go 
On Technical Education. 
[February, 
advanced portions, because I believe it is the portion of the 
Science which is the worst taught at the present time, yet 
it forms the foundation on which the further cultivation of 
the Science must rest, and therefore the system which most 
conforms to the laws of mental evolution ought to be the 
one followed, both for the purpose of rendering the Science 
as efficient an agent as possible in training the intellectual 
faculties, and for the purpose of promoting the more suc- 
cessful cultivation of it. 
Qualitative analysis was the next branch of Practical 
Chemistry taught ; in the previous course they had been 
made practically acquainted with the principles on which 
separation of substances from one another rests ; quantita- 
tive analysis next followed, and finally chemical research. 
The Institution in which this instruction was given was a 
Government one, under the Department of Science and 
Art, called at that time the Museum of Irish Industry. 
The amount of metal in most of the specimens of the 
ores of copper, iron, lead, and silver, and the assay of all 
the samples of coal employed in the manufacture of gas, 
and the estimation of the tannin in the different tanning 
materials, exhibited in the public museum attached to the 
Institution, were estimated by these evening students ; the 
rest of the specimens were analysed by my day students. 
The researches carried out by a number of the evening 
students was published in various journals ; I send a copy 
of one, “ On the Comparative Value of the different Feeding 
Substances for Horses,” to the Editor of this Journal, and 
I think he will admit it is as complete as it would have 
been if it had issued from the Laboratory of Sir J. B. 
Lawes and Dr. Gilbert. Sir Lyon Playfair, M.P., visited 
the Institution officially just as he was on the eve of termi- 
nating his connection with the Department. I asked him 
to visit my Evening Classes ; he did so, and he stated 
openly to the students that he knew of no instruction of 
like excellence given in any other institution, and they were 
fortunate in having such a teacher. 
I will mention two more faCts, and will then pass on to 
other matters of interest. A young man in the Excise pre- 
sented himself one evening, and told me he wanted to get 
into the Excise Laboratory in London, but he had been 
rejected in Chemistry at the Entrance Examination ; he 
had one more chance, and wanted to be prepared. I told 
him I prepared no one to pass examinations ; if I had I 
could have filled my department three or four times over ; I 
taught, I said, the Science, and I left the taught to apply 
