NATURE 



357 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1SS4 



THE REPORT ON TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION 



THE Report of the Royal Commissioners on Technical 

 Instruction is now before the public. These two 

 volumes, together with the short interim Report on 

 Apprenticeship Schools in France, which was issued two 

 years ago, extend over a wide range of matter. The 

 Commissioners' account of their travels abroad and at 

 home is narrated in vol. i., which concludes with their 

 various recommendations. Vol. ii. contains a Report on 

 Agricultural Education, by Mr. Jenkins, and another on 

 Technical Education in America, by Mr. Wm. Mather. 

 In the remaining volumes will be found a Report by 

 Mr. Wardle on Silk Industries, and a scheme by Prof. 

 Sullivan for Technical Education in Ireland, and a variety 

 of Statistics and Programmes are also promised. 



The immense mass of detail thus gathered together in 

 this voluminous and interesting blue-book renders it a 

 matter of some difficulty to give anything like an adequate 

 review of the labours of the Commission. In the present 

 article we shall confine our attention to that part of the 

 Report which deals with technical schools in foreign 

 countries, reserving for a second notice that part of the 

 Report which relates to Great Britain. 



The Commissioners preface their account of Con- 

 tinental Technical Instruction with some concise intro- 

 ductory notices of the general conditions of Primary and 

 Secondary Education in various nations. Their remarks 

 on the gradation of schools, on the use of school museums, 

 and on the prominence given to drawing are worthy of 

 attention. After these notices the Commissioners deal 

 with artisans' evening technical schools, artisans' appren- 

 ticeship schools, intermediate technical schools for fore- 

 men, trade and professional schools for women, and the 

 higher technical instruction for employers and managers. 

 Concerning the first of these matters the Commissioners 

 remark on the value of the numerous continuation-schools 

 (Fortbildungschulen) which exist in nearly all towns of 

 Germany and Switzerland. It appears that in Bavaria, 

 Baden, and elsewhere, pupils leaving the primary schools 

 at the age of 13 are compelled by law to continue their 

 studies in the evening schools until the age of 16 : a truly 

 wise rule, calculated to sustain the benefits of school 

 training at a period when such training is too often pre. 

 maturely cut short. It also appears that although in no 

 country abroad is there any organisation for systematic 

 evening instruction at all comparable to that under the 

 control of our Science and Art Department, the teaching, 

 at least in many foreign towns, is conducted by pro- 

 fessors of higher standing than, and of superior attain- 

 ments to, the ordinary English " science-teacher " who, 

 it must be confessed, is too often sadly deficient in train- 

 ing. On the subject of artisan apprenticeship schools 

 the Commissioners do not add much to the information 

 given two years ago in their preliminary report, so far as 

 France is concerned ; but, in relation to some of the 

 German schools, as, for example, the clock-making and 

 wood-carving schools at Furtwangen and other districts 

 of the Black Forest, there is much interesting informa- 

 tion. In Wurtemburg there are no such schools, as the 

 Vol. xxx. — No. 772 



authorities prefer to attempt to give sound education by 

 means of evening and Sunday schools, without interfering 

 with the conditions of daily labour. 



In regard to Intermediate Technical Schools for fore- 

 men and others much is being done abroad, both in the 

 special departments of weaving, mining, and industrial 

 art, and in more general schools. In France particularly 

 this is the case. The great schools of this type at Lyons, 

 Rheims, and Paris are practically unique. There is 

 nothing approaching them in this country except perhaps 

 the Allan Glen's Institution in Glasgow. These schools 

 and the secondary technical schools of Germany are elabo- 

 rately described. The Higher Trade Institute of Chemnitz, 

 and the four " Industrie- Schulen " of Munich, Augsburg, 

 Nuremberg, and Kaiserslautern are of this class, inter- 

 mediate between the Real-Schulen and the Polytechnics. 

 No classics are taught in these schools. Throughout 

 Austria, Germany, France, and Holland there are also 

 special schools for mining and for the building trades. 

 The Commissioners devote many pages to the weaving 

 schools, which, like those of Chemnitz, Crefeld, and 

 Mulhouse, are to be found doing work of utmost import- 

 ance to the continental industries. The spirit with which 

 municipalities and manufacturers support these schools is 

 truly remarkable. Employers are constantly looking out 

 for students who have attended the technical classes. The 

 manufacturers feel it imperative to extend their work in 

 order that in troublous times they may have more than 

 one string to their bow. Thus in Crefeld, where silk 

 goods are the staple manufacture, much attention is given 

 in the weaving school to the weaving of jute, wool, and 

 cotton. The people cheerfully tax themselves to pay for 

 efficient management. They recognise that the day has 

 gone by when money can be made without effort : " to 

 exist they must move on." Heavily taxed as the German 

 people are by the burden of enormous civil and military 

 expenditure, they yet believe that it is cheapest in the 

 long run to educate the " human machine " to the highest 

 pitch of perfection. 



It is, however, with the higher technical instruction, 

 with the great Polytechnic colleges of Germany, and with 

 the Ecole Centrale and Ecole Polytechnique of Paris that 

 the interest of the Commissioners' Report culminates. 

 The German Polytechnics form a group of institutions of 

 which the type is absolutely wanting in this country. 

 These institutions, though in many respects resembling 

 the German universities, differ absolutely from them, 

 not merely in being technical and practical, but 

 in having fixed curricula of study, and regular sys- 

 tems of examination. The eleven schools of this 

 type (eight of which are in Germany proper, one at 

 Zurich, one at Delft, one at Moscow) have been built at a 

 cost of not less than three millions sterling, and are main- 

 tained at an annual cost of over 200,000/. This amounts 

 to a State expenditure of about 100/. per annum for each 

 student in attendance. This may be contrasted with the 

 c ase of the two leading English Universities of Cam- 

 bridge and Oxford. These and their colleges are believed 

 to have a total annual income from endowments of 

 500,000/., and as there are about 5000 men in total at- 

 tending the two Universities, this also is at the rate of 

 100/. per annum per student. There is, however, room 

 in the Polytechnic for three times the number of students 



