SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The English are working themselves into no 

 slight excitement over their industrial position. 

 They believe that they are losing ground as a nation, 

 and both statesmen and scholars are looking for 

 the cause and the cure for this unfortunate state 

 of affairs. Lord Hartington and Professor Hux- 

 ley have recently addressed their countrymen on 

 this topic in a most interesting and suggestive 

 manner. Professor Huxley compared the indus- 

 trial forces of Europe to the organization of the 

 ^reat standing armies, and he asserted that the 

 industrial competition of the present is really a 

 state of war, though carried . on for different 

 objects and with far different results from 

 those of ordinary warfare. "It does not break 

 heads, and it does not shed blood," said 

 Professor Huxley, " but it starves the man who 

 succeeds in the war of competition, and the na- 

 tion which succeeds in the war of competition 

 beats the other by starvation." Lord Hartington 

 accepted this metaphor as expressing the truth, 

 and drew a most pitiful picture of what England 

 would become were she defeated in this industrial 

 warfare. " The consequences to the nation would 

 lie a diminution of wealth and of the influence 

 which we have acquired through our pre-eminent 

 industrial position. What would this country 

 be without its manufactures and industries ? No 

 doubt we should still have our material resources, 

 our iron and steel, and the muscular energy of 

 what would then be our superabundant popula- 

 tion ; but, instead of being where we are now, we 

 should be hewers of wood and drawers of water 

 for the world. If ever our raw materials could 

 be manufactured for the uses and wants of the 

 world better in other countries than in our own, 

 we should become the slaves and servants of the 

 jest of the world, instead of its leaders and masters, 

 as we have been hitherto." 



ing industrial defeat would mean a disastrous 

 change in the circumstances of almost every 

 private person. The result would be " a loss of 

 affluence to those now rich, poverty to those 

 now prosperous, and to the masses of the country 

 to those whose only means of subsistence is the 

 demand for their manual and intelligent labor, it 

 would mean famine, indigence, and starvation.' 

 The speaker asserted that the plain truth was, 

 that, just as in actual warfare, victory in the in- 

 dustrial struggle can only be secured by the posses- 

 sion of scientific knowledge and the application of 

 the most scientific instruction to the masses of the 

 people. At the present time, Germany and France 

 are making enormous efforts to provide adequate 

 technical instruction for the people, and the lesser 

 continentp,! nations are following their example. 

 England is lagging in this respect. Much has 

 been done by the employers of labor, but much 

 remains to be done. Lord Hartington expressed 

 the hope that in every considerable centre indus- 

 trial and technical schools would be established, 

 suitable to the wants of the particular district. 

 Professor Huxley has since returned to this point, 

 and eloquently urged the necessity of organizing 

 industrial education. He has pointed out what 

 general direction this organization should follow, 

 but has not entered into any details. It is cer- 

 tainly suggestive, however, to find the very first 

 of England's statesmen and scientists uniting in 

 their appreciation of the danger which threatens 

 Great Britain, as well as agreeing that industrial 

 and technical education is the proper means of 

 avoiding this danger. 



But, Lord Hartington continued, the ill would 

 not be confined to the country as a whole. It 

 would be visited upon individuals. This impend- 

 No. 221— 1887. 



As IS THE CASE with most other similar institu- 

 tions in the eastern states, a considerable share of 

 the work of the Massachusetts agricultural station 

 is purely chemical. The report for 1886 con- 

 tains the results of some hundred and sixty or 

 more analyses of fodders, dairy products, ferti- 

 lizers, water, etc. ; and this portion of the report 

 is evidently thoroughly good of its kind, and can- 

 not fail to be of service to the farmers of the 

 state. The field and feeding experiments are 

 made more prominent in the report, however, than 

 the chemical work, as befits their greater general 



