July 6, 1882J 



NATURE 



system of paying on results, which has had so large a develop- 

 ment since in various directions, was first tried here. This is 

 not, however, the occasion for discussing the general system of 

 science instruction, and science payments, and I only advert to 

 it at the present moment to call attention to w hat has grown out 

 of it to supplement it, and that is the arrangement for bringing 

 science teachers from the country up to London for short courses 

 of instruction in the summer. That is a system which 1 believe 

 obtains in no other place or country ; I believe it is most in- 

 valuable. This point also illustrates another fact, and that is 

 that the Normal School of Science is not the outcome of some 

 cut and dry report of a commission, founded possibly on a foreign 

 example, but it is the natural outgrowth of what has 1 een found 

 to be required. It has grown so as to suit its environment, and 

 so far is a thoroughly English institution; and now that it has in 

 the fulness of time — I will not say that the time may not have 

 been a little too full — now that it has come out in its full plumage, 

 1 think the country may be congratulated on this. It has a 

 .cientific educational institution fairly provided with apparatus 

 and appliances ; but it has what is far more valuable. It has a 

 stafl of professors whose position in the scientific world for the 

 work they have done, whose power of teaching and imparting 

 knowledge, and whose zeal in the cause will, I believe, bear com- 

 parison with the staff of any other similar institution, or seat of 

 learning in this or any other country at the present time. 



The Chairman : — I have now the pleasure of calling on Prof. 

 Huxley, the Dean of our reorganised institution. 



Prof. Hux'ey : — Mr. Mundella, under ordinary circumstances 

 the address the Dean of the School is called upon to make on 

 occasions of this kind is confined to a statement of the condition 

 of the school, and to an account of the manner in which the 

 various departments of instruction are thriving or otherwise. 

 Hut as this institution, the Normal School of Science and 

 Koyal School of Mines, is extremely young — in fact has not yet 

 completed the first year of its existence — 1 think, with your per- 

 mission, it may be well that I should call the attention of those 

 who have honoured m by their presence to facts with which your 

 official mind is perfectly familiar, but of which they cannot be 

 expected to have cognisance. 



As Col. Donnelly has just remarked, this institution has not 

 been so much made as it has grown ; it is therefore a parti- 

 cularly English institution, inasmuch as in that respect it re- 

 sembles the British constitution, which, from an abstract and 

 logical point of view is probably not the most symmetrical and 

 reasonable fabric that ever was raised, but which has the great 

 merit of having grown out of the actual conditions of life, and of 

 possessing the rower of adapting itself to the incessant changes 

 of our social state. The school is not, as might be judged 

 from its title, a dual institution like the Austro-Hungarian 

 monarchy ; but it has grown out of the growth, development, 

 and eventual coalescence of two perfectly distinct and indepen- 

 dent organisations, which have at different time-, and quite 

 independently of one another been set on foot by the Govern- 

 ment of this country for the purpose of giving science — by which 

 I mean physical science— that influence upon the industries and 

 arts of the country which, as every one now recognises, is abso- 

 lutely essential to their sound and rapid progress. The Royal 

 School of Mines was practically established, or rather the foun- 

 dations of it were laid, so far back as the year 185 1, at which 

 time a very staunch and kind friend of mine, at a time when 

 friends were not quite so plentiful as they are now, the late Sir 

 Henry De la Beche, one of the most sagacious and able men it 

 was ever my good fortune to meet with, having set agoing, 

 chiefly by his own energy, the Geological Survey of Great 

 Britain, obtained the attachment to that service, mid to the 

 Museum of Practical Geology, which was connected with it, of 

 an institution which I think may be described as the first techni- 

 cal school which was ever established in this country by the 

 influence of Government ; I do not know if private enterprise 

 had done anything of the kind before. This institution was 

 termed "the Government School of Mines, and of Science 

 applied to the Arts " ; and you will observe, and I call your 

 attention to the fact, that in that title there is a duality of pre- 

 cisely the same nature as that which exists in our present name. 

 No doubt one of the objects most dear to Sir Henry de la Beche 

 and his associates, was the establishment of a technical school 

 for those branches of science of which ihe applications are more 

 or less direct to mining and metallurgy ; and no doubt a con- 

 siderable proportion of the influence which was brought to bear 

 in establishing the school arose from the fact that the mining and 



metallurgical industries of the country were largely interested in 

 it. But you will also observe that the school took upon itselt 

 the teaching of " science applied to the arts," and we had therein 

 a germ, for it was no more than a germ, of what may be termed 

 a general technical school. 



Now it was about the same time that the Great Exhibition of 

 1851 directed the attention of people in this country, far more 

 strongly than it had been directed before, to the extreme import- 

 ance of giving our industries some better foundation than the 

 mere rule of thumb, which up to that time had too largely ob- 

 tained. That movement grew and became more important until 

 it resulted in the creation of the Science and Art Department, 

 the effects of which upon the art side, are unmistakeable, for you 

 have them in thi> vast museum in which you now meet, which I 

 believe is without its parallel in the civilised world. That side 

 of the activity of the Science and Art Department grew rapidly ; 

 but the other side of it, the development of the technical appli- 

 cation of science, was indeed attempted, but get very little 

 further than the attempt. That attempt was made in this wise : 

 the course of instruction in the Government School of Mines and 

 Science applied to the Arts, then lodged in Jermyn Street, was 

 enlarged so as to include an addition to its mining and metal- 

 lurgical division, which was called a general division — a general 

 training in physical science — and a technical division, that is to 

 say, what we now understand as a technical school. Moreover, 

 the Royal College of Chemistry was combined with the School 

 of Mines ; and in order, as it were, to emphasise the develop- 

 ment of the general technical school side of the institntion, its 

 title was altered into that of the "Metropolitan School of 

 Science applied to Mining and the Arts." That was in the year 

 1853, very nearly thirty years ago — a generation of men ; and I 

 have no hesitation in saying that if the idea which at that time 

 obtained in the minds of the heads of the Department of Science 

 and Art had been developed and carried out, it would not have 

 been left for this generation to make the efforts which it now 

 seems prepared to make in various ways for the establishment of 

 a thorough and effectual system of technical education through- 

 out the country. Whether it was that the time was not ripe for 

 such an effort, or from what other cause, it is not worth while 

 to inquire ; but this course of development was more or less 

 nipped in the bud. The instruction in Jermyn Street narrowed 

 instead of widening ; the general and technical divisions were 

 gradually abolished, and the institution restricted itself as far as 

 it could, to being a school of mining and metallurgy, pure and 

 simple ; with this difference, however, that the very large and 

 efficient organisation for teaching chemistry under Prof. Hof- 

 mann, which existed at that time, retained a certain amount of 

 quasi autonomy, and did specially profess to teach the applica- 

 tions of chemistry to industry. The change of policy was signal- 

 ised in the year 1859 by another change of name ; the institution 

 was then called the "Government School of Mines," and so it 

 remained for a few years, until in 1S63 the title was altered once 

 more, by way of giving the institution extra dignity, to the " Royal 

 School of Mines," which title it has retained ever since. 



I had the honour to be appointed one of the professors of 

 the School of Mines in the year 1854. I have now, therefore, 

 completed twenty-eight years' connection with it. I estimate 

 that connection as one of the happiest and most honourable 

 events of my life, having always been associated with colleagues 

 with whom any man might have been proud to act. Moreover, 

 let me say, in respect of such change of policy as has taken 

 place, I am just as much responsible as anybody else, so that 

 you must not think that I have the smallest intention of saying 

 a word which could militate against the estimation which the 

 School of Mines, I am happy to say, always has held, and which 

 I profoundly trust it always will hold, if I point out to you that 

 there were, from the very beginning, certain extremely grave 

 defects in its constitution. I cannot say that they arose from the 

 fault of any body concerned, but from the fact that the necessi- 

 ties of scientific training were understood a quarter of a century 

 ago in a totally different way to that in which they are now un- 

 derstood. The only provision which was made for that practical 

 instruction, which is the heart and soul of all efficient scientific 

 education, in the original School of Mines, consisted in the labo- 

 ratories for chemistry and for metallurgy. For no other branch 

 of science was there any efficient practical teaching provided, and 

 even the accommodation for chemistry and metallurgy was so im- 

 perfect, that within a very few years after the foundation of the 

 school, laboratories for there purposes had to be sought elsewhere. 

 For eighteen years I did my duty as well as I could towards that 



