24 Industrial Training and Technical Education. 



been taken up in earnest, but not in what I conceive to be a 

 spirit of thoroughness, and not so much in the interests of those 

 who most require help as in those of the lower middle class and 

 members of Trades Unions ; and the necessary connection 

 between Industrial Training and Technical Education, the 

 former leading up to the latter, has to a great extent been lost 

 sight of. 



It is noticeable in reading reports of the Technical Schools 

 which are doing excellent work, the small numbers in propor- 

 tion to the population who avail themselves of these advantages. 

 I read in the last report of the Belfast Technical School that in 

 the weaving class out of 37 enrolled in 1895 only half a dozen 

 returned in 1896. In the carpentry and plumbing schools the 

 Committee say, "After several years experience it is evident 

 beyond doubt that the lads attending them are, generally 

 speaking, very imperfectly prepared to enter upon technical 

 training with any satisfaction to the teachers or the possibility 

 of obtaining the benefits which ought to be realized." The 

 aggregate numbers who were examined and passed are respect- 

 ively 56 and 30, deplorable for an industrial population of over 

 a quarter of a million. It seems then essential to the success 

 of technical teaching that there should be more candidates and 

 that they should be better prepared ; and that this difficulty 

 can only be overcome by a previous industrial training such 

 as I am advocating. Technical education is now admittedly an 

 urgent necessity if we are as a nation to maintain our com- 

 mercial position ; but the education of the few will not suffice. 

 We must seek to raise the standard of the whole. Begin with 

 the industrial training of the young and the technical classes 

 will be filled. I do not venture to suggest a hard and fast rule 

 as to what means should be employed to bring home industrial 

 education to the poor. Some may advocate the workshop and 

 others special schools — the means will vary in different places — 

 but, given the will to do it, the best means will be easily found. 

 This only partial success of the Technical classes is an apt 

 condemnation of the policy of the trades unionist in desiring 

 to limit the workers in any particular trade, and it points to 

 the injury being done to the trade of the country. 



