February 9, 1899] 



NA TURE 



35^ 



any one during his lifetime, were any of his epoch- making dis- 

 coveries turned to any practical industrial account. So far as I 

 know neither the unparalleled advances he made in the methods 

 of mathematical investigation nor his discoveries in physics, 

 in the laws of energy and the laws of motion, nor his 

 discoveries in the region of light had any important prac- 

 tical bearing upon the industries either of his own country 

 or any other country during his long life. Those dis- 

 coveries were, for the most part, made while he was com- 

 paratively a young man — made, let me tell the younger mem- 

 bers of my audience, at that happy time of life between tsventy 

 and thirty when the inventive energies are freshest, and when I 

 hope many of them will be able to add to the store of our know- 

 ledge ; but though those discoveries were made at this early 

 period, and though Newton lived to a very advanced age, the 

 fact broadly, I believe, is that his inventions had no important 

 effect upon the industrial world. Now, compare with the career 

 of Newton the careers of two of the greatest men of science 

 that we have seen in our time — Pasteur and Lord Kelvin — two 

 of the greatest names, I was going to say, in the science of all 

 time, but certainly in the science of the last half of the nineteenth 

 century. Almost every discovery of those two great men found 

 its immediate echo in some practical advantage to the industrial 

 world. It would be a mere impertinence before an audience in 

 w'hich there are many persons incomparably more qualified than 

 I am to speak on those subjects, to dwell upon the details, but 

 the fact is familiar to almost everybody, and the extraordinary 

 additions which both these great men have made in very different 

 spheres to our theoretic knowledge have had an application of 

 incalculable value, either in the department of commercial pro- 

 duction, of navigation, or of medicine and therapeutics. 



A Plea for Thoroughness. 

 Can you have a more instructive contrast than I have en- 

 deavoured to lay before you between the immediate re- 

 sults of the scientific career of Newton and the scientific 

 career of two of Newton's great successors, and on 

 what does it depend ? It depends upon this, that theoretical 

 science and practical production have each on their sides now 

 so advanced, come so close together, are so intertwined, that 

 nothing can happen in one branch which has not its copy in 

 another branch. Theory and practice are now almost different 

 sides of the same shield, and he who advances theory knows 

 probably in his own experience that it will be met in practice, 

 and he who advances practice may rest assured that some of the 

 fruits of his labour will be found valuable to theory. In order 

 to obtain the highest results which we hope may really follow 

 from such training as students obtain in the higher and more 

 difficult branches of science in institutions like this it is abso- 

 lutely necessary that the training should be thorough. It is 

 absolutely necessary if we in this country are to compete on 

 equal terms with the scientifically trained pupils of foreign poly- 

 technics that the scientific training here must be offered and 

 must be taken — and I believe it to be taken by the pupils here 

 — in the same spirit in which it is taken in Germany or in Swit- 

 zerland. Whatever else may be said of the system of education 

 there — and do not suppose that I (or one hold it up as being 

 superior in every respect to what we have in this country — at all 

 events, the sternest critics must admit that it is thorough in the 

 branches with which it deals ; and the man who has got the 

 best out of one highly equipped foreign place of technical in- 

 struction does really know not merely the theoretical ground- 

 work, but the whole special detail of the science most nearly 

 concerned with his work in life. That thoroughness is aimed 

 at, and I believe is attained in this institution ; and it is for that 

 reason I look forward with such great confidence to the results 

 of the system of education here instituted in its higher branches. 

 For it is the higher branches, mark you, that ought to be on a 

 universal level. Part of the work of a polytechnic is more 

 properly described as secondary education. Fart of it must be 

 more than secondary education ; and if we fall short of the 

 highest ideal of all we fall short of something which is, I believe, 

 absolutely necessary both from an educational and from a 

 technical point of view. 



The General Aspect of Education. 



It remains for me to say a word upon the second and more 

 general aspect of education. 



I feel that even those students of this institution who come 

 here merely to gain some addition to their knowledge of a 



NO. 1528, VOL. 59] 



special handicraft may carry away something which is of far 

 more importance to them than the mere acquisition of technical 

 skill They may carry away that broadened knowledge of the 

 laws of nature and the progress of science which, to my mind, 

 is not less liberalising and of not less value in the highest sense 

 of education than the most accurate knowledge of the grammar 

 of a dead language or the works of an ancient civilisation. I 

 make no attack, I need hardly say, on literary education, but I 

 cannot admit that scientific education — even if it be humble in 

 its amount, if it be stopped comparatively early in the career of 

 the learner— is not capable of producing as beneficial educa- 

 tional effects on the taught as any system of education which the 

 ingenuity of the world as has yet succeeded in devising. Let me 

 conclude by saying that I value the great privilege of being 

 asked to take a leading part in this interesting ceremony. I be- 

 lieve that the polytechnic is doing a great work, not merely for 

 the economic, but for the educational future of the country. I 

 believe that in that work this splendid building, which we owe 

 entirely to the liberality of private donors and of liberal com- 

 panies, is destined in future to play no small part in the lives of 

 those who come to this institution for educational advantages 

 which until twenty years ago were not within the reach of any 

 citizen of this great city. 



Prof. Jebb on Secondary Education. 



A meeting of members of the University of Cambridge was 

 held at Trinity College Lodge on Saturday afternoon to con- 

 sider prospective legislation with regard to secondary education. 



Prof Jebb, M.P., moved the following resolutions: (i) 

 " That this meeting welcomes the Board of Education Bill 

 introduced by the Duke of Devonshire in the House of Lords 

 last August as an important step towards the organisation of 

 secondary education in England." (2) "That, in the opinion 

 of this meeting, the consultative committee proposed in Clause 

 3 of the Bill should be made permanent, and should contain 

 representatives of the Universities and of the teaching pro- 

 fession." (3) " That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is 

 desirable that a system of inspection and examination conducted 

 by a University, and approved for the purpose by the Board of 

 Education, should be accepted as adequate under Clause 2, sec- 

 tion (4) of the Bill." (4) "That copies of resolutions i, 2 and 

 3 be forwarded to the Marquis of Salisbury, the Duke of 

 Devonshire, Mr. Balfour, and Sir John Gorst." Speaking to 

 the first proposition Prof. Jebb, in the course of his remarks, 

 said : — 



Scope of the Board of Education Bill. 



The first duty of a 'recognised central department will be to 

 take something in the nature of a census or a general survey 

 of our existing educational resources. Such a survey was 

 necessary, because at present, owing to the number of separate 

 and independent agencies at work, there was no means of 

 ascertaining precisely where gaps and deficiencies existed, and 

 where, on the other hand, power was being wasted— though 

 the existence of such evils was sufficiently manifest. The 

 central authority, overlooking the whole field, would be able to 

 determine what parts of the ground were vacant and in what 

 parts of it there was overlapping, and therefore loss of power. 

 The scope of the Bill, confined as it was to setting up a central 

 authority, was limited. He believed this limitation to be a 

 wise one, not merely on Parliamentary grounds, because such a 

 Bill was easier to get through both Houses, but on larger 

 grounds of educational policy. The establishment of a strong 

 central authority, commanding public confidence, would in 

 itself facilitate the creation of local authorities of a satisfactory 

 kind ; it would tend towards harmony among the various 

 agencies and interests which claimed representation in the local 

 management of secondary education. Further, the preliminary 

 stock-taking by the central authority of our educational re- 

 sources — that general survey or census to which he had just 

 referred — was an operation which might with great advantage 

 be performed, or at least begun, before the new local authorities 

 came into active operation, since it would in some respects 

 facilitate their task, and give them the advantage of information 

 which no one of them separately could collect with equal 

 efficiency or comprehensiveness. But there should be no 

 mistake about the fact that the Government, speaking by the 

 mouth of the Lord President on August i, had clearly recog- 

 nised the necessity of creating new statutory local authorities for 

 secondary education, and regarded that as the next step to be 



