TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 731 
and moral education, of libraries and dormitories, and of original research, 
but these are all important, for the university must attend to everything 
that affects life. The majority of students get more from association than 
from class teaching. 
The student at a university has a right to expect not only that his 
knowledge will be increased, but that he will enter into a larger, fuller 
life. The State has a right to expect that every calling—even the humblest 
—will receive benefit from an institution it creates and supports. If not, 
wherefore should the support be given ? 
MONDAY, AUGUST 30. 
Joint Discussion with Section E on Geographical Teaching.—See p. 532. 
The following Papers were then read :— 
1. Practical Work in Evening Schools. By W. Hewirt, B.Sc. 
The evening school has a distinct and well-recognised place in the 
existing educational system in England. The special character of its work 
is determined by the fact that the large majority of students have already 
entered upon some definite daily occupation and require a training which 
will give them that broader knowledge and intellectual understanding of 
their trade or profession which modern industrial conditions do not pro- 
vide. The desire of many students to confine their attention to a narrow 
range of_specialised technical knowledge has to be overcome by seeking, 
through the medium of the materials, machinery, and processes of their 
trade, to arouse an interest in the underlying principles and in the necessary 
mathematical, geometrical, and experimental discipline. The recent general 
introduction of systematic courses of work into the evening school system is 
tending to bring about a better co-ordination of these necessary intellectual 
methods with the purely professional or mechanical instruction. 
For the younger industrial students a course of practical work should 
include (a) simple experimental work in mechanics, physics, and chemistry ; 
(b) measurement and drawing to scale with instruments; (c) practical 
exercises in the proper and intelligent use of the tools and simpler machines 
connected with the trade—each of these sections being utilised to suggest 
direct exercises in calculation, graphical representation, and clear literary 
statement. For older students who have a greater practical knowledge of 
their craft a different course is necessary—introducing and explaining 
modern developments in machines and processes, explanation of the causes 
of successful and unsuccessful operations, and, where possible, experimental 
exercises in testing the strength and character of materials or the results 
obtained from a machine or piece of practical apparatus arranged for 
experimental purposes. 
In all cases the interest of the student is to be sought by approaching 
the subject through familiar trade details or phenomena, and letting the 
necessary mathematical, graphical, or scientific developments arise naturally 
therefrom. The practical handicraft exercises should be selected so as to 
combine accurate work to drawing and scale (including, where necessary, 
geometrical projection or development), and, when possible, leading to the 
production of an object which embodies a scientific principle associated 
with the theoretical instruction of the lecture-room. The apparatus for 
experimental work should be on a scale large enough to be commensurable 
with actual workshop conditions, and appealing to the student as leading 
to results as applicable in the workshops as in the laboratory. 
