226 REPOiiT— 1871. 



rapid improvement made abroad in manufactures has subsided ; but I hope that you 

 vn\l be all the more ready on that account to listen to a few suggestions as to st'-ps 

 which may be immediately taken to improve the education of those who apply 

 science to practical ends. "The subject does not owe its prominence to any events 

 of to-day or of yesterday ; it has long been, and will long be, of paramount im- 

 portance to this country that the education of the producers of wealth should be 

 such as will enable them not merely to compete on advantageous terms -with 

 forei oners, but rather to master the great forces of nature by which we work. That 

 we have gained some triumphs can be no reason for relaxing our efforts. With 

 each advance further advance becomes more difficult, and requires more knowledge ; 

 the tirst rude implements and processes employed by man certainly required for 

 tlieir explanation or acquirement no book-learning, but as processes become com- 

 plex and implements develope into machines, as the occupations of men dift'er more 

 and more, practice alone is found insufficient to give skill, and study becomes the 

 necessary preparation for all successful work. Our first engineers were not learned 

 men ; strong good sense and long practice enabled them to overcome the compara- 

 tively simple questions with which they dealt. All honour to those great men ; but 

 we who have to deal with more complex, if not with vaster problems, cannot trust 

 to good sense alone, even if we possess it, but must arm om-selves by the study of 

 science and its application to the arts. This being granted, how shall it be done ? 

 I need not trouble you by refuting the absiu-dities of a few men who would have 

 those things taught at schools which have hitherto been taught by practice. What 

 has been taught by practice must still be taught by practice. The business of the 

 school is to teach those things which practice in an art wiU not teach a man. Let 

 us apply this principle to engineering — the most scientific of all professions. It 

 will be most useless to lecture on filing and chipping ; it will be useless to describe 

 the mere forms and arrangements of vast multitudes of machines ; one kind of 

 knowledge of tlie properties of materials can only be acquired, as it always has been 

 acquired, by actually handling them ; and the knowledge of the arrangement of a 

 machine is far better learnt by mere inspection than from fifty lectures ; moreover, 

 it can be acquired by an intelligent man even if he be wholly imlettered. Book- 

 learning about estimates, the value of goods, methods of superintending work, and 

 dealing with men is foohshness. AVritten descriptions of puddling a cl.ay embank- 

 ment, excavating, and such operations, give no knowledge ; and j'et a vast mass of 

 such knowledge must at some time of his life be acquired by the engineer, and the 

 student cannot be employed as an engineer until he has laid up a store of such know- 

 ledge. Colleges cannot give him this ; he must serve an apprenticeship in fact if 

 not in form. Young foreigners taught in colleges serve their apprenticeship, at the 

 cost of their employers, during the first few years of their professional life. We call 

 the tjTO an apprentice or pupil, and he pays his master instead of being paid by 

 him. I have the strongest feeling against any attempt to substitute collegiate 

 teaching for practical apprenticeship. So far as colleges attempt to teach practice 

 they are and will be a sham in this country and in all others. The work of a col- 

 lege is to teach those sciences which are applied in the arts, but it can go a little 

 further and indicate to its students how the application is made in at least a few 

 selected instances. Applying this dictum to the education of an engineer, his col- 

 lege can teach him mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, and geology. No 

 one can doubt that a j-outli well trained in these branches of knowledge will, even 

 with no further teaching, learn more during his apprenticeship, and during his 

 whole professional life will take a higher standing than the man of equal intelli- 

 gence imtrained in science. College can, however, do more than this ; it is found 

 that a lad will go through a considerable number of books of Euchd, and yet see so 

 dimly how his knowledge is to be connected with practice that he may be unable 

 even to compute the area of a field, the dimensions of which are well known to 

 him ; and far more is it seen that a man may be fairly grounded in mathematics, 

 and yet have very little idea how to apply his knowledge to mechanical problems. 

 It is the business of those who hold such chairs as mine to point out the connexion 

 between pure science and practice, to show how mathematics are employed in men- 

 suration and in mechanical calculations, to show how the truths of physics are made 

 use of in "designing economical machinery, as when we teach the connexion betv,-eeu 



