252 
NATURE 
I Fan. 11, 1883 
the present moment, is simpler than we thought it. We are 
face to face with the fact that it is for the good of the nation 
that those who have passed most successfully through the ele- 
mentary education must continue that education in a secondary 
school, whether for two, or for three, or for six years, matters 
little for the argument. Are we then to build technical schools 
for such students? Thirty years ago the answer would have 
been yes. To-day we may say firmly, no. If a town has a 
grammar-school, let the town see that the curriculum of that 
school is based upon our best secondary models. If the town 
has no such school, then let it build one. If one school is not 
sufficient, then build two. That town will be the best off in the 
long run which gives the greatest number of free exhibitions 
from the elementary schools into such a school as this, and that 
town will be the wisest which holds out such inducements at the 
earliest possible moment. I have lately read with much interest 
a copy of resolutions and suggestions, passed at a meeting of an 
Association of Elementary Teachers in the north of England. 
From these we may gather that this question is already one of 
practical politics. It is agreed that the secondary education of 
the best boys leaving the elementary schools must also on, 
It is also taken for granted that the question lies between build- 
ing a technical school or utilising the grammar school. One 
argument used in favour of the latter cause is, that the grammar 
school will be strengthened by drawing to itself the best boys 
from the elementary schools, The present proposals are that a 
number of free scholarships should be competed for annually, 
that these free scholarships shall, if need be, be supplemented 
by exhibitions from the fund at the disposal of the Governors (I 
should not accept this at once. Why should not the town pay 
them ?), and the length of time for which these scholarships shall 
be tenable is not to be less than three years. You see, then, 
that in the north of England, at all events, it is conceded that 
the best children in our elementary schools should have a three 
years’ course in a school of higher grade in which, of course, all 
the class subjects in the Elementary Code will be expanded, and 
all the linguistic studies of the grammar school taken in hand. 
When thi system is at work, as it is bound to be in a few years, 
two things will happen, and it is as well we should be prepared 
forthem. In the first place, our secondary schools—all of one 
model, the best model, be it understood—must so arrange its 
curriculum, that the students can leave after a three years’ course, 
if need be, for the workshop or the office, or after a longer 
course for the University. That is the first point. The second 
one is this. The present system of apprenticeship will be called 
in question. A boy who has been educated to the age of sixteen 
will learn very much more in three or four years, and will be 
very much more valuable to his master during that time than he 
who was formerly bound apprentice at the age of thirteen or 
fourteen, with his fingers all thumbs, and no mind to speak of, 
It seems to me as it does to a daily increasing number, that the 
present mode of dealing with those matters which were formerly 
regarded as arts and mysteries known only to a few, and 
carried on on a small scale under the eye of the master, 
is dead against the system of apprenticeship as it has come 
down to us. Now the master does not teach, and the 
boy in nine cases out of ten has no opportunity of grasping 
the whole of the art or mystery at all. Many of you will 
begin to think that you are listening to the play of Hamlet with 
the part of the Prince of Denmark omitted, for so far I have said 
nothing whatever about technical education. I have said nothing 
about it for the reason that I believe the less said to a boy about 
technical education before he is sixteen years old the better. I 
now proceed to discuss this question, which is far more impor- 
tant, far more a national question, than you would gather from 
the debates in Parliament. What is technical education? It is 
the application of the principles of science to the industrial arts. 
And the rock ahead against which I am anxious to join Dr, Sie- 
mens in warning you is this: Under the influence of the present 
scare—for it is a scare, and a real one—there is a chance that 
attempts may be made to teach the applications to those who are 
ignorant of principles, whereas we have to fight those who study 
applications with a full knowledge of the principles which 
underlie them. We may congratulate ourselves on the fact that 
when we have once made up our minds as to the right place of 
technical instruction in our scheme of education, we have much 
of the necessary machinery already at our disposal; and the 
recent action of the City Guilds and of the Government is enor- 
mously increasing the quantity and improving the quality of this 
machinery. Let us first consider the classes now formed all over 
the country under the auspices of the Science and Art Depart- 
ment. Their development in -the last thirty years has been 
something truly marvellous. When the Queen, in 1852, opened 
Parliament, there were already 35,000 students of art, but 
practically no students of science, in this country, amongst the 
industrial classes. That 35,000 will, if the present progress goes 
on, give us nearly 1,000,000 students of art at the end of this 
year ; while the science schools have increased from $2 in 1860 
to 1400 in 1880, with 69,000 students. The system which has 
thus developed so enormously has dealt chiefly with pure science, 
but for the future we shall have side by side with it, and built 
upon the same lines, a system of teaching the applications of this 
pure science to each of our national industries. He who wishes 
in the future to have to do in any way with the manufacture of 
alkali, gas, iron, paper, or glass, to take instances, or in the 
dyeing of a piece of silk, or the making of a watch, to take 
others, will find the teaching brought to his door, and obtainable 
almost for the asking. Here, again, we may congratulate our- 
selves, for while those who know most about the subject tell us 
that the more ambitious attempts at technical instruction in 
Germany and elsewhere have failed, because the teaching is not 
in sufficiently close contact with the works in which the processes 
are actually carried on, the system to which I have drawn your 
attention will enable the instruction to be given at night to those 
who have already begun practical work during the day. We 
have, then, come to this: that putting together what is most 
desirable in the abstract, and what has been practically proved 
to be the best, the education of our industrial classes should be, 
and can easily be, something like this. The boy will go to an 
elementary school till he is thirteen. He will then pass with an 
exhibition, if necessary, to a secondary school till he is sixteen. 
He will there go on with his science—now a class subject in the 
elementary school—and begin the study of languages. At six- 
teen he will leave school and begin the battle of life, and can 
still in the evening proceed further with his studies in pure 
science, if the secondary education has left him too ill-equipped 
in that direction. Having thus got the principles of pure science 
into his mind he will be able to take up the technical instruction 
in the particular industrial art to which he is devoting himself. 
But be the number of our future foremen and managers who 
who have had this extra three years of secondary instruction, 
large or small, if there be in Coventry let us say out of your 
population of 45,000, one thousand boys, or girls, or men, who 
are anxious not only to learn science, but its application to: their 
particular industries, then the Government is ready to endow 
Coventry with a sum varying from two thousand to six thousand 
pounds a year, according to the results of the examinations, 
if two subjects of pure science are taken up, and the students 
pass. The City Guilds are prepared to endow the town with 
from 1000/. to 2000/. a year additional, provided some applica- 
tion of the principles of science to the industrial arts is taken up, 
and evidence forthcoming that the principles themselves have 
been studied. Now if among your 45,000 there is not 1000 who 
care for these things which are vital to your trades, seeing that 
abroad these things are cared for, how can your trades stand 
against foreign competition? Let sucha system as this go on for 
twenty years, and we shall hear nothing more of the decay of our 
national industries. Now here I am bound to point out a 
distinct gap in the present system. We have classes for art, 
classes for pure science, classes for applied science, but where 
are the classes for languages? The modern languages are 
taught so badly in our secondary schools, that it is hopeless to 
expect that sufficient knowledge, either of French or German 
can be acquired in the three years’ course to enable the student 
to find out what his French aud German rivals are doing in the 
branch of industry which he takes up; and we must, moreover, 
consider those who may wake up to the importance of studying 
science and its technical applications after the chance of a 
secondary education is lost. Such classes then are a real want. 
But I willnot end my address by a reference to what I regard 
as an unfortunate gap, but would rather conclude what I have 
to say by pointing out that the scheme I have sketched out need 
be no Utopia, so far, at all events, as a supply of well-trained 
teachers is concerned. This, up to the present time, has been 
the real difficulty. But now that the authorities at South Ken- 
sington have started sammer courses of lectures to teachers, and 
that they actually pay the teachers for going to learn, the 
methods of teaching, both in the elementary and secondary 
schools, and evening classes, cannot fail to improve. Quite 
recently, too, we have seen the inauguration of a Normal 
