NATURE 



THURSDAY, JAlN'UARY 8, 1S80 



THE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY QUESTION 



THE correspondence which has appeared during the 

 month of December in the columns of the Times 

 concerning the question of a Metropolitan Technical 

 University, has revived a question upon which we have 

 more than once spoken in these columns, and of which 

 we shall hear more hereafter. It is quite evident that the 

 promoters of the City and Guilds of London Institute for 

 the Advancement of Technical Education meet with 

 many great and unforeseen difficulties in the way of 

 pushing into execution their laudable project for applying 

 some of the vast funds they have inherited from the 

 Trade Guilds of the past to the purpose of promoting the 

 elevation of trade by science. It is equally evident that 

 they will not abandon their projects without a very con- 

 siderable effort, especially now that the pressure of public 

 opinion is beginning to bear upon the question and to aid 

 them in their demand. No one probably denies or 

 doubts the legal right of the City Companies to the funds 

 which have thus come down to them. Probably also no 

 one denies or doubts that the law-making power which 

 gave them these legal rights can take them away and can 

 force them to hand over, if need be, to the advancement 

 of Technical Education at large, the wealth which 

 they have ceased to apply to the advancement of 

 Technical Education within their own borders. Two 

 years ago a very definite scheme in this direction was 

 launched by the provisional Committee appointed by 

 some of the Guilds. Recognising the moral obligation 

 upon them to use their funds for the advancement of their 

 respective industries, some dozen out of the eighty City 

 Companies agreed to devote a certain yearly sum for this 

 purpose. They even went so far as to invite a number of 

 distinguished men of science to write reports on the best 

 way of attaining the ends in view, and eventually they 

 embodied their suggestions in a report which was charac- 

 terised by two main propositions: firstly, to establish 

 local technical schools which should be accessible to 

 artisans ; secondly, to found a central institution, chiefly 

 for training technical teachers and scholars of excep- 

 tional promise. This was two years ago ; and in the 

 mean time so little has been done, that some of those 

 who have taken an active part in the earlier stages, begin 

 to be impatient at the little substantial progress made. 



A note of dissatisfaction of this nature was heard at the 

 beginning of the month of December, and gave rise to 

 the discussion in the Times, to which we have alluded. 

 To understand the merits of the controversy it will be 

 necessary to go back to the beginning. The correspon- 

 dence arose out of some remarks made by Prof. Huxley 

 when presiding at the meeting of the Society of Arts on 

 December 3, at which a paper on apprenticeship was 

 read by Prof. Silvanus Thompson, of Bristol, and to which 

 a paragraph was devoted in Nature, vol. xxi. p. 139. 

 Prof. Thompson's paper, which appeared in the Journal 

 of the Society of Arts for December 5, and which has 

 been reprinted in pamphlet form, was devoted to a 

 discussion of the relation between apprenticeship and 

 technical education ; and after la) ing down the general 

 Vol. xxi. — No. 532 



principles of a scientific and rational system of apprentice 

 training, pointed out that the " lower technical,'' or " in- 

 dustrial" training which is needed for the forming of 

 good workmen, cannot exist in any effective degree until 

 there is some provision made for the higher technical 

 training analogous to that of the great technical schools 

 of Germany and France, which would qualify a superior 

 class to become on the one hand foremen and masters, 

 and on the other teachers in technical schools. In short, 

 Prof. Thompson's argument was that there could be no 

 growth of technical schools for the artisan without a 

 central technical university to train teachers for such 

 schools. 



In the discussion which 'ensued Prof. Huxley made 

 some pungent remarks upon the delays which had .-iriser. 

 over the project of the Guilds and Companies of the City 

 of London, who had consulted him some time back con- 

 cerning their proposal to found a Central Institution or 

 Technical College, and who, two years ago had empowered 

 him to make known their good intentions. It wa^ time. 

 he thought, that those good intentions bore fruit. It 

 would be an utter scandal if one shilling were asked for 

 out of the general revenue for this purpose, at least so far 

 as London was concerned, for the Livery Companies were 

 in possession of the enormous funds inherited along with 

 the ancient traditions of the crafts from the old Guilds of 

 London, which were established to aid their respective 

 trades — funds which they were morally, if not legally, 

 bound to apply to the advancement of Technical Educa- 

 tion. 



Prof. Huxley's remarks were not, however, suffered to 

 pass unchallenged. In the Times of December 9 Mr. J. 

 H. Crossman condemned Prof. Huxley and those who act 

 with him as somewhat impatient and hasty in their pro- 

 posals. 



To this letter Prof. Huxley replied a few days later in a 

 most admirably conceived and no less successfully worded 

 letter. What had been proposed was simply the estab- 

 lishment of local technical schools accessible to the 

 artisans, and a Central Institution chiefly for the training 

 of teachers and of scholars of exceptional capacity ; and 

 he added the very pertinent query : " Do the Livery Com- 

 panies of London intend to carry out any general scheme 

 of Technical Education such as that adopted by their 

 own Committee, or do they not ?" 



Mr. Owen Roberts, one of the Honorary Secretaries 

 of the City and Guilds Institute, replied to the point 

 raised by Prof. Huxley's letter, asking whether 

 was aware of the negotiations which had been going 

 on between the City and Guilds Institute, and the Lords 

 Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851, for a piece of 

 land on the South Kensington estate as a sitcfora central 

 institution, and stating that the only reason why these 

 negotiations had not been definitely concluded, 

 lately the Commissioners had put forward certain req 

 ments, as a condition of their grant of a site, which 

 Livery Companies have not considered to be consi 

 with their independence of action. Hence the n 

 delays, which had not, however, debarred the Insti 

 from proceeding with one very important section ol 

 work, namely, the promotion of local schools for arti; 

 Following hard on Mr. Roberts's letter, there appe 

 in the Times of December 27 a communicated article 



