OcTOBER 12, 1899] 
IGA TURE 
569 
can be learnt from a proper study of science, and, so 
far from any knowledge acquired by a boy before he 
is sixteen having but a slight intrinsic value, is it not a 
fact that all knowledge requiring mechanical dexterity, 
such as reading, writing, arithmetic, riding, swimming, 
talking foreign languages, playing a musical instrument, 
&c., can be far better acquired before the age of sixteen 
than later, and are not all these examples of knowledge 
possessing intrinsic value ? 
We are, however, quite at one with Sir Andrew in 
thinking that 
“the age at which a boy should seriously begin any special 
studies, with a view to fit him technically for the profession he 
may have decided to follow, should not be earlier than seventeen 
or eighteen.” 
But should not a sharp distinction be drawn between 
learning technology and acquiring the elementary prin- 
ciples of science? His warning that the zest for your 
life’s work may be weakened by embarking on it too 
early certainly furnishes a potent, probably the most im- 
portant, reason why lads who intend to become engineers 
should wait until they are eighteen, or at any rate seven- 
teen, years old before they commence their professional 
education; for then, as is said in the address, they 
will be 
**fresh and keen when others, who have been hammering 
away at semi-technical work from early boyhood, have become 
stale and are less vigorous.” 
For the same reason also, time devoted by a lad to 
learning off strings of scientific facts would be misspent, 
but not so, we think, would time given by-even a child to 
the acquisition of scientific habits of thought. We do 
not defer teaching a lad the principles of morality until 
he is seventeen or eighteen for fear he should become 
tired of living a moral life, why then should the risk that 
a lad might weary of leading an intellectual one frighten 
us into excluding the principles of science from a good 
education? 
In the address, “science, mechanical drawing, and 
such like” are classed together as things that may with 
advantage be omitted from the training of a lad before 
entering Elswick, provided he has had a good educa- 
tion. But can an education of the present day be termed 
“good” which lacks a training in those mental qualities 
which are classed under the head of scientific ? 
Great stress was laid by Sir Andrew Noble on the 
value of the knowledge which a person has gained for 
himself. He cited the results which “dauntless energy, 
untiring industry and patient search after truth” had 
achieved for Lord Armstrong, Watt, Stephenson and 
Faraday, but only as a proof “that a special technical 
education is not an absolute necessity.” Do not the 
lives of these men, however, teach us much more than 
this, viz. that the particular system of education, 
classical, mathematical, scientific, artistic or technical— 
in fact, any system of education ever invented—is less 
than nothing in enabling a man to rise to the top in 
comparison with the determination to succeed and the 
brains to do it ? 
The reason why certain branches of industry have al- 
most abandoned this country, and why new branches that 
have been developed abroad have hardly taken root with 
us, is a topic deeply interesting to the manufacturer, but 
generally rather distasteful to the student, since he would 
prefer to be told that everything was done better, more 
cheaply and more expeditiously in his own country than 
in any other. Sir Andrew Noble, however, made even 
the part of his address which dealt with this subject appeal 
strongly to his audience, and for a remedy he thought 
that it was 
“*to theoretic and technical knowledge that we must chiefly 
look. Consider, as an illustration, electricity in the service of 
NO. 1563, VOL. 60] 
man. Think of its innumerable applications, and of the number 
of hands dependent upon its industries. But for one man capable 
of designing or improving these powerful machines or delicate 
instruments, there are a thousand ready and able to carry out 
their designs. But it is the former who are the salt of the earth, 
and those who have the management of large concerns know 
well how to value them.” 
His patriotic statement (for it is true patriotism to help 
your own countrymen to learn the truth even if it be dis- 
tasteful) that the success of our German competitors was 
not due “to their putting on the market inferior goods 
specially got up to imitate those of a superior class,” but 
“to the far greater opportunities of technical study which 
are afforded in Germany,” was as bold as we believe it to 
be true. For we were recently informed by an English 
manufacturer that certain things manufactured in Eng- 
land are now being stamped “ Made in Germany,” in 
order to obtain a readier sale for then: in our own 
country. 
But in addition to greater facilities being needed in 
Great Britain for the study of the applications of science 
to industry, greater belief in the value of such study is 
wanted, not only on the part of the English manufacturer, 
but also on the part of the English student. “You 
younger men,” said Sir Andrew, “‘must do your part by 
seeking to avail yourselves to the uttermost of any such 
opportunities provided,” and it might be added that the 
reason why that future “important commercial rival, 
Japan, is developing its manufacturing powers with an 
energy that is as remarkable as it is unexampled” is 
because even thirty years ago its young students absorbed 
with eagerness and rapt attention every scrap of scientific 
teaching which they could obtain. And they did so partiy 
for their own personal benefit, but far more because each 
one felt that on his own exertions depended the fame and 
future of his mother country. W: E. A. 
RESEARCH WORK AND THE OPENING OF 
THE MEDICAL SCHOOLS. 
ie one sense at least, viz. his intellectual life, the 
medical student, natural enough in other respects, 
seems somewhat at variance with nature ; his intellectual 
spring occurs simultaneously with nature’s autumn. 
Brown October sees him change the abstractness of 
the class-room for the concreteness of the laboratory. 
Further, each successive autumn, after a period of 
summer hibernation, marks the advent of some change 
in his studies. The fully fledged doctor, too, whose 
daily round obliterates all distinction between term time 
and vacation, becomes infected in October with a revival 
of intellectuality, and whets his appetite by an attendance 
at the inaugural address delivered at his school, where 
he gets new knowledge or old dished-up afresh, and 
becomes generally imbued with the spirit of the time. 
This year at least the medical student will not be able 
to lay any shortcomings which may occur during the 
ensuing academical year to the charge of insufficient or 
inadequate advice at its onset. At both the London and 
provincial schools the inaugural addresses, with regard to 
depth of meaning and also attractive eloquence, have left 
little to be desired. 
In a short article such as the present it would be im- 
possible to adequately reproduce, even in the most 
abridged form, the various “motifs” pervading the 
speeches delivered. One, however, constantly recurring, 
may be somewhat enlarged upon. Here and there and 
everywhere in the inaugural addresses we find the 
position of research to medicine and the medical pro- 
fession cropping up. Occasionally this subject is mooted 
in the grossly material form, when, for instance, Sir James 
Crichton Brown frankly told his hearers at Manchester 
that although 70,0007. was an adequate sum so far 
