1884.] On Technical Education. 225 
manufacturers, I see a great want of earnestness here in 
many cases. 
The number of students who were examined in Techno- 
logical subjects by the City Guilds amounted to 1972 in 
May, 1882, and to 2397 in May, 1883 ; the cost of the 
examination of the students in May, 1882, is set down at 
£2378, or £1 4s. per head. In the Programme for 1881-82, 
the last I have got, the subjects to be examined upon 
amounted to 32 ; they include not only all kinds of manu- 
facturing processes, but such subjects as bread-making, 
plumbers’ work, silversmiths’ work, watch- and clock- 
making, &c. 
The Guilds place a very curious limitation on paying on 
results : to make this clear to my readers I will quote from 
their Programme : — “ The students, on the result of whose 
examination the grants will be made, must be persons 
actually engaged in the industry to which the examination 
refers, or in some closely allied industry. They will be 
required to obtain their employers’ signature to a form testi- 
fying to this faCt.” The Guilds do not therefore, for example, 
give a complete technological chemical course, but they 
teach, or attempt to teach, the chemical principles involved 
in alkali manufacture to those who are engaged in alkali 
works, the principles involved in gas-making to those who 
are engaged in gas works, &c. 
Do the City Guilds intend to have this limitation in their 
higher scientific schools or colleges ? if not, on what prin- 
ciple do they carry out this limitation in their Elementary 
schools ? The limitation would almost seem to imply that 
they think there is a different chemistry for each particular 
manufacture. I, and others who like myself have carried 
out original investigations in chemical factories, and have 
also had actual superintendence of chemical factories, and 
large and varied experience in teaching the science in the 
laboratory and leCture-room, do not think students gain very 
much real knowledge by attending even complete technolo- 
gical courses in Chemistry. For if the student has received 
a very sound and thorough course of instruction in the 
laboratory — and still more, if he has received a training in 
conducting chemical investigations — he has the same means 
of access, with equal knowledge, to the sources of information 
of Chemical Technology, as his teacher, especially if the 
teacher has had no practical experience in any chemical 
factory, and whose chemical technology teaching is therefore 
limited to what he has gained from hooks and from visiting 
chemical factories. But when the technological teaching is 
