June 19, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



963 



tem thus established. In abstract learning, 

 the principles and the methods of science, 

 as of philosophy, of history, grammar and 

 of philology, are practically applied in the 

 acquirement of further knowledge by the 

 educator and the investigator, and in se- 

 curing and in maintaining full possession 

 of that learning by the scholar.* 



A 'technical education' must be defined 

 before it can be intelligently discussed, 

 and in this discussion it will be under- 

 stood that by a technical education is meant 

 one that will most effectively prepare the 

 individual to become competent, after ex- 

 perience has had its ripening effect, 'to 

 perform justly, skilfully and magnanim- 

 ously, all the offices' appertaining to his 

 vocation. His business in life may be com- 

 merce or a profession, trade or transporta- 

 tion, education or theology; in each and 

 all, there is a certain essential foundation 

 of exact knowledge, a certain system of 

 principles assuring stability and character- 

 istic form, and another desirable but less 

 absolutely essential quantity of accessory 

 and incidental information and general 

 education and ' culture, ' which is needed to 

 give the man that finish and perfection of 

 fitting for the intercourse of man with man 

 which, while not vocational or professional, 

 is none the less an element of real and 

 highest success. 



Proceeding to consider the circumstances 

 which determine the form and extent of 

 the technical education of the citizen, the 

 relation of such education to the whole 

 system of preparation by special training 

 for life's special work, it is first necessary 

 to agree upon a definition of the terms 

 technics, technical, technological. The 

 Greek, from which the terms originally 

 come, in the primary and the broadest 

 sense regards these terms as relating to 



* ' The Miltonian Teaching.' An address delivered 

 at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, December 11, 1894. 



the arts, both esthetic and industrial, and 

 the technique of the artist, of the musician, 

 of the watchmaker and of the steam-engine 

 builder, in each case, infers special talent 

 or special acts appropriate particularly to 

 the art. Technical education, therefore, 

 is a system of instruction devoted to the 

 development of a knowledge of an art, as, 

 for example, taught in a school of music, 

 of law or medicine, of engineering, of 

 theology, or of any industrial department. 



Huxley says : Technical education ' means 

 that sort of education which is specially 

 adapted to the needs of men whose busi- 

 ness in life it is to pursue some kind of 

 handicraft ' ; but this definition is obviously 

 narrow. Technical education is admitted 

 to include engineering, for example, which 

 demands a most extensive and most in- 

 tense preparation, and involves as large an 

 amount of learning, especially in both pure 

 and applied science, as any other vocation 

 —as much as is demanded in the other 

 schools of the 'learned professions,' once 

 distinctively so called. The technical edu- 

 cations include all the educations which fit 

 the man for 'the sequel of his life,' as a 

 member of a working community. But 

 any business career is chosen as a means 

 to an end, and that end should always be 

 the attainment of a competence to insure 

 comfort in old age, and meantime a com- 

 fortable life from youth to age, and the 

 privilege of seizing all opportunities for 

 moral and intellectual growth and for be- 

 coming of some use in the world. The 

 business education must, therefore, be ac- 

 companied by a general education such as 

 will do most to fit the scholar for his place 

 in the social world, and to take advantage 

 of those opportunities which come to all 

 energetic men and women in a country 

 such as ours. 



Fortunately, these requirements do not 

 tisually confiict or result in inefficiency of 



