712 BEPORT— 1889. 



enacted that no person should exercise any trade or mystery without having served 

 a seven years' apprenticeship. By the judges that statute was held as applying 

 only to the trades then existing. All the new industries, such as those of Man- 

 chester and Birmingham, were thus exempt. Eventually, through the influence of 

 the teachings of Adam Smith and the Political Economists in 1814, the statute 

 of Elizabeth was wholly repealed. But we might escape the danger, monopoly, 

 and exclusiveness without throwing away the advantages of thorough training. 

 The trades' unions have, to some extent, taken the place of the ancient guilds, and 

 it is for them to consider whether they would not confer a benefit upon their class 

 and upon the country by requiring a certain term of apprenticeship, or some evi- 

 dence of capacity for work from their members. 



7. On Manual, or some form of Technical Instruction a necessary element of 

 a Gomjpulsory System of Education. By Edward J. Watheeston. 



The author points out that while school accommodation in England and Wales 

 now exists for all the children who should be fillijig the seats, viz., 5,300,000, the 

 average attendance in 1888 was only 3,630,000. This lamentable state of things 

 existed in spite of the School Boards and School Attendance Committees, and of a 

 costly central Department, and the fact that the annual expenditure on Elemen- 

 tary Schools exceeded 7,000,000/. sterling. His contention is that the instruction 

 actually given in the schools was mechanical, lifeless, and uneducating ; and his great 

 point is that the remedy for the defective teaching and the bad attendance would 

 be found in a system of manual and technical instruction, which would react on 

 the ordinary subjects of education, and help to make the scholars more skilful and 

 scientific handicraftsmen when they go into the world to earn their livelihood at 

 the forge, the factory, the chemical works, or the loom. Quoting H.M. Inspectors 

 Harrison, Blakiston, Scott Coward, on the quality of the children's attainments in 

 the ' three R's,' he inquires what is being done for science teaching. Here he calls 

 into requisition Sir H. Roscoe's evidence before the Royal Commission, who, 

 together with Sir Philip Magnus, deplores its present poor quality, especially when 

 contrasted with the condition of things in foreign countries. The author shows 

 what is being done at the school in the Rue Tournefort, Paris. In this school the 

 instruction comprehends the usual primary com'se, but great stress is laid on geo- 

 metrical drawing, and in addition, the boys, instead of spending two or three hours 

 a week, which are usually devoted in primary schools to cutting out designs in 

 paper, spend about three hours a day in the workshop. This school is a liberal 

 technical school in the best sense of the word. Everything made by the boys is 

 first drawn out geometrically on paper to scale before being made. There are 

 classes for carpentry, forging, metalwork, modelling, stone-carving and wood- 

 carving. The school is admirably provided with abundance of tools. A very large 

 number of models and other things have been given to the school, which inside is 

 literally covered from floor to ceiling with the work of the pupils. It is this kind 

 of school which the author desires to see established all over the country, and he 

 suggests rearrangement of the school course into three divisions ; the first to em- 

 brace children up to seven years of age, who should be instructed entirely on the 

 Kindergarten methods. Reference is made to Mr. Scott Coward's warm praise of 

 this method. From seven to eleven years of age the author would introduce 

 elementary manual instruction, besides geometrical and freehand drawing. Here 

 the teaching should not be trade or professional teaching, but formative and educa- 

 tive of hand and eye. For scholars over eleven he suggests distinctly technical and 

 professional teaching-, such as is given in the Rue Tournefort School or the Ecole 

 ProfessioneUe Municipale at Rheims, described by Sir Philip Magnus to the Royal 

 Commission. ' Give the children an education that will be valuable to them, and 

 we shall not be deploring the bad attendance at school. Why do not our workmen 

 and foremen possess a sound knowledge of the science on which their industries 

 depend ? ' The author complains strongly of the central Department, and asks for 

 a simpler Code : the abolition of the Standard examination, and the banishment of 



