
i. 
Aug. 17, 1871 | 
NATURE 
319 

most effectually stirred by local prizes, and I regret to find a certain 
apathy among students here with respect to the Whitworth com- 
petition. This appears to arise partly from dissatisfaction with 
the mode of examination, and partly from the’ fact that the 
examiners are men not well known in Scotland. Leaving the 
question of technical training for the upper classes, and the still 
larger question of scientific teaching in second grade schools, the 
consideration of which would lead us too far a-field, I purpose to 
say a few words on the technical education of the skilled artisan. 
This we must treat on the same principles as have been applied 
to professional teaching. We must endeavour to prepare the lad 
in school, by teaching him those things which he cannot learn in 
work-hops, but which will enable him to work with greater 
intelligence while acquiring and applying his practical knowledge. 
I shall not now speak of the general education which should 
make him a good man, and which should open to him those 
great sources of rational enjoyment arising from culture ; I will 
restrict myself entirely to his preparation for becoming an efficient 
workman. I have in many places said, and I cannot say too 
often, that the great want of the workman is a knowledge of 
mechanical drawing. Unfortunately, I can obtain little attention 
from the general public to this demand for the workman. Very 
few persons not being engineers know at all what mechanical 
drawing is. I am sorry to say that some examiners in high 
paces, who direct the education of the country, know very little 
more than the general public, and teachers who should give bread 
give chaff. I have lived much abroad, and come into close 
contact both with English and foreign workmen, and I un- 
hesitatingly say that the chief, if not the only, inferiority cf 
Englishmen has been in this one branch of knowledge. I 
must explain to some of my hearers what mechanical drawing 
is. It is the art of representing any object so accurately 
that a skilled workman, upon inspecting the drawing, shall be 
able to make the object of exactly the materials and dimensions 
shown, without any further verbal or written instructions from 
the designer. The objects represented may be machines, imple- 
ments, buildings, utensils, or ornaments. They may be con- 
structed of every material. ‘The drawings may be linear, shaded 
and coloured, or plain. They must necessarily be drawn to scale, 
but various geometrical methods may be employed. The name 
of mechanical drawing is given to one and all those representa- 
tions the object of which is to enable the thing drawn to be 
made by a workman. Artistic drawing aims at representing 
agreeably something already in existence, or which might exist, 
and for the sake of the representation ; mechanical drawing aims 
at representing the object, not for the sake of the representation, 
but in order to facilitate the production of the thing represented. 
Now, I say that it is this latter kind of drawing which is so vastly 
important to our artisans, and hence to our whwle wealth-pro- 
ducing population. Very few workmen, or men of any class, 
can hope to acquire such excellence in artistic drawing that their 
productions will give pleasure to themselves and others; but a 
great number of workmen must acquire some knowledge of the 
drawings of those things which they produce, and there is not 
one skilled workman or woman who would not be better quali- 
fied by a knowledge of mechanical drawing to do his work with 
ease to himself and benefit to the public. Mechanical drawing 
is a rudimentary acquirement, of the nature of reading, writing, 
and arithmetic. In order that a man may understand the 
illustrated desciiption of a machine, he must understand 
this kind of drawing. To the general public an engineering 
drawing is as unintelligible as a printed book is to a man who 
cannot read. The general public can no more put their ideas 
into such a shape that workmen can carry them out, than a person 
ignorant of writing can convey their meaning on paper. Reading 
and writing on mechanical or industrial subjects is impossible 
without some knowledge of the art I am pressing on your atten- 
tion. This art is taught abroad in every industrial school; a 
great part of the school-time is given up toit. In a Prussian 
industrial school one-third of the whole time is given toit. A 
French commission on technical education reported that drawing, 
with all its applications to the different industrial arts, should be 
considered as the principal means to be employed in technical 
education. Now, I deliberately state that this subject is not 
taught at all in England, and that the ignorance of it is so great 
that I can obtain no attention to my complaints. A hundred 
times more money is spent by Government to encourage artistic 
drawing than is given to encourage mechanical drawing, and I say 
that mechanical drawing is a hundred times more important 
tous asanation. Moreover, the little gasi-mechanical drawing 
which is taught is mostly mere geometrical projection, a subject 

of which real draughtsmen very frequently, and with little loss 
to themselves, are profoundly ignorant. Descriptive geometry 
and geometrical projection are nearly useless branches of the art, 
and the little encouragement which is given is almost monopolised 
by these. Mechanical drawing proper is confined to those who 
pick it up by practice in engineering offices. These draughts- 
men are often excellent, and on their behoof I claim no other 
teaching. I speak for the artisan who makes and for him who 
uses machinery. There are two ways in which our shortcomings 
may be remedied. First, the schools of art now established in 
this country should be enlarged so as to teach real mechanical 
drawing, and the examinations conducted by the Science and 
Art Department should be greatly modified; secondly, the 
drawing which is to be taught in the schools under the superin- 
tendence of the new school boards may be and ought to be 
mechanical drawing. Freehand drawing, asa branch of primary 
education, will, I fear, be a useless pastime ; but whether that 
be so or not, I am certain that the accurate and neat representa- ~ 
tion of the elementary part of machinery and buildings would 
be popular with the pupils, and could be effectively taught. 
This kind of drawing educates hand and mind in accuracy, it 
teaches the students the elements of mensuration and geometry, 
and it affords considerable scope for taste where taste exists. 
The chief difficulty will be to obtain competent teachers. I 
should occupy you too long were I to attempt to show how these 
must themselves be trained. My chief aim to-day has been to 
claim attention for a most important and wholly neglected branch 
of education. I shall probably be expected to urge the teaching 
of other natural sciences in our primary schools ; nothing, indeed, 
would give me greater pleasure than to think this could be done. 
I confess I doubt it, and while our second grade schools are what 
they are in this respect, and while the Cambridge examination 
for a degree in applied science is what it is, [ dare not think of 
natural science classes in our primary schools. I shall be delighted 
if Iam mistaken, but I am certain that mechanical drawing de- 
serves our first attention, as most immediately useful to the artisan, 
and most easily taught. The very books on natural science which 
are published in England cannot be properly illustrated for want 
of competent draughtsmen, and children would be unable to 
follow the illustrations and diagrams, if ignorant of the principles 
on which they are constructed. I look rather to good reading 
books, explained by intelligent masters, as the best manner of 
teaching the elementary and all-important truths of natural sciences. 
No man could do better service than in compiling such reading- 
books, and there are few wants more urgent than that of masters 
competent to enlarge upon texts which would thus be put into 
the hands. The education of our workmen is far more incom- 
plete than that of our professional men. Small additions to exist- 
ing institutions will meet the want of the latter ; but for the former 
the institutions have to be erected almost from the foundation. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
In the Scottish Naturalist for July, Dr. Lauder Lindsay 
finishes his article on Natural Science Chairs in our Universities, 
and concludes by pointing out that in this country the most 
eminent of our naturalists, Darwin, Owen, Huxley, Hooker, 
Bentham, Berkeley, Murchison, Lyell, Lubbock, Sclater, Wal- 
lace, Gwyn Jeffreys, are not, and never were, University pro- 
fessors, while many of the occupiers of natural history chairs 
have never properly discharged the duty of professors, and their 
opinions carry no authority in scientific matiers. The remainder 
ot the number is occupied by short articles and notes on various 
points of Scottish natural history. 
THE greater part of the American Naturalist for July is occu- 
pied by two long articles, entitled, “‘ The Ancient Indian Pottery 
of Marajo, Brazil,” by Prof. C. F, Hartt, and ‘‘ Application of 
the Darwinian Theory to Flowers and the Insects which visit 
them,” both illustrated with cuts. The latter isa re-translation 
of Prof. Delpino’s annotated translation into Italian of Dr. 
Miiller’s address at Lippstadt in 1869. The former is a very 
interesting account of the pottery exhumed from the Indian 
burial places at various localities in the Valley of the Amazonas, 
These vases were used for the reception of the remains of the 
dead, and are found associated with rude idols. We have no 
historical record of the tribe that built the Marajé mounds, 
and no record of the existence of any tribe in the Lower 
Amazonas within historic times that buried its dead in jars. 
Prof, Hartt does not agree with von Martius in supposing these 
