534 REPORT— 1903. 



jects in favour of Latin and Greek is producing a standard of classical attainment 

 in our youth greatly in advance of that to he found in other countries, but it is 

 certain that in history, modern languages, mathematics, and science the product 

 of our public schools is sadly deficient. 



There is another point related to our deficient general scientific training on 

 which I wish to offer some remarks, and that is in relation to manufacture. It is 

 the fashion among some of our scientific people to talk of our manufacturers as if 

 they were a very ignorant lot and to suppose that one word from some professor 

 who has never seen outside a laboratory would be sufficient to put them right. 

 Now in my somewhat varied experience I have had occasion to become acquainted 

 with corners of our great manufacturing areas, and while my experience is small 

 .lud not enough to generalise upon, it is nevertheless several times as great as that 

 of some who are ready to adopt the superior attitude, but have none. 



The loss of one industry after another is only too patent. In so far as this 

 may be due to want of enterprise in our men of business we are not concerned 

 with the cause in this Section ; in so far as it may be due to want of that little 

 assistance which the fiscal arrangements in other countries make possible for our 

 rivals again we are not concerned in this Section ; in so far as our patent laws 

 are unique among those of manufacturing nations in allowing the foreigner to 

 manufacture in his own country under the protection of our patent law, so that 

 the most valuable school we possess, the manufactory, as well as the manu- 

 facture, is conducted to the advantage of our rivals — a point which I suppose it is 

 unnecessary to commend to the notice of Mr. Chamberlain — with this, too, we have 

 no concern in this Section ; but in so far as this, or the want of enterprise or of 

 foresight that leads to it, is due to ignorance and to want of appreciation of scien- 

 tific advance we are very much concerned with it. If I may refer to my*own 

 limited experience, there is a lamentable contrast in the manner in which a great 

 number of our own countrymen look at any proposition put before them and that 

 in which the alert American does. It is useless to explain that which would be 

 self-evident to a man with a moderate knowledge of chemistry and physics such 

 as our schools ought to supply, or for which they should at least lay the foun- 

 dation, for the words have no meaning; they are merely words. He distrusts 

 anything new ; he has heard of a new process before that did not work out well ; 

 experience on the Continent to him is no experience at all, for he believes the 

 inhabitants in such distant parts of the earth are not capable of knowing as well as 

 the enlightened Englishman whether a thing is properly done or not, and so he 

 goes on as he did before, perfectly content. This attitude would not be possible 

 with the most elementary imderstanding of common principles. 



But there is another side to this picture. Anyone who has discussed any 

 scheme with the board of directors, the manager, the engineer, and the chemist of 

 one of our great manufactories must have been struck with the concentrated 

 ability there found in harness. It has often seemed to me that it is a great 

 misfortune that our professors of mechanics, of physics, and of chemistry are in 

 so many instances precluded from a better acquaintance with the working of these 

 great machines — a misfortune not for the works, at least directly, but for the 

 professors, and more especially for their pupils. 



Nowhere are scientific problems of greater complexity constantly having to be 

 solved than in a great manufactory ; nowhere is such concentrated talent necessary 

 as in a works organised and carried on in competition with all the world. I look 

 upon these as our most valuable schools, and the closer the touch between them 

 and those whose province it is to teach, the better for the teacher and the pupil. 



It is, perhaps, hardly desirable to mention any one where there are so many. 

 I am tempted to dwell upon the problem which has been at last successfully 

 solved by Parsons, this being the joint product of the school and of the works ; but 

 there is one picture— a contrast, I will not say of light and shade, but of colour and 

 colour — to which I must refer. I remember in my early days, in the surroundings 

 of a classical atmosphere, the general feeling of contempt for the manufacturer, the 

 intellectually inferior creature who only made money, but who knew nothing of 

 Tvirrat or TiTvfxnai. I am not sure that some such feeling does not still exist among 



