1882.] 
On Technical Education, 
577 
ready collected by various English agencies on continental 
schools of every kind and continental methods of instruction, 
we have also the benefit of the opinions of eminent foreign 
educationists — as Dr. L. Wiesse, late Privy Councillor in 
the Ministry of Public Instruction in Prussia, on our educa- 
tional institutions and systems. Dr. Wiesse has made a 
personal examination and inspection of our institutions on 
two different occasions ; his last visit was in 1876, his pre- 
vious one in 1856 : his personal acquaintance with our edu- 
cational systems and institutions, combined with his great 
practical experience of the educational systems and institu- 
tions in his own country, ought to render the opinions he 
has expressed with regard to our own, and which have been 
published in England, of very great value to us. 
Whatever may result from the labours of these recent 
Commissions which have been appointed to inquire into the 
art and scientific teaching in continental countries, the ne- 
cessity for these inquiries cannot be owing to a lack of 
knowledge, for we have abundance of information on these 
subjects. Too often it is to be feared Commissions are ap- 
pointed and their Reports are published more for ornament 
than for use ; they appear intended only to silence for a time 
a section of the public on subjects which at the moment are 
inconvenient for the Government or some Government de- 
partment. There is a curious instance of this in reference 
to the Intermediate Education question in Ireland. Mr. 
Wyse, in his zealous endeavour, as a writer on the subject 
in “ Hibernia” states, to bring the question to an issue moved 
for a Select Committee to inquire into the aCtual condition 
of the Endowed Schools in Ireland, with the objeCt of car- 
rying out necessary reform. The Committee was appointed 
in 1835, and after three years' investigation sent in a volumi- 
nous Report, recommending complete reform and re-organi- 
sation, which the collected evidence showed to be sorely 
needed. The Government received the Report with their 
characteristic apathy, and after the question had been 
shelved for forty years the Endowed Schools were subjected 
again to the inquiry of a Committee, starting on the same 
lines, collecting the same evidence in some instances, exa- 
mining the same persons, and subsequently publishing the 
same stereotyped faCts which astonished and amused our 
grandfathers. And the question has not even yet been 
settled. 
It is continually stated by most of our scientific authori- 
ties, both in their public and private positions, that we are 
still far behind continental nations in scientific and technica 
