SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, JUNE 29, if 



At a meeting held at the Mansion House, London, on June 8, 

 in support of a scheme for establishing polytechnic institutes in 

 South London, a speech was delivered by Lord Salisbury, in which 

 be pointed out, that, if the law of " the survival of the fittest " is to 

 hold, there must be a rapid improvement in the human race at no 

 ■distant day. Lord Salisbury, after passing in review the efforts 

 which have been made in London to meet the demand for technical 

 instruction, concluded as follows : " I have only one more word 

 to say, just to call your attention to another aspect of this case, and 

 to commend it to your efforts. We live in a time when men multi- 

 ply fast, but apparently the means of supporting them do not mul- 

 tiply as rapidly ; when there is vehement competition, and occa- 

 sionally intervals of deep depression. And if you should look more 

 ■closely, you will find that one cause, at least, of this phenomenon 

 is that man, as the mere owner of muscle, is being edged out by 

 another and more powerful competitor. Merely as an agent of 

 physical force, as the possessor of the power of labor, the steam- 

 engine is a competitor which drives him easily out of the market. 

 And more and more the mere unskilled labor is being made un- 

 necessary by the development of the forces which mechanical sci- 

 ence has discovered. And as the world goes on, you must expect 

 this tendency to increase. You must expect mechanical force to 

 become more varied and more powerful and more cheap, and the 

 ■competition with human arms and limbs to become more hopeless. 

 But there is one region where the machine can never follow the 

 human being, and that is in the exercise of thought. In skill, in 

 cultivated mind, in the power to adapt the processes of thought to 

 the laws of nature, in all that we call ' skilled labor ' of the highest 

 kind, — in that man must always have a monopoly, and need fear 

 no encroachment from the competition of the steam-engine. It is 

 to the development of his powers in that respect that the increase 

 in the means of subsistence, and the opening of new paths of self- 

 support, must be found. On all of us, in whatever position we are, 

 is pressing, as one of the most anxious subjects of public care, the 

 discoveries of methods by which the teeming millons of this country 

 -shall be able to maintain themselves in a prosperous, decent, and 

 comfortable condition. We cannot find in their unskilled labor a 

 satisfaction of that want. The difficulties are enhanced by the fact 

 that our neighbors in other countries have been sensible of the 

 ■superiority which skilled education can confer, and have not been 

 slow to take advantage of it. If we will not be left behind in the 

 race, if we desire to find any satisfactory solution for the deepest and 

 the most inscrutable problem of our time, if we wish our complex 

 community and high civilization to be maintained secure from all 

 the dangers which the presence of unfed, unprosperous, untaught 

 millions must bring upon them, we shall do our utmost to give a 

 healthy and a rapid development to the secondary education of the 

 working-classes." 



In commenting on this speech, and on the report of the proceed- 

 ings as given in the Times, Nature takes occasion to say, " For 

 many a day, as our readers know, we have been urging the neces- 

 sity for the establishment of a proper system of technical instruc- 

 tion. The subject is one of such pressing importance that we have 

 returned to it again and again, seeking to present it in many differ- 

 ent aspects ; and Lord Salisbury's speech and the article in the 

 Times may be taken as indications that large classes of the com- 



munity have at last begun to understand that the nation has no 

 time to lose in setting about a task which ought long ago to have 

 been most seriously undertaken. Even if the question had little 

 direct relation with economic interests, it would be for many rea- 

 sons desirable to secure for manual training a place among our 

 educational methods. Attention has hitherto been too exclusively 

 devoted in schools to such knowledge as may be derived from 

 books. It is necessary, from the strictly educational point of view, 

 that teachers should aim at a wider, more direct, and more prac- 

 tical development of the mental powers of their scholars. But 

 other and even more fundamental interests are also concerned. 

 The leading nations of the world, our rivals in industry and trade, 

 have already perceived the benefits to be secured from a thorough 

 mastery, on the part both of employers and employed, of the prin- 

 ciples of science as applied to agricultural and manufacturing pro- 

 cesses. The result is, that in many of the best markets, where our 

 supremacy as a trading people was formerly unquestioned, we find 

 ourselves at a disadvantage ; and it is certain, that, unless we place 

 ourselves on a level with our competitors, we shall have to pass 

 through some very bitter national experiences. The question is 

 really one of life and death for England. It is a question whether 

 in the near future there are or are not to be sufficient employment 

 and remuneration for the vast and growing masses of her popula- 

 tion." 



The modern tendency of population to drift from the country 

 to towns and cities is well illustrated by some figures published in 

 a recent number of the Melbourne Argus. These figures have at- 

 tracted considerable attention in Australia, where the tendency is 

 particularly marked in the case of Melbourne, Sydney, and Ade- 

 laide. In Melbourne the yearly increase in population has been 

 the greatest, the gain during the past three years varying from 

 nineteen thousand to twenty-two thousand ; and this increase is 

 apparently still growing. The population of Melbourne and its 

 suburbs is estimated at 400,000, against 250,000 in 1878. During 

 the same time there has also been an increase in Sydney ; and it is 

 believed that this city must now be nearly as large as Melbourne, 

 although with due pride the Melbourne Argus expresses its belief 

 that the latter city is destined to be the real capital of Australia. 

 This increase in city population has been at the expense of the 

 country districts. The desertion of work at the gold-fields has 

 tended to depopulate some sections, which population has gravi- 

 tated toward the large cities. In 1861 Melbourne contained one- 

 fourth of the population of the colony of Victoria; in 1 881 this 

 proportion had increased to one-third, and it is now two-fifths; and 

 apparently we may soon see the phenomenon of one-half the people 

 of the colony living in the city, and one-half outside of it. Similar 

 conditions practically are true of Sydney and Adelaide. Melbourne 

 at present contains one-seventh of the entire population of Australia. 

 Whether this drifting from country to city will have any effect on 

 the prosperity of the colony remains yet to be seen. 



THE THREE AMERICAS PERMANENT EXHIBITION. 



The heartiness with which both Houses of Congress have dealt 

 with the projectors of the ' Three Americas Permanent Exhibition ' 

 that it is proposed to establish in Washington in 1892 as a part of 

 the celebration of the discovery of America by Columbus, insures 

 its success. While the subject was under consideration by the 

 House Committee on Commerce, Major J. W. Powell, director of 

 the United States Geological Survey, was invited to address the 



