March 24, 1887] 



NA TURE 



493 



THE ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRIAL 

 EDUCA TION 



"T^HE following is the letter by Prof. Huxley to which 

 ■'■ reference is made in our leading article (p. 482) : — 



" When a statesman of Lord Hartington's authority 

 concurs with and enforces the opinions I ventured to ex- 

 press some little time ago, I have every reason for private 

 and personal satisfaction. lUit the circumstance has a 

 public importance as evidence that our political chiefs and 

 leaders are giving their serious attention to those social 

 questions which lie far above the region of party strife, 

 and are of infinitely greater moment than the topics which 

 ordinarily absorb the attention of politicians. 



" The organisation of industrial and commercial educa- 

 tion is not the least of these great problems. That it has 

 to be solved, under penalty of national ruin, proves to be 

 no mere alarmist fancy, but the belief of an experienced 

 man of aflairs, whose imperturbable coolness and strong 

 common-sense are proverbial. 



" It is an interesting question for us all, therefore, 

 How do we stand prepared for the task thus imperatively 

 set us ? My conviction is that we are in some respects 

 better off than most people imagine, in others worse. I 

 conceive that two things are needful : on the one hand, a 

 machinery for providing instruction and gathering infor- 

 mation ; on the other hand, a machinery for catching 

 capable men wherever they are to be found and turn- 

 ing them to account. Now, I apprehend that both 

 these kinds of machinery are to be found, though in 

 a fragmentary and disconnected condition, in several 

 organisations which, though independent, supplement one 

 another. 



"The first of these is that of the School Boards, which 

 provide elementary education, and sometimes, though too 

 rarely, have at their disposal scholarships by which 

 capable scholars can attain a higher training. The 

 second is the organisation of the Department of Science 

 and Art. The classes, now established all over the country 

 in connexion with'the Department, not only provide ele- 

 mentary instruction, accessible to all, but offer the means 

 whereby the pick of the capable students may obtain in 

 the schools at South Kensington as good a higher educa- 

 tion in science and art as is to be had in the country. It 

 is from this source that the supply of science and art 

 teachers, who in turn raise the standard of elementary in- 

 struction, is derived. The third organisation is that of the 

 technical classes connected with the City and Guilds In- 

 stitute, or with the Society of .Arts, or with provincial Uni- 

 versities and Colleges, which provide special technical 

 instruction for those who have, or ought to have, already 

 acquired the elements of scientific and artistic knowledge 

 in the science and art classes. 



" A fourth organisation for the advancement of the 

 interests of industry and commerce, of the nature of that 

 which I imagined it was the intention of the founders of 

 the Imperial Institute to create, and such as is, I believe, 

 now actually in course of creation in the City of London, 

 will complete the drill-grounds of the army of industry, 

 and, so far as I can judge, omit nothing of primary im- 

 portance. But, leaving the last aside as still in the 

 embryonic condition, these excellent organisations are all 

 mere torsos, fine — but fragmentary. 



" The ladder from the .School Boards to the Univer- 

 sities, about which I dreamed dreams many years ago, 

 has not yet acquired much more substantiality than the 

 ladder of Jacob's vision. 



"The Science and Art Department has done, and is 

 doing, admirable work, which I regret to see more often 

 made the subject of small and carping criticism than of 

 the praise which is its due. I trust it may not be diverted 

 from efficiently continuing that work by having duties for 

 which it is unfit forced upon it. That which the Depart- 

 ment needs, in my judgment, is nothing but the means of 



doing that which Commission after Commission, Royal 

 and departmental, have declared to be its proper business. 



" .'\s Dean of the Normal School I may be permitted 

 to declare that it is impossible for us to perform the 

 functions allotted to us unless the recommendations made 

 by impartial and independent authority are carried into 

 effect. 



"The school exists, and common-sense surely suggests 

 either make it efficient or abolish it. The alternative of 

 abolition is not likely to be adopted, as that step would 

 be equivalent to striking the keystone out of the edifice of 

 scientific instruction for the masses of the people which it 

 has taken a quarter of a century to raise, and which is the 

 essential foundation for any sound system of technical 

 education. The alternative of efficiency means spending 

 a few thousand pounds on additional buildings ; but the 

 guardians of the national purse do not seem to feel the 

 force of the adage about ' spoiling a ship for a halfpenny- 

 worth of tar.' 



" The state of affairs in regard to that which ought to 

 be the centre of our system of technical education is 

 nearly the same. The Central Institute is undoubtedly a 

 splendid monument of the munificence of the City. But 

 munificence without method may arrive at results in- 

 distinguishably similar to those of stinginess. I have 

 been blamed for saying that the Central Institute is 

 • starved.' Yet a man who has only half as much food as 

 he needs is indubitably starved, even though his short 

 rations consist of ortolans and are served up on gold 

 plate. .And I have excellent authority for saying that 

 little more than one-half of the plan of operations of the 

 Institute, drawn up by the Committee of which I was a 

 member, has been carried out, or can be carried out, if 

 the funds allotted for the maintenance of the Institute are 

 not largely increased. At the same time, the Institute is 

 doing all that could be rationally expecteci of it. Some of 

 the guilds and many provincial towns are making admir- 

 able provision for elementary technical education. Such 

 work, in my judgment, ought to be left to local ad- 

 ministrators, whatever aid it may be thought desirable to 

 give them. But the local schools should be brought into 

 relation with the Central Institute, and this should be put 

 upon such a footing as to subserve its proper purpose of 

 training teachers and giving higher technical instruction. 



" Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in 

 spending it wisely. And it is, to my mind, highly neces- 

 sary that some man or body of men, whom their country- 

 men trust, should consider these various organisations as 

 a whole and determine the manner in which they should 

 be correlated and in which it is desirable that the 

 resources, public and private, which are available should 

 be distributed among them. 



" Lord Hartington has many claims on the gratitude 

 and respect of his countrymen. I venture to express the 

 wish that he would add to them by taking up this great 

 work of organising industrial education and bringing it 

 to a happy issue." 



AUGUST WILHEI.M EICHLER 



THE death of Dr. August Wilhelm Eichler, briefly 

 announced in a previous number, is a great loss 

 to botanical science, and 'especially to systematic botany. 

 Year by year we are losing men of wide and consequently 

 sound "knowledge of plants without their places being 

 adequately filled. We have doubtless arrived at a stage 

 in botany'where specialists are necessary ; yet we venture 

 to assert that men of general attainments are better 

 qualified than specialists, in a narrow sense, for the 

 head of large botanical establishments, such as the one 

 over which the late Dr. Eichler presided, and which 

 greatly extended its reputation during the nine years he 

 was Director. 



