June 1st, 1887.] 



SCIENTIFIC NE\VS. 



91 



THE TECHNICAL TRAINING AT THE 

 CENTRAL INSTITUTION. 



PROFESSOR AYRTON, F.R.S., recently gave an ad- 

 dress on the above subject at a well-attended meeting 

 of the leading advocates of technical education, Professor 

 Huxley being in the chair. After some introductory re- 

 marks, the lecturer said that in our grandfathers' days, nay, 

 even in our fathers', the only subjects that were deemed 

 fit to be studied by a gentleman were classics and mathe- 

 matics. It was, he supposed, accepted then, as it certainly 

 was now, that the two objects of mental training were, 

 first, that the reasoning power might be cultivated, second, 

 that the mind might be stored with knowledge. If so, 

 then the impression must have existed that the means 

 adopted for obtaining the one result could not be employed 

 in securing the other. The working out of puzzles with the 

 aid of classical grammars and dictionaries was the recog- 

 nised and stereotyped process for the training of the 

 reasoning power, and that the information thus obtained 

 would probably be ot no use whatever to the student in his 

 practical life, appeared to constitute the most certain proof 

 of its value in the eyes of the many. 



For a lad of a practical turn who was not fond of ab- 

 stract reasoning, could it be a profitable course of study 

 that told him he might take for granted that the whole is 

 greater than the part, but not the equally obvious fact that 

 two sides of a triangle vi'ere greater than the third ? Was 

 it in his nature, Professor Ayrton asked, to sympathise with 

 his instructors when they refused to allow him to regard 

 certain obvious facts as true until they had been proved by 

 a rather elaborate train of reasoning, which did not make 

 the facts one bit more certain ? But that was the study of 

 Euclid, a study that seemed to him to resemble some game 

 that was played according to rules which were quite arbi- 

 trarily selected, and which those who aimed at advance not 

 unnaturally refused to be shackled by. The playing of this 

 mathematical game he felt at liberty to criticise, because 

 it was most enchanting to him in his boyhood, and was one 

 in which he was generally the winner. He supposed, there- 

 fore, that he saw the best side of it, but that did not blind 

 him to the fact that his comrades were not enthusiastic 

 about its merits, nor make him forget the attitude it led him 

 to take with reference to experimental science. 



It should not be supposed that he was decrying the study 

 of mathematics ; what he was opposing was the study of 

 mathematics as an end. Mathematics was one of the most 

 useful and powerful weapons the natural philosopher 

 possessed, but it was no use spending all one's time making 

 guns and learning how to load them, if they were not now 

 and then to be fired off. While, therefore, mathematics 

 was being taught in one part of a school or college, its use 

 should be taught in another, and the more valuable the 

 student found that mathematics was to him in the practical 

 side of his work, the more eager would he be to master it. 

 Some of the greatest inventions that had been made — the 

 improvements in the steam engine by Watt, the construc- 

 tion of the locomotive by Stephenson, the discovery of the 

 mechanical production of the electric currents by Faraday, 

 or, coming to more modern times, the telephone, the micro- 

 phone, the phonograph, and theincandescent lamp — were not 

 the outcome of the universities or of university training. 

 In fact, theory, unaided by experience, showed the impossi- 

 bility of a simple speaking machine, and so hindered rather 

 than aided the invention of the phonograph. Gradually the 

 study of science was introduced into English schools and 

 colleges, but natural philosophy, that is the philosophy of 

 nature, was mainly taught mathematically and unnaturally ; 

 the experimental course, if there were one, being relegated 



to those who were weak in their mathematics. Even in 

 this course the students never touched the apparatus them- 

 selves, so that this so-called experimental course was no 

 more an education in the methods employed in attacking 

 new physical problems, and in overcoming the difficulties 

 encountered in experimental research, than occasionally 

 seeing the Beckwiths performing feats in the water tank, 

 illuminated by the lime-light, can be considered as a training 

 in swimming. Rapidly, too, the experiments shown at the 

 lectures became classical ; it was an historical and not a 

 living science that came to be taught. 



Technical education had been defined as teaching people 

 to apply science to industry ; not only by means of technical 

 education is the practical man trained to use his brain when 

 he uses his hands, but what is quite as important for the 

 country's welfare, the scholar, by receiving technical educa- 

 tion, learns to use his hands when using his brain. Technical 

 education, then, was not only the means by which scientific 

 knowledge might be acquired by the manufacturing class, 

 who, starving for lack of a food that they had hitherto so 

 little valued, were allowing England's greatness to depart 

 for other shores, but it also put the scholar en rapport with 

 his country's needs, and showed him what were the battles 

 waiting to be won with his all-powerful mathematical and 

 scientific weapons. 



Darwin had shown us what was the result of a struggle for 

 existence ; it led to the survival of the fittest. Are, then, the 

 English people the fittest? What about the lace curtains, 

 he asked, the web of which is made in England, but which, 

 before they can be sold in England, have to be sent to 

 France or Belgium to have the pattern put on, because we 

 have not the requisite machinery ? What about the 

 steamers built on the Clyde for the German nation, which as 

 soon as they can just float are manned by a crew sent from 

 Germany, and taken over to that country to have their in- 

 teriors fitted, because this can be done better and more 

 cheaply in Germany than in England ? What about the 

 watch industry? In 1856, he believed it was, England 

 made watches for the whole world, and now it imports large 

 numbers yearly from Switzerland and America. He should, 

 perhaps, be answered that that was because Continental 

 workmen would work for a pittance that English workmen 

 scorned, but did that apply to the Waltham watch, the 

 Waterbury watch ? Was America so noted for low wages ? 

 If any proof were wanting that the real explanation was 

 the greater technical knowledge, the greater belief in the 

 necessity for improvement that existed among the Americans, 

 the display at the Inventions Exhibition of the whole pro- 

 cess of turning out Waltham watches would furnish it. 

 While we were saying to ourselves that our fathers' waj^s 

 should be our ways, the American guessed that the very 

 fact of any particular process having been used by those 

 before him was a sufficient reason for concluding that he 

 could arrive at a better one. No doubt we were handi- 

 capped by the fact that vast sums had been spent in 

 machinery in England, which our manufacturers were loth 

 to discard, even although it would only turn out articles 

 that had gone out of date and were totally unsaleable. 

 And curiously enough some preferred continuing to make 

 these articles (and to regard the want of business as due to 

 over-production) to laying out capital on new modern ma- 

 chinery which a country taking up the industry starts by 

 buying. But this was not a sufficient explanation. England 

 had money enough to make or buy the very best machinery 

 when it recognised the importance of having it ; and one of 

 the results of the technical education which the manufac- 

 turers' sons, who were beginning to come to the Central 

 Institution, were receiving there, would be to bring about 

 a recognition of the fact that not only to maintain the lead, 



