754 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



performed by a junior clerk are not obvious, and tlie work is not educative 

 unless and until a broad foundation of general education has been laid. 



(b) Without this broad foundation the work tends to have a narrowing 

 influence upon the mind and a deteriorating effect upon the powers : the worker 

 quickly arrives at a point beyond which no further development seems possible. 



Suggestions as to subjects which should be introduced in specialised instruc- 

 tion : Elementary economics, principles of accountancy and of record-keeping, 

 geography on modern principles, reading of good journals and newspapers. 



As to where instruction should be given, it is clear that the general principles 

 set out above could only be inculcated in a school where the tone and discipline 

 were good ; the secondary school is undoubtedly the best place for girls to 

 receive both general and special instruction. 



SATVBDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. The Relation of Education to Industry. 

 By Eight Hon. Sir ^YlLLIAM M.\ther, M.Inst.C.E., LL.D. 



The question is of the highest importance, and, viewed in the largest sense 

 of the words, the relationship is as close as that of the soul to the body, for 

 it is the spirit which inspires, directs, and ennobles the bodily activities. ' 



At the Meeting of the British Association in Manchester in 1887 the writer 

 dealt with another fundamental aspect of the same question in discussino- the 

 subject of manual training as a main feature of national education. The 

 President of the Association, Sir H. E. Koscoe, remarked in his presidential 

 Address on that occasion that if the country is to maintain its industrial and 

 commercial supremacy it can only be accomplished by a reconsideration of the 

 whole question of education on new lines embracing all the people, and that a 

 statesman who could effectively achieve this would earn the gratitude of 

 generations yet to come. Succeeding Presidents like Sir Norman Lockyer and 

 Sir William Ramsay enforced this view, but the statesman has yet to appear. 

 A much more liberal provision of the means and opportunities of education for 

 all classes is essential to the well-being of the nation. At the time of the 

 former meeting of the Association in Manchester our national €<li!cation was 

 miserably inadequate for the highest efficiency of work and service. Even the 

 Act of 1870, designed to provide in some measure the means of education 

 for the masses of the people, failed of its purpose, and it was not until 1889 

 that Parliament made any attempt to provide the means of any satisfactory 

 secondary and technical education, with the consequence that nations such as 

 Germany and the United States, where education had greatly developed, reaped 

 to a far greater extent the fruits of scientific discovery. During the period 

 marked by the achievements of Faraday. England produced some of the most 

 eminent scientists of the world ; yet it was in foreign countries in which the 

 spirit of education had long before penetrated the lives of the people that the 

 new revelations of scientific discovery were most successfully applied to the 

 common needs of life. The industrial and commercial results achieved thereby 

 at last stirred our Government to send out the Royal Commission of 1882 to 

 investigate the causes and to inquire into the facilities for secondary and 

 technical education existing in foreign countries. The Report of the inquiry 

 published in 1884 of the conditions of education in Europe and in the United 

 States, in which country the writer had spent eight months of careful investisa- 

 tion, created widespread alarm in the United Kingdom and in other parts of the 

 Empire. No immediate action ensued therefrom until, as a result of the 

 persistent efforts of a few resolute men, an Act was passed for the advancement 

 of technical education at the very close of the session of 1889, to be followed 

 by the Act of 1890 which appropriated the proceeds of the ' whisky and beer ' 

 tax to the support of technical education. The large manufacturing centres took 



