226 
On Technical Education. 
[April, 
limited to the industry in which the student is engaged, as 
it is under the City Guilds system, it may be classed almost 
correctly as “ rule-of-thumb teaching.” 
Prof. Bayer, the first discoverer of the mode for producing 
artificial indigo, when asked by our Technical Commissioners 
how long he would recommend that a technological student 
should be engaged in studying and working at theoretical 
chemistry during his studentship, replied, “ I would make it 
firstly chemistry, secondly chemistry, and thirdly chemistry.” 
In other words, if the science has been thoroughly grasped, 
the applications will take care of themselves, for the student 
who has been so trained and instructed in the science is ren- 
dered competent, as far as instruction will, — for instruction 
cannot endow a man with ability to apply his knowledge, 
who has no natural talent for applying it, — to apply his 
knowledge not to one but to any chemical industry. 
But the limitation is not the only blot in the City Guilds 
elementary course ; another and very serious defect is the 
very small modicum of science they require on the part of 
the student they undertake to instruct in Technology. I 
will here reproduce what I have stated on this part of the 
subject in my work on Education, “ Scientific and Tech- 
nical.” I believe the Technical Examinations that are 
being carried out by the City Guilds of London Institute are 
not likely to prove of much, if of any, advantage to the 
country. I allude to the examinations in such subjects as 
brewing, calico-printing, the smelting of ores, &c. Their 
inutility will arise not on account of any deficiency in the 
divisions of the subjects examined upon, nor from the 
questions given, but from the slender stock of knowledge 
that is required for passing them : thus for the full techno- 
logical certificate for brewing, it is required of the candidate 
that he has previously passed — at least in the elementary 
stage — one of the following subjects at the Department of 
Science and Arts examinations : — 
Machine Construction and Drawing. 
Building Construction. 
Theoretical Mechanics. 
Applied Mechanics. 
Inorganic Chemistry. 
Organic Chemistry. 
Of these six subjects only the last two would be of use in 
passing the examination on Brewing, as given in their Pro- 
gramme of 1880 ; and the majority of the students who pass 
the Department of Science and Art examinations — at least 
