TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 711 



For occupations requiring special intelligence and skill mental discipline comes 

 first in order of time and importance. Nor is it much less so in those occupations 

 where human labour is reduced to the monotonous drudgery of a machine. The 

 course of instruction in science and art laid down in the ' Science and Art Direc- 

 tory ' would, with certain liberal modifications, mark the next stage in a curriculum 

 of national technical education. Remodelled and liberiilised, the Science and Art 

 Department might give us a system of secondary schools well adapted to the 

 wants of the country. No attempt should be made to ignore, far less to starve or 

 suppress voluntary effort. Where that fails or is inadequate it should be the duty 

 of some public body, preferably one elected for the purpose, to make the necessary 

 provision. For the co-ordination of public educational work in the various 

 localities, educational councils should be formed, with a proportionate representa- 

 tion of the different schools. The Science and Art Department should be largely 

 staffed by men who are practical educationists. The responsible head of the De- 

 part ment should be advised by a council of men who have had experience in the 

 management of the largest and most successful schools in the kingdom. The 

 system of payment by results should either be abandoned, or it should be applied 

 to all the institutions receiving Parliamentary grants, not excluding those under 

 the immediate management of the Department itself. Higher grants, if the 

 system is continued, should be given for passes in the advanced and honours stages. 

 These grants should be somewhat proportioned to the labour and cost expended 

 to attain them. Payment should be made for passes in all the subjects of a year 

 taken by a student, so that the courses of instruction recommended by the Depart- 

 ment are followed. Practical mechanics should, in the ' Science and Art Directory,' 

 be placed in the same relationship to theoretical mechanics that practical chemistry 

 and metallurgy do to theory in those subjects. The regulations regarding schools 

 of art, which press so unduly and so severely upon industrial as compared with 

 middle-class students, should be modified so as to prevent the industrial student 

 from being handicapped in the national competition. The only guarantee that the 

 Department should require as to works is that they have been executed by the 

 student under the direction of the teacher. To enable committees and teachers to 

 learn from their failures, the examination papers, when the Department have done 

 with them, should be returned to the respective schools and classes from which 

 they were sent up. With such reforms, and the addition of commercial and general 

 subjects to the syllabus, a system of secondary public schools might be established 

 well fitted to prepare for a true sound technical education. 



Strictly speaking, that education can only be said to begin when the scientific 

 principles on which the trade rests have been mastered, and when there is sufficient 

 knowledge of art to enable the apprentice to read drawings with accuracy and facility. 

 To reach that standard a course of three years' instruction will be required, and 

 when that time cannot be given in the secondary day school it should be completed 

 by attendance at the evening classes. 



It is at this point that tlie apprentice should begin to specialise and apply his 

 studies. lie should also seek rapidly to acquire the manual dexterity and manipu- 

 lative skill that will enable him to do his work well and quickly. In many trades 

 that dexterity and skill can only be acquired in the actual workshop, the stimulus 

 to rapidity ofexecution only there being foimd in sufficient force. There are, however, 

 trades which, though they cannot be well learnt except in the workshop, have tools 

 the nature and uses of which can profitably be taught in technical schools or 

 colleges. 



It is along these lines that we, at Bath Lane, have been endeavouring to 

 advance. Our experience confirms the views expressed by Mr. Mather in his report 

 on the position of the United States to the Koyal Commissioners on Technical 

 Education. He does not attribute the superiority of the American people in many 

 branches of industry to the nature of their technical instruction, but to the high 

 character of their common schools. 



The light thrown by our statistics at Bath I^ane on those points. 



The mediaeval corporation was known as a university, even though it was 

 composed wholly of smiths or coopers or tailors. In the reign of Elizabeth it was 



