behalf of the Shipwrights' Company of 

 the City of London. Before 1S88 there was no evening 

 class in the Port of London where young men could obtain 

 instruction in the science of shipbuilding. The Ship- 

 wrights' Company then undertook to establish and assist 

 evening classes, which have been since carried out success- 

 fully and without a break in various parts of the East 

 End. In these classes hundreds of young men have re- 

 ceived valuable teaching, and the results have surpassed 

 expectation ; many of the students of the evening classes 

 have proved themselves capable of taking the highest train- 

 ing in naval architecture at the Royal Naval College at 

 Greenwich, and elsewhere, and not a few have secured 

 positions of importance and responsibility in the Admiralty 

 service, under the Board of Trade, Lloyd's Register of 

 Shipping, and in private shipbuilding establishments. This 

 object-lesson of what can be done with moderate expendi- 

 ture, under careful and personal supervision, gives every 

 reason for anticipating much greater benefits from the new 

 institute with its ample means and adequate provision. 

 Sir William White concluded by remarking that technical 

 education for the rank and file as well as for the leaders 

 and captains of industry is of great importance, and in 

 providing the new school and equipping it on so generous 

 a scale the London County Council has shown great 

 wisdom as well as great liberality. 



Men of science have long urged the necessity for the 

 introduction of scientific methods of inquiry and pro- 

 cedure into national administration, and their consistent 

 advocacy culminated recently in the inauguration of the 

 British Science Guild with the primary object of familiar- 

 ising statesmen and others with the scientific spirit. The 

 first president of the new guild, Mr. Haldane, is the 

 Secretary of State l'>r War in the new Government, and 

 his speech on January 27 at a banquet of the Edinburgh 

 University Liberal Association may well fill men of science 

 with hope that a new- era is near in which ideas and the 

 results of scientific research will be taken into account in 

 legislation and administration. Mr. Haldane insisted that 

 national prosperity is not wholly a matter of fiscal policy. 

 Answering the question. Is all well with us? he replied 

 in the negative, because we are lacking in the ideas which 

 science alone can give us, and consequently are lacking 

 in the organisation of our industries. Knowledge, the 

 expert, the spirit of science and organisation to permeate 

 our people, our manufacturers, and workmen alike are all 

 wanted. One of the ways in which the universities can 

 assist the nation is in this direction. Mr. Haldane said 

 his impression is that the Army would be the better for 

 more help from the universities than it had been able to take 

 fro n them. There .ire too few officers of the right sort, the 

 thinking sort, like the men in the Engineers and in the 

 Artillery, but of whom there are too few in the Cavalry 

 and the Line. Mr. Haldane thinks he sees the beginning 

 of a movement of this kind ; and he hopes the university 

 men will play a distinguished part in the future in obtain- 

 ing that which is absolutely essential in making the Army 

 an efficient armv — a supply of scientifically minded officers 

 and soldiers. The splendid fighting quality in the field 

 which has distinguished the Army in the past, the quick- 

 ness of eye that is born and that does not come is needed ; 

 but with it and behind it, whether in the hands of the 

 general staff or of the commander himself, there must be 

 a knowledge that can only come of the hard and patient 

 discipline of the spirit. 



The cooperation of employers in the technical training 

 of apprentices was a subject of discussion at the annual 

 meeting of the Association of Technical Institutions held 

 last week. A report upon this subject was issued recently 

 by the association, and some of the results of the inquiry 

 were stated in Nature of December 21, 1905 (p. 188). In 

 a contribution to the discussion. Prof. W. Ripper remarked 

 that his own observation and experience has led him to 

 believe that the unsympathetic attitude towards technical 

 education which u^ed to be so common among foremen 

 and employers in this country is undergoing a change. 

 The apathy and indifference towards educational improve- 

 ment so general among apprentices and young people will 

 be largely removed when they are made to realise that 

 there is. as a rule, no promotion for them unless they are 



able to show thai thev possess educational as well as 

 practical fitness for such promotion. This method of pro- 

 motion is the one exclusively adopted in the Government 

 dockyards, and the results of it have without doubt been 

 highly satisfactory. In the race lor commercial supremacy 

 England, America, and Germany are each, probably, 

 equally well equipped with the most un-to-date machinery 

 and appliances. But these are tools merely. For the real 

 element of success, for the intelligence and virility behind 

 the tools, we depend alone upon the quality of the in- 

 dividual men from top to bottom of the industrial army : 

 and especially do we depend upon the quality of the men 

 at the top — the leaders — whose character, ability, foresight, 

 judgment, power of organisation, and power of inspiration 

 must ultimately determine the degree of success of the 

 efforts of the whole. At present there is too often no con- 

 nection whatever between the works and the technical 

 school, no knowledge on the part of the employer of the 

 quality of the youths in the colleges, who are available 

 for suitable employment, and, on the other hand, no oppor- 

 tunity on the part of the youths to show possible employers 

 what qualifications they possess, and what claim they have 

 to recognition over the youth who has received no train- 

 ing. A closer relationship between employers and the 

 teachers in technical institutions is therefore demanded in 

 the interests both of public efficiency and of private well- 

 being. In the discussion which followed the reading of 

 Prof. Ripper's paper, Prof. Wertheimer said there is no 

 doubt a steady, if not rapid, improvement taking place 

 year by year. Firms — and the best firms, too — are recog- 

 nising the desirability of getting into their employ young 

 people whose intelligence has already been trained. 



Sir William Anson delivered an address as president of 

 the Association of Technical Institutions, at the annual 

 meeting of the association held last week. In the course 

 of his remarks, he said that the subject which most 

 exercises both the local authorities and the Board of 

 Education is the coordination of the studies which make 

 up our system of education, and especially coordination in 

 such a manner as to give to our technical institutions their 

 proper place and to secure for them their utmost utility. 

 There is no subject more intimately connected with the 

 welfare of the people and the prosperity of our industries. 

 We have paid somewhat dearly for our neglect of science 

 in the past, and not merely for neglect of science, but of 

 any conception of education which can be regarded as 

 scientific or even as systematic. There is one form of 

 error which touches more nearly the elementary schools. 

 We have founded technical institutes, have multiplied 

 libraries and laboratories, but have not taken pains to 

 ensure that those to whom this instruction is offered are 

 capable of taking advantage of it. Time and money are 

 wasted in endeavouring to impart technical instruction to 

 students who have forgotten such elementary mathematics 

 as they ever knew, and who are unable to express their 

 knowledge in their own language in an intelligible form. 

 Everyone ought to know something of science, and every- 

 one would be the better for learning the practical appli- 

 cation of some branch of science. But we want the 

 students in technical institutions to come to them able to 

 take advantage of the opportunities which they afford, 

 and not only this, but able to carry forward knowledge 

 which they acquire ; not merely to learn something and 

 go away with no idea or intention of following up the 

 instruction which they have received. An educational 

 system may be devised in which all the parts are sym- 

 metrically fitted together, in which science pure, and science 

 applied, language, literature, and history are all given 

 their due place, and every arrangement made for the 

 student to pass through courses appropriate to him under 

 teachers fully qualified for their work. But even if these 

 educational ideals are realised, it may be doubted whether 

 we shall get what is wanted until there comes into exist- 

 ence a more widely diffused belief in education, in the 

 value of a trained intelligence as well as of particular 

 information, a belief that experience acquired with know- 

 ledge, and knowledge applied with intelligence, are better 

 than that mere experience which is described in the 

 common phrase "rule of thumb." As Sir John Wolfe 

 Barry had said, " We want to see in Great Britain the 



NO. 1892, VOL. 73 J 



