MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES. I4I 
showed that it was literary—and literary only. This was a serious 
evil, for the bulk of the male pupils were destined for manual labor. 
Did one of them show exceptional ability, he would get a scholar- 
ship and then take his degree, which gained, he would find him- 
selt fit only for the already overcrowded professions, or for clerical 
work, in which his very attainments would handicap him heavily. 
Our secondary education was at fault. Something more than 
literary culture was required, and he asked that schools for tech- 
nical education might be opened, degrees to be obtainable in them 
which would confer a distinction equal to that conferred for literary - 
attainments. Something of the kind was really needed, for the 
apprenticeship system of England had, in thiscountry, fallen intode- 
suetude, and that, too, at a time when greater demands for skill and 
knowledge were being made on the craftsmen. Our workmen 
would soon be exposed to the competition of highly trained men 
from the schools of England and the Continent, and would cer- 
tainly be beaten under the present system. Mr. Purnell described 
what had been done in England, Japan, Sweden, the United States, 
and on the Continent, where even Russia has recognised what the 
New Zealand Government had overlooked—the fact that the per- 
manent success of manufactories is dependent on the technical 
knowledge of the workmen. Technical ought not to be confounded 
with scientific education. A pupil should get as much science as 
he needed in his trade, and no more. School tees should be low, 
and the lecturer advocated the application of a-part of the endow- 
ment set apart for secondary education to the support ot the 
technical schools. Our High Schools and Colleges were an eye- 
sore to the working classes, who felt they had no share in them, 
and he would be glad to see some of the minor ones replaced by 
technical schools. Workmen formed the mass of the community, 
and the only way to keep them contented was to raise their status, 
and to dispel the idea that an artisan must leave his own work in 
order to rise inthe world. The working classes had a right to de- 
mand a changein our educational system; for the first object of 
education was to fit boys and girls for their future work, and this 
had been almost lost sight of. 
Dr. von Haast pointed out that the School of Art and the 
Museum went a long way to furnish the opportunities asked for, 
He challenged Mr. Purnell’s remarks as requiring that the son of an 
artisan should needs be an artisan himself; whereas it was a fine 
point in our social system that a man with brains could rise to any 
position. 
Mr. Hogben regarded special knowledge as dearly bought if 
the mind was to be cramped for want of general knowledge. The 
training of the artisan should not interfere with the training of the 
man. He thought the educational importance of museums was 
underrated, and gave some instauces of their value. 
Dr. Bakewell was in favour of an agricultural training for our 
young men, to get them on to the soil and away from the town, 
We intowns were all non-producers, and dependent on the farmers 
and runholders. As for literary culture, he knew nothing more 
valuable. He who had it might be reduced to the greatest poverty, 
but would find solace and relief in the pages of the Classic poets. 
Mr. H. R. Webb, though a Governor of Canterbury College, 
could not agree with Dr. von Haast. Enough had not been done 
