218 
On Technical Education. 
[April, 
last article. Question (4794) : “ What you would wish is 
that the English manufacturer should have the same advan- 
tage as the foreign manufacturer in scientific education ? ” 
— “Yes; and if he has those advantages I am sure he 
would hold his own.” One of the Science teachers under 
the Department who gave evidence before that Committee 
said, with regard to the Inspection as it was conducted, that 
it was practically useless. 
With three exceptions all the eminent manufacturers, in- 
cluding Mr. Mundella, who gave evidence before that 
Committee, and also the Professor of Engineering in the 
Edinburgh University, Fleeming Jenkin, — who before he 
was a professor had been both a mechanical and civil en- 
gineer in practice, and had carried out engineering works on 
the Continent, — all testified that it was not from want of 
skill on the part of our artizans, but from want of scientific 
and artistic knowledge on the part of our manufacturers, 
their managers, and foremen, that foreign manufacturers are 
equalling and will eventually surpass our own, unless these 
classes in England are supplied with a scientific and artistic 
education equal to that obtained by like classes on the Con- 
tinent. The Committee stated in their Report—" Ihere is 
a preponderance of evidence to show that so far as the 
workmen, as distinguished from the managers, are concerned, 
scientific knowledge can be considered an essential element 
only in certain trades, or, generally, as enlarging the area 
from which the foremen and managers may be drawn.” 
Nearly every one of the witnesses attributed tbe extraordi- 
narily rapid progress of Continental nations in manufactures, 
not to their model workshops, — for they considered these 
workshops but an indifferent substitute for our own great 
factories, but mainly to the scientific training of the pro- 
prietors and managers in France, Switzerland, Belgium, and 
Germany.* 
All the witnesses concurred in desiring similar advantages 
of education for this country, and were satisfied that nothing 
more was required , and nothing less would suffice, in order 
that we may retain the position which we now hold in the 
* Mr. Bernard Samuelson, M.P., Chairman of the Royal Commission on 
Technical Education, stated a short time ago— “ One of the great fallacies 
which prevailed was that foreign workmen were better educated than our own. 
In France and Belgium the education of the workman was spread over a larger 
area than it was with us, but the remark did not hold good with respedt to 
other countries, even with regard to Art; and to suppose that the average 
workman on the Continent was receiving a superior technical education to that 
of the workman of this country was a mistake altogether, and ought not to be 
allowed to go uncontradidted. & 
