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NA TURK 



{^March 25, 1886 



in the Transactions of the Royal Institute of British 

 Architects. The republication of these papers coming so 

 soon after the last Report of the Commission on Technical 

 Education is most opportune. We have here, brought as 

 it were to a focus, a mass of detail relative to the planning, 

 construction, and mode of equipment of the most note- 

 worthy schools of science of Europe. To the teacher of 

 applied science, and especially also to the many bodies of 

 public-spirited men who are engaged both in London and 

 in our midland and northern towns in the erection of 

 buildings for applied science and art instruction, the work 

 must be in the highest degree valuable. The mere col- 

 lection of the facts themselves could not fail to prove of 

 the greatest service to the cause of technical education in 

 this country ; but when the facts are, as it happens, 

 arranged, co-ordinated, and criticised by one who has 

 himself had no inconsiderable experience in designing 

 buildings of this class, the collection becomes simply 

 indispensable. 



In the first paper, on " English and Foreign Technical 

 Education," Mr. Robins seeks as it were to clear the 

 ground. In this matter, as in so many others, it is the 

 houses which obscure the view of the village. Mr. Robins 

 therefore attempts to state precisely what it is that tech- 

 nical education aims at, and how we may reasonably hope 

 that the aim may be attained. It is of course only after 

 the lines have been laid down upon which the teaching of 

 technology should proceed that the question of appliances 

 and buildings can be properly approached. It is necessary 

 therefore to carefully analyse the results which have been 

 obtained abroad, for we have at present little to appeal to 

 at home, and even that little has been too recently in 

 operation to afford a basis for sound conclusions. We 

 have as yet no system. That is, of course, characteristic 

 of us, for we are continually reminded that we are, in 

 some respects, the most illogical people in the world. 

 Nothing in our whole educational history is more charac- 

 teristic of us — of our energy, public spirit, and independ- 

 ence — than the way in which with much effort, laborious 

 and occasionally ill-directed, and with no inconsiderable 

 e.Kpenditure of money, we are hammering away at this 

 question of teaching technology. In Yorkshire alone 

 there is at the present moment probably every type of 

 technical school more or less imperfectly developed, which 

 the ingenuity or perversity of man could devise, — from the 

 school which does nothing but handicraft pure and simple, 

 up to that which concerns itself mainly with the science 

 of practice, and relegates practice itself to the workshop. 

 The men who are struggling with this problem of grafting 

 a high-class scientific education upon the daily work of 

 bur towns are the manufacturers, the engineers, and 

 merchants of our great commercial centres. These men 

 — the men who build the big bridges, bore the big tunnels, 

 sink the deepest mines, set up the highest blast-furnaces, 

 and gauge their power for civilisation, as Liebig said, by 

 the size of their vitriol chambers — have a silent horror and 

 tolerant contempt for docti-inaircs. Mr. Froude may say 

 of the age of patriotism — as Burke said of the age of 

 chivalry — that it is dead. But England owes a debt of 

 gratitude to those who are thus struggling to keep her in 

 the forefront of the battle for industrial supremacy 

 among the great producing peoples of the world, and who 

 are unstintingly spending time, energy, and money in the 

 determination that their sons and the generations to come 

 shall reap some of the benefits of knowledge that were 

 denied to them. 



In Mr. Robins's first paper, published in 1882, there is 

 much relative to the Continental systems which has been 

 supplemented by the Report of the Commission, but re- 

 garding it simply as introductory to the purely professional 

 papers which constitute the most valuable feature of the 

 book, it would be necessary to modify it in but few and 

 comparatively unessential details. 



In the next paper, on " Buildings for Applied Science 



and Art Instruction," Mr, Robins gives a detailed account, 

 mainly compiled from personal visits, of the most distinctly 

 representative buildings of this class to be met with in 

 Germany, Austria, Sweden, and in our own country. In 

 this paper we have the first attempt to formulate the 

 general principles which should govern the planning of 

 buildings intended for technical instruction. All technical 

 education does not need special accommodation. Mr. 

 Robins points out that the ordinary class-rooms attached 

 to school-buildings may be appropriated to certain kinds 

 of technical instruction provided that they are properly 

 lighted and ventilated. But there are many subjects 

 which can only be efficiently taught in specially-designed 

 buildings, as, for example, chemistry and physics, me- 

 chanics and engineering, architecture, i&c, — in fact, all 

 involving the provision of laboratories, lecture-theatres, 

 work-rooms, modelling-rooms, &c., which have to be 

 grouped in a certain order and contiguity, and which 

 must be specially floored, lighted, heated, and ventilated, 

 and arranged for particular furniture and fittings or special 

 apparatus. It is with buildings of this class that we are 

 at present more particularly concerned. 



I n Germany, and in the German-speaking part of Europe 

 generally, the system of working the different subjects in 

 separate buildings is now almost universally regarded as 

 the most convenient arrangement. Thus at Berlin, Prof. 

 Helmholtz's physical laboratory and its associated class- 

 rooms and lecture-rooms are in one grand building, and 

 Prof Du Bois-Reymond's physiological laboratory is in an 

 adjoining building — worthy companions of the handsome 

 structure erected for Prof Hofmann so long ago as 1865. 

 At Leipzig is a street full of separate and distinct build- 

 ings for these subjects, supplementing the old L'niversity 

 provisions. At Geneva, Prof. Graebe has designed and 

 superintended the general arrangement and fittings of the 

 new chemical laboratory, also situated apart from the 

 LIniversity proper. Profs, von Pebal and Toepler at 

 Gratz, Prof Landolt at Aachen and Berlin, Prof Baeyer 

 at Munich, have each worked out, with the respective 

 architects, the details of their new and remarkably well- 

 fitted laboratories. At Strasburg the new University 

 buildings are also constructed in separate blocks. In 

 addition to the main building for classical studies and 

 general literature, distinct blocks are arranged for physics, 

 chemistry, botany and forestry, mineralogy, &c., each 

 block costing from 30,000/. to 40,000/., built in the classic 

 style, faced with stone from the Harz iMountains, and 

 together covering several acres of ground. 



In addition to these Mr. Robins adds, as types of less 

 ambitious places, an account of the chemical and physical 

 laboratories of the Royal Trade School at Chemnitz, of 

 Prof Kohlrausch's physical laboratory at Wurzburg, of 

 the Technical High School at Hanover, of the Royal 

 Technical High School at Stockholm, and of the Chalmers 

 Industrial and Technological School at Gottenborg. 



It would be quite impossible, with the space at our 

 disposal, to attempt to follow Mr. Robins in his analysis 

 of the distinctive features of these various institutions. 

 He has treated the mass of material thus brought together 

 in a remarkably clear and lucid manner. There is neces- 

 sarily much in every chemical laboratory which is common 

 to all, and the same remark applies to every other labora- 

 tory or workshop in which technology is taught. Nothing 

 more certainly indicates the trained professional eye than 

 the manner in which characteristic difterences are de- 

 tected and commented upon, and it is the evidence of 

 this diagnostic faculty which constitutes one of the most 

 valuable features of the book. 



But perhaps the most generally interesting portion of 

 Mr. Robins's work is that relating to the applied science 

 buildings which have been erected in this country. These 

 consist of the Central Technical Institution at South 

 Kensington and the Technical College at Finsbury, both 

 erected by the City and Guilds of London ; the Owens 



