728 REroRT— 1902. 



our workmen ' to be the corner-stone of prosperity in all engineering manu- 

 facture. It is from him in countless ways that all hints leading to great inven- 

 tions come. New countries like America and Germany have their chance just 

 now ; they are starting, without having to ' scrap ' any old machinery or old 

 ideas, with the latest machinery and the latest ideas. "For them also the time 

 will come when their machines will be getting out-of-date and the cost of 

 'scrapping' will loom large in their eyes. In the meantime they have taught us 

 lesson?, and this greatest of all lessons— that unless we look ahead with much 

 judgment, unless we take reasonable precautions, unless we pay some regard to 

 the fact that the cleverest people in several nations are hungry for our trade and 

 jealous of our supremacy, we may for a time lose a little of that supremacy. 

 In the last twenty-three years 1 have written a good deal about the harm 

 done to England by the general dislike that there is among all classes for 

 any kind of education. I do not say that this dislike is greater than it used 

 to be in England ; I complain that it is about as great.-' But I have never 

 spoken of the decadence of England. It is only that we have been too confident 

 that those manufactures and that commerce and that skill in engineering, for 

 which Napoleon sneered at us, would remain with us for ever. Many writers 

 have long been pointing out the consequences of neglecting education ; prophesying 

 those very losses of trad^', that very failure of engineers to keep their houses in 

 order, which now alarms all newspaper writers. Panics are ridiculous, but there 

 is nothing ridiculous in showing that we cnn take a hint. We have had a very 

 strong hint given us that we cannot for ever go on with absolutely no education 

 in the i-cientitic principles which underlie all engineering. There is another 

 important thing to remember. Should foreigners get the notion that we are 

 decaying, we shall no longer have our industries kept up by an influx of clever 

 Uitlanders, and we are much too much in the habit of forgetting what we owe 

 to foreigners, Fleming and German, Hollander, Huguenot, and Hebrew, for the 

 development of our natural resources. Think of how much we sometimes owe 

 to one foreigner like the late Sir "William Siemens. 



But I am going too far ; there is after all not so very much of the foolishness of 

 Ishbosheth among us, and I cannot help but feel hopeful as I think lovingly of what 

 British engineers have done in the past. AVe who meet here have lived through 

 the pioneering time of mechanical and electrical and various other kinds of 

 engineering. Our days and ni^rhts have been delightful because we have had the 

 feeling that we also were helping in the creation of a quite new thing never before 

 known. It may be that our successors will have a better time, will see a more 

 rapid development of some other applications of science. Who knows ? In every 

 laboratory of the world men are discovering more and more of Nature's secrets. 

 The laboratory experiment of to-day gives rise to the engineering achievement of 

 to-morrow. But I do say that, however great maj' be the growth of engineering, 

 there can never be a time in the future history of the world, as there has never 

 before been a time, when men will have more satisfaction in the growth of their 

 profession than eigineers have had during the reign of Queen Victoria. 



And now I want to call your attention to a new phenomenon. Over and over 

 again has attention been called to the fact that the engineer has created what is 

 called 'modern civilisation,' has given luxuries of all kinds to the poorest people, 

 has provided engines to do all the slave labour of the world, has given leisure and 

 freedom from drudgery, and chances of refinement and high thought and high 

 emotion to thousands instead of units. But it is doing things more striking still. 

 Probably the most important <if all things is tliat the yoke of superstitions of all 

 kinds on the soids of men should be lifted. The study of natural science is alone 

 able to do this, but education through natural science for the great mass of the 

 people, even for the select few called the distinguished men of the country', has 

 been quite impossible till recently. I say that it is to engineers that the world 



' The old appenticeship system of training men has broken down, and this is the 

 cause of most of our industrial troubles. An apprenticeship system suited to modern 

 conditions is described fully on pages 68-88 of England's Neglect of Science. 



* £oc. cit. 



