222 



NATURE 



[Jan. 8, 1880 



giving a careful and detailed history of the various 

 schemes considered by the City and Guilds Institute, 

 which may be broadly stated as being three in number. 

 The first of these schemes, proposing to build a central 

 institution upon a site on the Corporation lands on the 

 Thames Embankment, has been dismissed as essen- 

 tially too costly. The second, the proposal to obtain a 

 site from the Commissioners of the South Kensington 

 Estate, is in abeyance since the ancient free "spirit" of 

 the Companies leads them to regard as distasteful either 

 that the Commissioners should be directly represented on 

 the managing body of the Central Institution, or that, as 

 an alternative, the chief scientific bodies of the nation 

 should have the right of being represented on it. The 

 third scheme, which apparently does not stand a much 

 better chance of success than its predecessors, though 

 having many points in its favour, was a proposal to buy 

 the palatial mansion built by Baron Grant at Kensington, 

 with its seven acres of ground, and convert it into a 

 building for a Central Institution by slight but suitable 

 alterations in its interior arrangements, thus obtaining 

 capital laboratories and lecture theatres. But the un- 

 reasoning outcry raised against the site simply because it 

 was in the west, and not in some equally inaccessible 

 situation in the north or in the east, has been so loud in 

 its tones that we believe the project has virtually been 

 abandoned. At least so the semi-officiil article in the 

 Times would lead us to imagine. Prof. Huxley has, 

 however, had a last word on the matter. He cannot 

 quite agree in the view that the guarantees asked by the 

 Lords Commissioners are so unreasonable as the Livery 

 Companies think them. In his second letter of the 29th 

 ult. he says that if he is rightly informed, they amount to 

 being guarantees firstly of sufficiency and permanency of 

 endowment, and secondly of proper government ; the 

 desire of the Commissioners in reserving the right of 

 nominating two or three members of the governing body 

 being merely that they may insure the presence amongst 

 the representatives of the city magnates that small 

 number of "educational experts." To which Mr. Roberts 

 quietly rejoined that educational experts differed con- 

 siderably in the advice they tendered, and that the prin- 

 cipal point of object, on lay in the proposal that the two 

 or three persons nominated by an exterior authority should 

 be the only permanent members of a governing body the 

 majority of whom were continually going off by rotation. 



It is not our place to pronounce judgment upon the 

 conflicting views which have been maintained concerning 

 the conditions imposed by the Commissioners in their 

 offer of a site. If Prof. Huxley's information is correct, it 

 is hard to see how or why the independence of the Guilds, 

 or of the Institute they have founded, should be impaired 

 by the presence on the governing body of such men as, 

 say, Mr. Lyon Playfair, or Mr. Mundella, or perhaps even 

 Prof. Huxley himself. If, on the other hand, the Livery 

 Companics have some further knowledge or insight than 

 Prof. Huxley has, it would certainly be well if they would 

 explain what it is that is incompatible with their ancient 

 liberties, and would suggest some alternative course, 

 which, while reserving them all reason-able liberty of 

 action, should attain the enJs for which guarantees are 

 desired. 



The most painful aspect of the whole controversy is 



one which does not come to the surface in this corre- 

 spondence, but which is nevertheless a very real one. 

 There is a large section of the outside public who take a 

 deep and increasing interest in the question of technical 

 education, and who have watched the present scheme from 

 its first inception with something more than curiosity. 

 They cannot understand that any body of men really 

 intending to carry out a project such as that which was 

 made public two years ago could permit such endless 

 delays, such interminable cross-purposes, such haggling 

 over different schemes, as have been lately witnessed. 

 They begin to fear that all these things are done with a 

 purpose, and that the delays are interested, and the 

 rival schemes manufactured to serve some less noble 

 end. Whether such persons are right or wrong, 

 all these whispers would be at once silenced by a 

 few unmistakable signs of real progress, such as 

 we have looked for in vain. The public knows well 

 enough that the organisation of the City Guilds as 

 are is a blot upon an intelligent community ; that they 

 have ceased in all but name to represent the trades for 

 the sake of which and out of which they arose. It knows 

 full well that their unfathomed funds are not applied to 

 the purpose of elevating and improving their respective 

 crafts, whatever else they may be applied to. And it is 

 quite prepared to say with emphasis when the moment 

 arrives that if reform does not come from within it must 

 co;ne from without. The first step, if such measures 

 must come, will doubtless be the appointment of a Royal 

 Commission of Inquiry. What the second might be he 

 must be bold who would predict. 



The announcements made two years ago were hailed 

 as a note of progress, indicating the probability that wiser 

 counsels would prevail, and that the needed reform was 

 to be brought about quietly and harmoniously from 

 within. But the project for founding a Central Technical 

 College is as far from realisation as ever, and the hopes 

 raised have been sorely disappointed. Men of scientific 

 habits and of business aptitudes are alike getting tired 

 of the endless delays and fruitless negotiations that have 

 taken place. And there are, we suspect, many who, on 

 learning how one scheme after another has fallen through 

 for want of unanimity of purpose to carry it out, will be 

 quite ready to think that it was not without good cause 

 that Prof. Huxley asked : Do the Livery Companies of 

 London intend io carry out any general scheme of Tee/i nict it 

 Education such as that adopted by their own Committee, 

 or do t/iey ?ioi? 



OSTEOLOGY OF MAN 

 Catalogue of the Specimens Illustrating the Osteology and 

 Dentition of Vcrtebrated Animals, Recent and Extinct , 

 contained in the Museum of the Royal C 

 Surgeons of England. By William Henry Flower, 

 Conservator of the Museum. Part I. Man. (London : 

 David Bogue, 1S79.) 



IT is now twenty-five years ago since Prof. Owen, the 

 then Conservator of the Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, completed the last volume of the 

 catalo ue of the osteological collection. Since that time 

 the additions to the Museum have been so numerous and 



