Ixxxiv REPORT — 187G. 



its skilled men, or neglects in its highest places this primary duty, may ex- 

 pect to find the demand for such skill gradually to pass away, and along 

 with it the industry for which it was wanted. I do not claim for scien- 

 tific education more than it will accomijlish, nor can it ever replace the 

 after- training of the workshop or factory. Rare and powerful minds have, 

 it is true, often been independent of it ; but high education always gives an 

 enormous advantage to the country where it prevails. Let no one suppose 

 I am now referring to elementary instruction, and much less to the active 

 work which is going on everywhere around us, in preparing for examina- 

 tions of all kinds. These things are all very useful in their way ; but it is 

 not by them alone that the practical arts are to be sustained in the country. 

 It is by education in its highest sense, based on a broad scientific founda- 

 tion, and leading to the application of science to practical purposes — in itself 

 one of the noblest pursuits of the human mind— that this result is to be 

 reached. That education of this kind can be most eff'ectively given in a 

 university, or in an institution like the Polytechnic School of Ziirich, which 

 differs from the scientific side of a university only in name, and to a large 

 extent supplements the teaching of an actual university, I am firmly con- 

 vinced ; and for this reason, among others, I have always deemed the estab- 

 lishment in this country of Examining Boards with the power of granting 

 degrees, but with none of the higher and more important functions of a 

 university, to have been a measure of questionable utility. It is to Oxford 

 and Cambridge, widely extended as they can readily be, that the country 

 should chiefly look for the development of practical science ; they have abun- 

 dant resources for the task ; and if they wish to secure and strengthen their 

 lofty position, they can do it in no way so effectually as by showing that in 

 a green old age they preserve the vigour and elasticity of youth. 



If any are disposed to think that I have been carrying this meeting into 

 dream-land, let them pause and listen to the result of similar efforts to those 

 I have been advocating, undertaken by a neighbouring country when on the 

 verge of ruin, and steadily pursued by the same country in the climax of its 

 prosperity. " The University of Berlin," to use the words of Hofmann, 

 *' like her sister of Bonn, is a creation of our century. It was founded in 

 the year 1810, at a period when the pressure of foreign domination weighed 

 almost insupportably on Prussia ; and it will ever remain significant of the 

 direction of the German mind that the great men of that time should have 

 hoped to develop, by high intellectual training, the forces necessary for the 

 regeneration of their country." It is not for me, especially in this place, to 

 dwell upon the great strides which Northern Germany has made of late years 

 in some of the largest branches of industry, and particularly in those which 

 give a free scope for the application of scientific skill. " Let us not sup- 

 pose," says M. "VVurtz in his recent report on the Artificial Dyes, " that 

 the distance is so great between theory and its industrial applications. This 



