412 On Technical Education. [July, 
both systems of education — the old and the new — in the 
same institution : this will at least prove less successful than 
the one other countries have adopted. Mr. Matthew Arnold 
observes, in reference to this subject, in his French Eton, — 
“ On the Continent of Europe a clean sweep has in general 
been made to the old form of scholastic establishment, and 
new institutions have arisen upon its ruins. In England we 
have kept our great school and college foundations, intro- 
ducing into their system what correctives and palliatives 
were absolutely necessary. Long may we keep them ! but 
no such palliatives or correctives will ever make the public 
establishment of education which sufficed for earlier ages 
suffice for this. . . . That is where England is weak, and 
France, Holland, and Germany are strong.” 
I have dwelt at some length on the necessity of having 
suitable schools for the middle class, for this is the first edu- 
cational requirement for those intended for commerce and 
manufactures. Without such schools all other plans for 
promoting and improving technical education in this country 
will prove inefficient. I know from personal knowledge that 
many young men are going to our technical colleges who are 
utterly unprepared to benefit by the instruction given. I met 
one not long ago, in London, who was attending lectures and 
a laboratory devoted to brewing. He knew nothing whatever 
of the language of the science ; and, as language is the nu- 
triment of thought, from not knowing it the atmosphere in 
which chemical thought lives was wanting. I do not mean 
to imply that he would not be able to remember isolated 
faCts, but what I assert is that he was not able to reason 
about them ; he was not able to judge what they proved, and 
how, through the faCts he knew, to get at others which it 
might be desirable for him to know. 
