TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 
In order to do this, we should first of all send one or two eminent 
men to each of those countries in Europe and America, where we think 
valuable information, based on actual results, could be obtained, so as 
to benefit by their experience. 
We should then trace a trunk line of education which will represent 
the progress of the mental development of the child, right from the 
time he leaves the A B © to the time he leaves the University. It is 
clear that every individual will not wish to follow this trunk line from 
beginning to end. There will be several stations along the line where 
side lines will have to branch off into fields of special knowledge; where 
the engineer will branch off to get his special teaching; others where 
the chemist avill go off into his special field; and others, again, where 
the medical man will seek his own preserve. There will be points 
where the scientific education of the labourer is completed, and others 
where the skilled artisan goes to his special school, and again other 
points where the commercial man will consider he has learned suffi- 
cient to go into business. In fact, all people will travel along the road 
until they arrive either at their destination, or reach a point where they 
branch off into their own speciality. j 
The main idea is that the scheme of education, as laid down, shall 
not be a compromise, so as to avail ourselves of the units now in exist- . 
ence, but a scheme thought out independently as the best to answer its 
purpose, irrespective of existing educational machinery. 
The next step should, therefore, be to place alongside of this educa- 
tional scheme a list of all existing educational establishments; to pick 
out from amongst these and insert those that fit exactly; to pick out 
and modify those that can be made a perfect fit by such modification 
and to scrap those that cannot be made such a perfect fit. 
The educational system is necessarily a piece of very complicated 
machinery. In no modern machine would a constructor put in a cog 
wheel just because it happened to be lying about, unless it were exactly 
of the dimensions, character, and material required. No engineer 
would dream of such a thing. The same should hold good of the educa- 
tional machine. Only if the machine be built in the most perfect way 
can it attain its object of giving the best results possible to be attained. 
No compromise is possible to make the machine different, on the plea 
of cheapening its construction. It must fulfil its object, and unless it 
does this, it is wasting money to build it at all. Only when the 
machine is perfect can the highest results be obtained, and nothing less 
than the highest results are of any good, as only the highest results 
offer a guarantee to our not being left hopelessly behind in the indus- 
trial race. 
T am not blind to the many objections against this scheme, and the 
difficulties in carrying it out. They are very many, the principal being 
the cost and the fact that education in Australia is in the hands of the 
States; but where so many thousands of lives have been lost, and so 
many millions of money spent to secure for our nation its national 
freedom, these difficulties should not be allowed to stand in the way. 
We shave spent several hundred million pounds in equipping our 
men to obtain a winning position on’ the ‘battlefields of France. Let 
us now spend a few more millions in equipping our nation mentally, 
in order to conquer a winning position on the battlefields of industry 
20) 
