A Retrospect and a Prospect. 3 



into industrial occupations. In referring to this the lecturer said 

 he felt on dangerous ground, for possibly no branch of the 

 Technical Instruction Committee's efforts had been more debated 

 and more strenuously opposed than this one, mainly for reasons 

 which it might be said after two years' experience, had been shown 

 to be almost entirely without foundation. Continuing, the 

 lecturer said it was worth devoting a few moments to examining 

 the motives which actuated the Technical Instruction Committee 

 to embark upon this portion of their work. In planning their 

 earlier programme the Committee had recognised that of the 

 62,000 children on the rolls of National Schools a proportion of 

 boys leave school every year, having no opportunity under the 

 then existing conditions of obtaining a higher education. Of this 

 number a certain proportion must unquestionably enter upon 

 some one or other of the industrial occupations carried on in 

 Belfast and neighbourhood, and the problem was how to provide 

 educational facilities for such boys. The Department of Agri- 

 culture and Technical Instruction, as part of its experimental 

 science programme, had arranged a course of instruction in 

 mechanical science, and this course supplied the solution, and 

 enabled the Committee to provide a grade of education not 

 already available. The Trade Preparatory School of the Muni- 

 cipal Technical Institute was accordingly established. Last year 

 some seventy-nine pupils passed through the First Year's course, 

 and this year one hundred and three pupils are entered in the 

 books — fifty-two in the first year and fifty-one in the second year. 

 These boys, after completing their studies, should be found 

 exceptionally useful in industrial establishments, as their training 

 is being made as practical as possible, consistent with due atten- 

 tion being paid to the broader subjects of a general education. It 

 is anticipated that later on these boys will become students of the 

 evening division, and it is hoped to find them carrying their 

 studies further, and incidentally raising the whole standard of the 

 work in the evening classes. 



It was stated that at the time of the establishment of the Trade 



