1882.3 
On Technical Education . 
219 
It has been proposed that schools of a similar kind should 
be established in the United Kingdom ; and it is chiefly with 
the objeCt of enquiring into, and reporting on, the success 
of this class of Technical Institutions on the Continent that 
the Royal Commission on Technical Education has been 
appointed. 
The aim and objeCt of these Continental schools is to train 
those intended to be artizans, not only in ordinary hand work, 
but in handicrafts that are more or less undeveloped in the 
respective countries ; and especially to train them to equal 
our own craftsmen in those industries in which we have 
hitherto had the supremacy. The reason adduced for the 
necessity of establishing such schools in this country is 
owing to the change that has taken place in recent times in 
the apprenticeship system. The master of the present day, 
it is urged, unlike the master in olden times, is not acquainted 
with his craft ; he, as a rule, is simply an employer of labour, 
a capitalist, and not a craftsman ; hence he is incompetent 
to teach — as was formerly done by the masters— the 
apprentice his trade. The apprentice of even average 
intellect now acquires in consequence a very imperfeCt know- 
ledge and skill, it is stated, of his trade, as he is left to learn 
it from those — the foremen and the other workmen — who 
have no interest, pecuniary or otherwise, in teaching him. 
The Commissioners will, it is to be hoped, not only give 
the nation the benefit of their opinion as to how far these 
Apprenticeship Schools have fulfilled the purpose for which 
they were established in foreign countries, but what is much 
more important for the nation to know, how far, and in what 
way, they think they would be likely to benefit, not any 
particular craft, but all our various manufacturing industries, 
by giving those intended to be artizans a suitable education 
previous to their being apprenticed to any trade, and what 
kind of administrative and other machinery ought to be 
employed for properly carrying out such a system of technical 
education. 
It may not be inappropriate or undesirable to consider, 
even before the Commissioners make their report, whether 
such a system of technical education is the one best fitted to 
render our artizan classes more efficient craftsmen. And in 
considering the subject, the education America is providing 
for its artizan class ought not to be overlooked ; for we have 
more to fear, I believe, in the future from the industrial 
productions of that country in our own and other markets 
than from the productions of Continental nations. The raw 
materials we have, which have very greatly assisted in making 
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