SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— G. 583 



(4) These circumstances together with the decay of the old apprenticeship system, 

 combine to render very necessary a reconsideration of existing systems of education 

 and training. 



(5) The fundamental problem : — how to secure that the three essentials — workshop 

 training and experience, technical education, and general self-development — are all 

 obtained during the pre-university stage without the sacrifice of any one of the three 

 to another. 



(6) The Air Force system of apprenticeship training considered in this connection. 

 The scheme a large-scale experiment with the new product of the post-primary schools. 

 The underlying ideas of the scheme : the better the general education of a boy of 

 sixteen the quicker can he absorb technical training and acquire skill of hand ; the 

 process can bo further quickened if his education is continued at a corresponding 

 level and in the closest touch with his workshop training and everyday experiences ; 

 by bringing the boy and his education into touch with real life he can readily be made 

 a working partner in the process of his own development. The experience gained 

 suggests that with boys of this type and a carefully correlated course the increased 

 rate of progress in the shops can more than compensate for the eight working liours 

 given to education. All the three essentials can thus be obtained during the years 

 between sixteen and twenty, while the more able boys will be ready to proceed direct 

 to a course of university standard. 



(7) General studies an essential part of apprenticeship training. The engineer's 

 need of a wider education with a better understanding of the world of to-day, its 

 history, geography and peoples, its inter-relations, working processes, problems and 

 interests. 



(8) Education originally the privilege of the few, and these a class more concerned 

 with ideas than with things. University and secondary education developed on lines 

 to suit this type of mind — the minority — not so well suited to the practical-minded 

 type — the majority — who for their education must see and handle and make direct 

 contact with life. Hence the ' uninterested schoolboy.' Part-time education a 

 cure for this type. All post-primary schools should be of one class— secondary — 

 with courses modified to meet local needs. Secondary schools where possible might 

 develop industrial and commercial sides, and boys remain at their old schools during 

 the part-time period. The position of the works-school in the system. For their 

 further training those not proceeding to the universities would look to the technical 

 college — the local university. 



(9) The need for the closest co-operation between the school and the workshop 

 or office. Further widening of the interest taken by the professional institutions. 

 Local advisory councils of the six parties concerned — -the management, the worker, 

 the school or education authority, the teacher, the parent, the boy. The evolution 

 from these of a national advisory council. 



(10) The university course, like that of the secondary schools, evolved for the 

 scholarly type of mind. When engineering first sought help from the universities 

 it needed men of this type of mind, the design engineer and the research worker. 

 To-day it needs help no less in the training of the practical-minded man for produc- 

 tion and management. Can the universities modify their long-established practice 

 and outlook to meet this new demand and the needs of these practical-minded men ? 



Afternoon. 

 Visit to the Falls of Clyde (Lanarkshire Hydro-electric Power Station). 



Friday, September 7. 



Presidential Address by Sir William Ellis, G.B.E., on The Influence 

 of Engineering on Civilisation. (See p. 128.) 



Mr. H. E. Yarrow. — Recent Developments in High Pressure Boilers. 



The increase in steam pressure and temperature is one of the outstanding features 

 in the development of modem water tube boiler design, and is not confined to electric 

 power stations only, high-pressure boilers having been introduced into many passenger 

 and cargo vessels. 



