NA TURE 



[March 24, 1887 



F.ducation " a letter appeared in the Times of the 21st 

 inst., which we print in exienso elsewhere. The main 

 purpose of this second outcome is to show that at the 

 present moment what is chiefly lacking in the army of 

 peace is organisation and a proper headquarter staft" — an 

 Educational Commander-in-Chief Reading between the 

 lines of the letter, it is easy to see that one of the things 

 " organisation " is expected to do, nay, must do, is to 

 prevent so-called " economy " from thwarting every 

 attempt at progress. " Economy does not lie in sparing 

 money, but in spending it wisely," is a maxim that must 

 be commended not only to the Treasury, but to local 

 bodies. 



It is probably the feeling that the proposals of a strong 

 Minister of Education, with a full knowledge of his sub- 

 ject and in touch with all the most eminent educational- 

 ists of his time, would be sure to commend themselves 

 to Parliament, and that the annual charge would be in- 

 creased, which has induced successive Ministries to 

 postpone the creation of such an office. It is now 

 thirteen years since both the Duke of Devonshire's Com- 

 mission and Parliament itself discussed the question ; the 

 latter on the motion of Mr. (now Sir Lyon) Playfair. 

 Three years ago the Report of the Select Committee 

 presided over by Mr. Childers unanimously recommended 

 that a Minister of Education should be appointed. With 

 the growing feeling on the part of the public on this matter, 

 if an opportunity presents itself of again bringing forward 

 this proposal it will not be allowed to be dropped. 



It is clear from Prof. Huxley's letter that the present 

 machinery is not adequate : it can only be strengthened 

 and consolidated by the appointment of a Minister. One 

 enormous advantage of such a Minister would be that 

 we should have an acknowledged Department to apply 

 to, absolutely in sympathy with those who wish to bring 

 about any improvement in our educational machinery. 

 Quite recently we have had two deputations on purely 

 educational matters : one, for an endowment to the 

 Victoria University, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 

 and the other, for further aid to technical education, 

 to the Lord President. It is very difficult for a plain 

 man to understand why the Chancellor of the Exchequer 

 should have been chosen in one case and the Lord 

 Pi-esident in the other : of course there is an official 

 reason, but it only adds point to the grotesqueness of the 

 present arrangements. 



We have, however, to refer to these deputations from 

 another point of view. The prayer of the- Victoria 

 L'niversity has been granted : that the needed assistance 

 in the other matter — technical instruction — will be granted 

 at once is by no means certain. However this may be, 

 well-wishers of science must thank Mr. Mundella for his 

 vigorous pleading of the cause they have at heart. 



The object of the last deputation, as Mr. Mundella 

 pointed out, was to ask the Government to take a very 

 modest step in the direction of the organisation of industrial 

 and commercial education. The education of the 4,600,000 

 on the books of the elementary schools is confined to educa- 

 tion of a purely elementary character, and anything in the 

 shape of manual or industrial education is treated in a 

 way very disheartening to those interested in the ques- 

 tion. At ])rc5cnt our industrial classes are like badly 

 drilled soldiers fighting a battle with antiquated weapons — 



it is like sending our soldiers into the field, armed with 

 Brown liess, to meet the best armed soldiers of Europe. 

 Dr. Konrad, in a report on the Prussian system in its 

 bearing on the national economy, said the superiority of 

 the Western to the Eastern workman, and of the German 

 to the Englishman, was well established ; and he added 

 that no doubt the Englishman by his enormous per- 

 severance and his wonted diligence got through consider- 

 ably more work in the sphere to which he had been long 

 accustomed, but he was far behind the German in capacity 

 for adapting himself to new circumstances. This was the 

 result of the better and more general training which the 

 Germans got in their schools. Mr. Mundella acknow- 

 ledged that there had been repeated attempts to do 

 something in England to improve the condition ot 

 things, but where public bodies had interfered they had 

 acted beyond their powers and been punished accord- 

 ingly. It was freedom from the restrictions under which 

 these authorities laboured that the deputation sought. 

 They asked also for increased powers to promote 

 industrial, scientific, and technical training, and that for 

 this purpose they should be put in connexion with the 

 Science and Art Department. The cost of executing 

 what they proposed would be trifling. 



Sir Lyon Playfair contended that a short Act of three 

 clauses would do all that is wanted. We hope soon to see 

 it. Sir B. Samuelson, as Chairman of the Associated 

 Chambers of Commerce, presented a memorial from that 

 body, and Mr. Howell hit the nail on the head by stating 

 that for " unemployed," in connexion with our industrial 

 population, now so often used, the word "unskilled" 

 should be substituted. 



We are bound to say that Lord Cranbrook's answer 

 was sympathetic, but he is clearly of opinion that the 

 Government can do nothing because " Parliament has 

 not really pronounced on the subject of technical 

 instruction" ! 



ROSENBUSCHS "PETROGRAPHY" 

 lilikroskflpischc Physiograpliie dcr inassigen Gesteine. 

 Von H. Rosenbusch. I. Abtheilung. Zweite giinzlich 

 umgearbeitete Auflage. (Stuttgart, 18S6.) 



THE first part of the second edition of this important 

 work has at length appeared, the author having 

 wisely decided not to keep back this instalment until the 

 whole has been completed. Petrography advances now- 

 adays with such gigantic strides, and so quickly are new 

 facts accumulated and new theories elaborated, that as 

 soon as the last chapters of a treatise on this science 

 have been written it is almost time to begin re-writing 

 the first. 



This book has been looked forward to by petrographers 

 with a certain amount of pardonable impatience, in the 

 hope that it would do something towards clearing away 

 the mists that envelop rock-classification and nomen- 

 clature. Since the introduction of the polarising micro- 

 scope into petrographical research, old familiar names — 

 like greenstone, trap, felstone, trachyte, &c. — have either 

 been discarded or materially modified in their use ; and 

 we now talk with Gumbel of lampiophyre, proterobase, 

 picrophyre, pala^ophyre, palaeopicrite, leucophyre, and the 

 like : or we use names manufactured from the locali- 



