- = ‘ 
“March J 1883] ate 
NATURE 
425 
In the last part of the Bud/etin of the Paris Geographical 
Society for 1882, Dr. J. Montano describes his excursion into 
the interior and along the coast of Mindanao; Commander 
Gallieni gives a detailed narration of his mission to the Upper 
Niger and Segou; M. Aymonier describes the result of his 
excursion to Central Cambodia; a paper by the late Dr. 
-Crevaux gives the leading results of his exploration of the Yary, 
Paron, Ica, and Yapura ; and M, Dutreuil de Rhins has a paper 
on the observations of the transits of Venus. 
In the new number (102) of the Zestschrift of the Berlin Geo- 
graphical Society we have the usual annual systematic list of 
new works, papers, and maps in all departments of geography 
published during the past year, a list indispensable to geo- 
graphers, and which will be found useful by students of the 
many departments of science related to geography. In the 
Verhandlungen (No. 1, for 1883) Prof. Foerster has a paper on 
the expeditions for the observation of the recent transit of Venus, 
and Prof. Brauns a paper on the Island of Yezo. Interesting 
news from the various German expeditions in Africa will be 
found in Heft 4 of Band iii. of the A/ttthetlungen of the German 
African Society, including a detailed account of Dr, Wissmann’s 
journey across the continent, to which we referred last week. 
There are four letters from Herr Flegel on the progress of his 
Niger explorations, and several communications of great im- 
portance from the party stationed at Gonda, in East Africa, 
who are accumulating material of great value. They were 
arranging for a visit to Lake Moero according to the latest 
intelligence. 
In a paper onthe Gulf Stream in the Bud/etin of the American 
Geographical Society (No. ii. 1882), Commander Bartlett gives 
some of the results of the examination of that current by the 
party in the B/ake in the summer of 1881. 
THE principal paper in the February number of the Bol/ettino 
of the Italian Geographical Society is a narrative, with illustra- 
tions, by Lieut. Bove, of his mission to South America, 
THE OPENING OF THE FINSBURY 
TECHNICAL COLLEGE 
WE have already given in our issue of February 1 (p. 318) a 
brief outline of the curriculum of study to be pursued at 
the Finsbury Technical College, in our review of the programme 
of instruction recently published. The new college was opened 
on Monday, February 19, with an address by Mr. Philip Magnus, 
the Principal of the College, and Director of the Institute. The 
address was. delivered in the hall of the Cowper Street School, 
none of the lecture-rooms of the new college being large enough 
for the purpose. There were present about 1200 persons, chiefly 
artisans. Sir Frederick Bramwell occupied the chair, and among 
those on’the platform were Sir Sydney Waterlow, Dr. Siemens, 
Professors Roscoe, Abel, Carey Foster, Adams, Ayrton, Hunt- 
ington, Armstrong, and Perry, Dr, Gladstone, Mr. H. T. 
Wood, Mr. J. G. Fitch, Mr. Swire Smith, Mr. Matthey, Mr. 
Owen Roberts, Mr. John Watney. 
Mr. Magnus commenced by indicating some of the incorrect 
ideas still prevalent on the subject of technical education, 
He considered that any definition ought to be expressed in 
very wide terms, so as to be referable to the different 
kinds of training to which the term technical education applies. 
He himself proposed to call that education, training, or instruc- 
tion technical which had a direct reference to the career of the 
student who received it. Thus considered, technical education 
was no-new thing, except in its reference to careers called into 
existence by recent developments of science. It was because the 
system of education to which we had been accustomed was no 
longer the best preparation for actual work, and not because 
no relation hitherto existed between the boy’s training and the 
man’s career that such colleges were needed. The necessity of 
technical education he attributed to the invention of the steam- 
engine and the breaking-up of the apprenticeship system, and the 
tide which was pushing it forward would not subside until it had 
influenced the educational institutions of the country from the 
primary scho2l to the university. The Council had been guided 
by the desire to supplement, and not to duplicate, existing edu- 
cational machinery. The college consisted really of a day 
school for pupils entering between the ages of fourteen 
and seventeen, and an evening school for apprentices, work- 
men, &c. The former would give preparatory training 
to students for practical work in the factory or engineer’s 
shop, and the evening department was intended to help those 
already at work to understand the principles underlying processes 
they saw exemplified in their daily work. The college was 
therefore a technical school of the third grade, and whilst the 
majority of the pupils would complete within it their instruction, 
some would proceed to the technical high school or central insti- 
tution in course of erection at South Kensington. The college 
might claim to represent a new grade of school. It was not an 
institution in which any particular trade would be taught, except 
it were some art industry, nor would it teach the excellence, 
precision, and rapidity of execution which could only be acquired 
in the workshop or factory, where, under the severe strain 
of competition, salable goods were being manufactured. 
Proceeding to indicate the course of instruction to be given, 
Mr. Magnus explained that on entering the institution, the 
student would generally declare whether he wished to be 
trained as a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, 
or with a view to some branch of chemical industry, or 
whether he wished to study applied art, and the subjects 
would be taught with special reference to the career of the stu- 
dent. The teacher would keep steadily in view the purpose to 
which the student would apply his knowledge. The work would 
be essentially practical, and more would be done in the labora- 
tory than in the lecture-room, the lectures forming rather a com- 
mentary on the practical work than the practical work an illuse 
tration of the teaching of the lecture-room, The main purpose 
was not to turn out scientists, but to explain to those preparing 
for industrial work the principles that had a direct bearing on 
their occupation, so that they might be able to trace back the | 
principles they saw to their causes, and thus substitute scientific ~ 
method for mere rule of thumb. Of the four departments of 
the College—electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, 
chemistry, and applied art—that of electrical engineering pro- 
mised to be the most attractive to students. But there was 
an intimate connection between the different branches of 
science not to be lost sight of in the training of a student in any 
one department. In the course of his remarks on the evening 
school and the curricula arranged for artisans engaged in various 
industries, Mr. Magnus referred very pointedly to the narrow 
view which adult workmen generally take of their own edu- 
cational requirements. He impressed upon this class of students 
the necessity of aequainting themselves with branches of industry 
cognate to their own, and suggested that one of the objects of 
technical education was to correct the cramping and narrowing 
influences of extreme division of labour. He referred to a fact 
told him by a medical friend, that a student refused to dissect the 
abdominal cavity because, as a surgeon, he intended to occupy 
himself exclusively with diseases of the eye, and stated that this 
view of technical instruction needed to be strenuously resisted. 
He also insisted very strongly upon the importance of artisan 
students gaining a knowledge of the principles of science, as 
helping them to deal with unexpected and exceptional cases of 
difficulty certain to arise in their ordinary work. Mr, Magnus 
referred at some length to the methods of teaching to be adopted 
in the college, showing that there was no real opposition, as 
sometimes stated, between technical instruction, properly under- 
stood, and mental culture—that science might be so taught 
as to yield mental discipline, and yet at the same time have 
a direct reference to the career or occupation of the student. 
Mr. Magnus further explained the exact position which the 
Finsbury Technical College is intended to occupy in the Insti- 
tute’s general scheme of technical education. He illustrated 
this part of his address by a diagram showing the Bavarian 
school system, which he said was pronounced by many educa- 
tional authorities to be the best in Germany, and the technical 
part of which was in many respects similar to the series of 
schools which the Institute is engaged in establishing. Mr. 
Magnus attached great importance to the Central Institution, 
now being erected in South Kensington, as crowning the educa- 
tional ladder which pupils from the primary schools should have 
the opportunity of ascending, and as influencing, in the same 
way as the Universities at present influence, the entire system of 
education pursued in the series of schools leading up to them. 
The speaker did not omit to refer to the Applied Art Depart- 
ment which has recently been added to the College, and in 
which the instruction he said would be specialised according te 
the particular occupation of the student. 
Magnus hoped the college would do much to wipe away the 
reproach of the neglect of technical education under which the 
country had hitherto lain compared with other countries. On 
In conclusion Mr. ~ 
