1884.] 
On Technical Education 
223 
reports of competent observers, that the facilities for ac- 
quiring a knowledge of theoretical and applied science are 
incomparably greater on the Continent than in this country, 
and that such knowledge is based on an advanced state of 
secondary education.” 
The Grammar schools in the country parts of England, 
especially those that have no scholarships or prizes to give 
away at the Universities, should be converted into schools 
where a modernised system of education was given, some- 
what similar in character to the course given in the Real 
schools in Germany ; and let some of the most talented boys 
in the National schools in the neighbourhood be promoted 
from time to time into these higher Middle-class schools, on 
a plan somewhat similar to that adopted in Germany. In 
this way the disadvantages the boys in sparsely inhabited 
districts might labour under, as regards educational training, 
compared with the boys living in towns, would be consider- 
ably overcome. 
But we must return to the more immediate subject of the 
article, viz., the City Guilds’ scheme as regards evening 
classes, or perhaps it would be better to enlarge it by saying 
their elementary classes. 
The City and Guilds confine themselves to Technical 
Education : it is unfortunate that this term “ Technical 
Education ” has more meanings than one attached to it : 
some people confine the meaning to the teaching of trades 
and handicrafts ; others limit it to the teaching of Science 
and Art in their applications to different industries. It is 
mainly in the latter sense that it is employed by the City 
Guilds, although they appear in some cases perilously near 
entering upon the teaching of trades. 
As regards the teaching of trades in schools, there are 
few trades that admit of even a semblance of being taught ; 
the manufacture of sulphuric acid, soda ash, bleaching 
powder, the melting of ores, — in faCt all our most important 
industries, — could not be taught in scholastic factories or 
workshops. 
Moreover, the teaching or the attempt at teaching trades 
to the artizan class — for they would be the only class that 
would undergo the necessary manual labour attending such 
instruction — would very strongly tend to perpetuate one of 
the very serious evils we are suffering from as an industrial 
nation at the present time. For if the owners, or those 
who would in the future be the owners, of manufacturing 
establishments were led to believe that they could be sup- 
plied with trained workmen, however mechanically they 
