154 



SCIENTIFIC NEAVS. 



[Feb. 17, I E 



they want, and which we can produce better or more 

 cheaply than they can. 



Our chances of preparing industrial products better or 

 cheaper than those manufactured by competing nations 

 must depend chiefly on the greater knowledge, skill, and 

 industry we can bring to bear on their production 

 without a proportionate increase in the cost. This 

 naturally leads us to consider how we can best secure 

 increased knowledge and skill, and on this point Professor 

 Huxley makes some useful remarks, with all the greater 

 authority because for many years he has been an 

 acknowledged leader in the movement for teaching 

 elementary science to the working classes. With pardon- 

 able pride he states that the Science and Art Department 

 has done more in this direction during the last quarter 

 of a century than any organisation which exists either in 

 this or in any other country. At the same time he 

 frankly admits that it exhibits the defects of all our educa- 

 tional systems — it has too much to do with books, and 

 too little to do with things. Not that he would narrow 

 early education and make the primary school a mere 

 annexe of the shop ; but he endorses " the common 

 complaint against the bookish and theoretical character 

 of our primary instruction." 



We are pleased to find that he lays great stress on the 

 importance of drawing, as a training for both the eye 



, and hand. " Artists are born, not made ; but everybody 

 may be taught to draw elevations, plans, and sections ; 

 and pots and pans are as good, indeed better, models for 

 the purpose than the Apollo Belvedere. The plant is 

 not expensive ; and there is this excellent quality about 

 drawing of the kind indicated, that it can be tested almost 

 as easily and severely as arithmetic. Such drawings are 

 either right or wrong, and if they are wrong the pupil 

 can be made to see that they are wrong. From the in- 

 dustrial point of view, drawing has the further merit 

 that there is hardly any trade in which the power of 

 drawing is not of daily and hourly utility." Then again, 

 as to the teaching of elementary science as an element in 

 general instruction, he points out how much may be 

 done with the commonest and simplest of apparatus : 

 " A candle, a boy's squirt, a piece of chalk may be 

 made the starting points whence children may be led 

 into the regions of science as far as their capacity 

 permits, with efficient exercise of their observational and 

 reasoning faculties." Much, however, must depend on 

 the teacher, and "if object lessons often prove trivial 

 failures, it is not the fault of the object lessons, but that 



, of the teacher, who has not found out how much the 

 power of teaching a little depends on knowing a great 

 deal, and that thoroughly." We note by the way that 

 Professor Huxley greatly blames " the detestable system 

 of training teachers which is widely prevalent." He 

 adds : " The memory loaded with mere bookwork is 

 not the thing wanted — is, in fact, worse than useless — in 

 the teacher of scientific subjects. It is absolutely 

 essential that his mind should be full of knowledge, and 

 not of mere learning, and that what he knows should 

 have been learnt in the laboratory rather than in the 

 hbrary." 



Dealing more directly with technical education, he con- 

 siders it a necessity, not only because the old apprentice- 

 ship system has broken down, but because invention is 

 constantly changing the face of our industries, so that 

 " rule of thumb is gradually losing its importance, while 

 that knowledge of principles which alone can deal 

 successfully with changed conditions is becoming more 



and more valuable." He points out that one method of 

 imparting technical instruction is to have technical 

 schools, with a systematic and lengthened course of 

 teaching, requiring the whole time of the pupils. Such 

 schools, however, are very costly, and Professor Huxley 

 urges that for artisans there must be classes, especially 

 evening classes. Many such classes already exist, 

 and are largely attended with the best results. 

 The pressing need now is how to find means to 

 extend them. Granted that it may be needless, and 

 even unjust, to make education compulsory in a thinly 

 populated agricultural district producing abundance of 

 food, the opposite is the case in a densely populated 

 manufacturing district, where the struggle for ex- 

 istence is very keen, and where every ignorant person is 

 more or less a burden upon his fellows. Under such 

 circumstances, says Prof Huxley, "an education rate is, 

 in fact, a war tax, levied for purposes of defence." He 

 cannot see any objection to taxation for purposes of 

 general education, but for technical schools and classes 

 he thinks the taxation should be local. " Our industrial! 

 population accumulates in particular towns and districts ; 

 these districts are those which immediately profit by 

 technical education; and it is only in them that we can 

 find the men practically engaged in industries, among 

 whom some may reasonably be expected to be competent 

 judges of that which is wanted, and of the best means of 

 meeting the want." 



Professor Huxley approves the principle of the 

 Government Bill introduced last session, and thinks 

 there was some misunderstanding as to the proposed 

 function of the Science and Art Department. It was 

 considered by many that the technical education of the 

 country would have been too much under the Depart- 

 ment, " but in reality no power of initiation, nor even of 

 meddling with details, was given to that Department, 

 the sole function of which was to decide whether any 

 plan proposed did or did not come within the limits of 

 technical education." Such towns as Manchester, Liver- 

 pool, Birmingham, or Glasgow could probably be left to 

 decide for themselves, but in smaller towns there would 

 be less certainty of the matter being properly dealt with. 



The struggle for existence involves many complex 

 questions, such as wages, industry, social stability ; and 

 all of these are touched upon by Professor Huxley, 

 briefly, but with considerable breadth of view, and we 

 commend his article to all who wish to vmderstand the 

 true bearings of the case. Our own remarks have 

 reference more particularly to the technique of the Sdb- 

 ject, and we trust that the extracts we have given will 

 lead our readers to consult the original. 



The Gelatine Water Cartridge. — The fatal results o 

 blasting with gunpowder in coal mines of a fiery character 

 have been shown so often that the practice has been aban- 

 doned in scores of pits, and recourse has been had to wedging 

 and other mechanical means for getting down the coal. But, 

 the manulacturers of explosives have never ceased in their en- 

 deavours to find some cartridge which would exercise a rending 

 action as great as or greater than gunpowder, and yet onewhich 

 could be fired with safety in an explosive atmosphere. These 

 results appear to have been attained by the employment of 

 Nobel's gelatine dynamite in Settle's water cartridge. Thou- 

 sands of such cartridges have been fired in daily practice, 

 and in no case has either spark or flame been seen, while 

 hundreds of special tests have been made under the eyes of 

 trained observers with a like result. 



