1870.] On Practical Scientific Instruction. 225 



however, which occur in experiments scientifically made in this 

 country, to improve manufactures, are extremely small, compared 

 with those which result from unscientific attempts made with similar 

 objects. 



There may, perhaps, be some kinds of knowledge which are of 

 more value to a manufacturer than that of science, but that is not a 

 sufficient reason why the latter should be neglected. It may be of 

 greater importance to him to have a manager who possesses a 

 knowledge of workmen, and a good administrative power over them, 

 than to have one who only understands the science of his manufac- 

 ture ; and it may be better for him to have a workman who under- 

 stands the empirical methods of his trade, rather than one who knows 

 only the science upon which those methods are based. Nevertheless, 

 if English manufacturers are to successfully withstand foreign com- 

 petition, they must employ workmen who can not only work, but 

 work to the greatest advantage. 



Not only is scientific education of advantage to a manufacturer, 

 but it is also a national necessity ; without it we are unable to fully 

 economize the forces and materials employed in manufactures, or 

 manufacture articles as cheaply as foreigners who bring scientific 

 knowledge to their assistance. In some of the countries on the con- 

 tinent of Europe the national* necessity of scientific education has 

 been already recognized ; not only is there a much more general 

 diffusion of such knowledge in those countries than in England, but 

 there is also a greater degree of State encouragement to scientific 

 education. In Berlin a laboratory has been newly erected in the 

 Dorotheen Strasse by the Prussian Government at a cost of 47,700Z., 

 in Bonn another at a cost of 18,450Z., and in Leipsig a third large 

 one is now being erected, at a cost of about 30,000/. In Carlsruhe, 

 a noble building, the Polytechnic school, has also been erected, 

 affording instruction to ft 00 science students. Having been over 

 those buildings, and examined their internal arrangements, as well 

 as the chief ones in this country, I can state that we have no 

 laboratories, either erected by Government or by corporate bodies, 

 which are equal to the foreign ones. Liebig, writing to Faraday, 

 said, " What struck me most in England was the perception, that 

 only those works which have a practical tendency awaken attention 

 and command respect ; while the purely scientific, which possess far 

 greater merit, are almost unknown ; and yet the latter are the proper 

 and true source from which the others flow. In Germany it is quite 

 the contrary." Germany possesses six purely technical universities 

 specially adapted for the diffusion of " technical scientific education," 

 whilst England does not possess one. It is a notable statement 

 that " England spends five times as much on pauperism and crime 

 as upon education ; whilst Switzerland spends seven times as much 

 upon education as on pauperism and crime." Each Englishman 



