26 
Magazine  of  the  School  of  Agriculture. 
all  my  life , and  for  a good  many  years  during 
the  latter  half  of  it,  a technical  ivorkman  and 
technical  teacher  as  well.  Like  Monsieur 
Jourdain  in  Moliere’s  play,  who  was  amazed 
to  find  that  he  had  been  speaking  prose  all 
his  life  without  knowing  it,  I too,  1 discovered, 
was  an  unconscions  possessor  of  an  art  which 
I had  believed  to  be  foreign  to  my  vocation. 
You  will  suppose  that  I am  referring  to  those 
pharmaceutical  mysteries  with  which  every  stu- 
dent of  medicine  is  supposed  to  be  acquainted. 
Nothing  of  the  kind.  I am  referring  to  my  ordi- 
nary infant  school  education,  vehen  1 was  taught 
the  mysteries  of  the  three  It’s — Reading,  'Kiting 
and  Reckoning,  to  my  public  .school  life  when  I was 
trained  up  for  a liberal  profession,  and  to  my 
collegiate  education  which  was  of  a special 
character,  and  preparatory  to  a special  profes- 
sion. You  will  ask — what  has  all  this  to  do 
with  Technical  Education  ? 
Well,  you  have  heard  the  definition  of  that 
term  given  in  this  place  by  Mr.  Wall  last  month. 
You  have  heard  him  speak  of  it  as  “the  appli- 
cation of  scientific  principles  to  the  arts."  Now 
Reading,  Writing  and  Arithmetic  are  arts.  Are 
they  not  ? And  the  enlightened  methods  of 
teaching  these  arts  are  based  on  scientific  principles 
(or  ought  to  be)  on  the  principles  of  the  Science 
of  Education.  And  therefore  all  elementary  edu- 
cation is,  in  a certain  sense,  technical.  Rut, 
it  may  be  objected,  these  are  not  the  arts 
which  were  meant  by  Mr.  Wall,  only  the  me- 
chanical arts — the  arts  connected  with  the  use 
of  tools  and.  machines.  Rut  what  is  a tool  but 
a labor-saving  or  time-saving  device,  and  what  is 
a machine  but  a complicated  tool  ? How  can 
you  conceive  of  a mere  ingenious  tool  than 
the  hand,  or  a more  perfect  machine  than  the 
human  frame,  automatic  in  one  sense,  and  to 
a great  extent  automatic,  but  needing  no  en- 
gineer to  guide  and  control  its  movements,  save  the 
throbbing  brain  and  self-regulative  will  P What 
again  are  letters  and  cyphers  and  “pot-hooks 
and  hangers,”  but  tools  whereby  the  labor  of  ac- 
quiring knowledge  is  diminished,  and  the  opera- 
tions of  trade  and.  commerce  facilitated  P What 
are  books  but  instruments  of  thought,  and  in- 
genious means  of  saving  time  and  mental  labor  ? 
What  are  Arithmetic  and  Mathematical  tables 
but  machines  for  facilitating  calculation,  and 
thus  saving  time  and.  laboor,  like  the  ingenious 
but  complicated  machines  in  iron  and  steel,  in- 
vented by  Mr.  Rabbage  and  others,  some  of  which 
are  now  actually  employed  in  Government 
offices  in  England.  What  is  the  pen  but  a tool, 
and  indeed  the  mightiest  known,  so  far  as  its 
influence  on  civilization  is  concerned? 
/Still,  it  may  be  objected  that  the  arts  of 
Reading,  Writing  and  Cyphering  are  not  Indus- 
trial Arts,  in  the  sense  that  Bootmaking  or 
Carpentry  aiay  be  said  to  be — the  arts  by  which 
one  earns  a livelihood— but  only  subsidiary  to 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  Is  this  so? 
Why,  how  many  hoys  who  leave  school  with 
no  knowledge  of  the  use  of  any  other  tools 
than"  these  have  to  depend  on  them  solely  for 
their  means  of  living,  as  clerks  and  accountants 
and.  salesmen  Ac.  Are  these  offices  not  to  bp 
considered  industrial,  or  the  work  not  to  be 
designated  mechanical,  because  the  only  tool 
used  is  the  fen,  the  ouly^machine  brought  into 
operation  the  brain  ? Rut  I go  a step  further,- 
and  claim  for  all  education  that  fits  one  for  com- 
mercial or  mercantile  pursuits,  not  only  a sort 
of  relationship  to  technical  education,  but  a dis- 
tinct affiliation  in  a legitimate  sense,  inasmuch 
as  Commercial  Education  is  universally  recognised 
as  a branch  of  Technical  Education,  and  is  pro- 
vided for  in  every  technical  school. 
But  even  if  the  studies  which  count  for  a 
Commercial  training  may  he  considered  techni- 
cal, the  higher  studies  of  a Public  School 
curriculum,  it  may  he  said,  are  not  technical. 
In  so  far  as  such  education  is  not  directed 
with  a view  to  prepare  a bog  for  any  special 
profession,  I admit  it  should  be  called  general 
rather  than  technical,  but  whenever  and  where- 
soever the  training  is  preparatory  and  special, 
and  adapted  to  the  practical  needs  of  after  life , 
even  a liberal  or  classical  education  may  be 
called  technical.  That  I am  not  forcing  the 
meaning  of  the  term  beyond  its  strict  legiti- 
mate signification  you  can  satisfy  yourselves 
by  referring  to  any  good  Dictionary.  Here 
for  instance  is  the  definition  in  Annundale's 
Concise  Dictionary : — 
Technical — “ Pertaining  to  the  Mechanical  Arts” 
(that  is  one  sense  of  the  word  no  doubt,  and 
we  are  all  agreed  about  that,  but  secondly)  “ ap- 
pertaining in  a special  sense  to  any  Art  or 
Science,  Profession.  Handicraft,  Business  or  the 
like” — and  therefore  to  the  liberal  arts  as  well— 
the  “Trivium”  and  the  “ Quadrivium  ” of  the 
old  schools,  whence  the  retention  of  the  term 
“ Arts  ” in  our  Universities  for  the  liberal  or 
“humanizing”  studies  which  are  preparatory 
to  the  study  of  the  liberal  professions,  divinity, 
medicine,  law,  Ac. 
Rev.  Henry  Solly  defines  Technical  Educa- 
tion as  that  “ specific  training  and  teaching 
required  to  fit  a person  for  any  trade,  profession, 
or  other  calling  in  life,  over  and  above  that 
general  education  which  every  person  ought  to 
possess  according  to  age,  sex,  and  other  circum- 
stances. “Hence  it  is  needed  as  much,”  he  says, 
“ by  lawyer  or  doctor,  housemaid, ploughman,  Ac., 
as  by  carpenter,  bricklayer,  bookbinder  or  tailor. 
— Nineteenth  Century,  Aug.  1884. 
Mr.  Payne,  the  well-known  educationalist, 
says  with  reference  to  early  education  in  Europe 
during  the  historic  period,  the  object  of  which 
was  to  train  in  the  physical  accomplishments 
chiefly,  that  it  was  “ technical  or  professional, 
its  purpose  being  to  equip  man  for  service  as 
agents  or  instruments” — using  the  word  “techni- 
cal ” in  the  sense  of  special  directed  to  a parti- 
cular end. 
In  this  sense  Sir  Philip  Magnus— one  of  the 
greatest  authorities  on  the  subject — would  re- 
cognise even  University  teaching  as  technical. 
“In  the  history  of  education,”  he  says,  “a  re- 
lationship has  always  been  recognised  between 
education  and  the  practical  needs  of  life,  even 
the  Universities  having  been  founded  as  special- 
ized or  professional  schools  to  minister  to  the 
needs  of  society  ” — instancing  the  University  of 
Bologna  founded  for  the  study  of  Law,  and 
that  of  Salerno  for  Medicine,  and  referring  to 
the  inclusion  of  Engineering  as  a new  Faculty 
in  the  University  of  Cambridge,  of  Agriculture 
in  that  of  Edinburgh,  as  subjects  which  are 
purely  Technical  Industrial  Education, 
