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 Technical Educ^n. 
 
 ^ Summary of the Report ^%l 
 
 J^ I OF THE 
 
 ;^3M ROYAL COMMISSION 
 
 ' f"|"'Appointed to Inquire into the State 
 of Technical Instruction. 
 
 BY 
 
 F. C. MONTAGUE, M.A. 
 
 fy/Tff A PREFACE BY 
 
 Sir BERNHARD SAMUELSON, Bart., M.P., 
 
 CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMISSION. 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 
 
 LONDON, PARIS, NE W YORK 6» MELBOURNE. 
 
COBDEN CLUB LEAFLETS. 
 
 Supplied in Packets of lOO, price is. Those marked * 2s. 
 
 1. Tlie Dog and the Shadow. 
 
 2. What does Reciprocity-Protection propose to do? 
 
 3. The Results of Protection In Germany, 
 
 4. The Rt. Hon. John Bright, M.P., on "Fair Trade." 
 
 5. Mr. Arthur Arnold, M.P., on "Fair Trade." 
 
 6. Bread Tax Once More. From "Punch.' 
 
 7. A Catechism for "Fair Traders." By Rt. Hon. W. E. Baxter. M.P. 
 
 8. Free Trade and WorklnK Men. By Rt. Hon. W. E. Baxter, M.P. 
 
 9. *Falr Trade and Free Trade, By Sir B. Samuelson, Bart., M.P. 
 
 10. Free Trade : What It does for England, and Bow it does it. 
 
 By George W. Medley. 
 
 11. Facts for Artisans. By Geokge W. Medley. 
 IS. Mr. Cobden on " Be-dlstrlbutlon of Seats." 
 
 13. "Protection in France. 
 
 14. 'Facts for Labourers. By Geokue W. Medley. 
 
 15. *The Fanners and Protection. By Charles Whitehead. 
 
 16. Facts for Farmers. No. i.— Depression in Agriculture. By George 
 
 W. Medley. 
 
 17. The Effects of Protection in America. By Sir w. B. Forwood. 
 
 18. Wonld Protection remove the present Distress, and Benefit 
 
 the Working Man? By Joseph Arch. 
 
 19. The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle on Cobden Club Leaflets, 
 
 20. Memorial Verses on Richard Cobden, 186S. 
 
 21. Bobbing a Thousand Peters to pay One Paul. By George 
 
 Jacob Holyoake. 
 
 22. Less Free Trade or More: Which Shall it Be? By j. 
 
 Hampden Jackson. 
 
 23. 'Facts for Fanners. No. II.— Depression in Agriculture. By 
 
 George W. Medley, 
 
 24. *Falr Trade: Its Impossibility, By Sydney Buxton, M.P. 
 
 25. Reciprocity Explained. By George Jacob Holyoake. 
 
 26. 'Words of Wamlniir to Agricultural Labourers and other 
 
 Working Hen, By Alfred Simmons, the Leader of the Kent and 
 Sussex Labourers. 
 
 27. 'How they Succeed in Canada, (From the Agriciiliitral Gazette, 
 
 January 5th, 1885.) 
 
 28. Free Trade and Fair Trade: What do the Words Mean? By James 
 
 E. Thorold Rogers, M.P. , 
 
 29. 'Free Trade v. Protection (anas "Reciprocity," alias " Fair Trade "). 
 
 By John Noble, 
 
 30. The British Peastmt on the Right Hon. J, Lowther's 
 
 Proposition — that he should pay "a farthing a week" on hi& Bread, 
 to benefit the Landed interest. 
 
 31. The Farmer of Kent. (From the Suffolk Chronicle of forty years ago.) 
 %i. Will a Five-Shilling Duty on Com raise the price of Bread 
 
 or not? 
 
 33, United States Protection v. British Free Trade. By the Right 
 
 Hon. W. E. Baxter, M.P, 
 
 34, The Right Bon. John Bright on "The Safety of the Ballot." 
 
 35, 'The Secrecy of the Ballot, ^ 
 
 36, Protection veraiis Work and Wages. By Edward North Buxton. 
 
 37, The Fair Traders and Reciprocity. By Edward North Buxton. 
 
 38, 'The Death Duties, 
 
 39, Fair Trade and Retaliation. By Sir T, H. Farrbr, Bart. 
 
 40, Land Law Reform. 
 
 41, The Proposed Tax on Sugar. By St. Loe Strachsy. 
 
 42, The Good Old Times, 
 
 43, The Bounty on Raw Sugar. 
 
 44, Who Gave the Agricultural Labourer the Vote ? By C. Coppack. 
 ta. 'Klnhard Cobden, 
 
 46, Protection In New Countries, 
 
 47, 'The London Coal and Wine Duties, By Lord R. Churchill. 
 
 48, 'Market Bights and Tolls Restrictive of Trade, By Charles 
 
 ' Bradlaugh, M.P. 
 
Technical Education. 
 
 A Summary of the Report 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ROYAL COMMISSION 
 
 Appointed to Inquire into the State of Technical 
 Instruction. 
 
 F.^ C! MONTAGUE, M.A. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 SIR BERNHARD SAMUELSON, Bart., M.P., 
 
 CHAIRMAN Ol' THE COMMISSION. 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 
 
 LONDON, PARIS, NEW/ YORK & MELBOURNE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 By sir BERNHARD SAMUELSON, Bart., M.P,, 
 Chairman oj the late Royal Commission on Technical Instruction. 
 
 My friend, Mr. William Rathbone, at whose request the 
 following digest of the Report of the Technical Instruction 
 Commission has been prepared, has asked me to prefix to it, 
 by way of preface, such observations on the subject as may 
 appear to me to be useful at the present time. Perhaps I 
 cannot do better than to summarise the conclusions and 
 recommendations of the Commission in the fewest words : to 
 state how far they have been complied with by the Govern- 
 ment, and to add some information as to what has been done 
 during the progress, and since the conclusion of our inquiry, 
 towards remedying in various other ways the deficiencies which 
 it disclosed. 
 
 Dividing the subject into the three heads of the technical 
 instructions of (i) the proprietors and principal managers of 
 industrial works, (2) the foremen, and (3) the workmen, we 
 found that the education of the first was provided for on the 
 Continent in a way beyond all comparison more complete and 
 effective than in this country, and that this applied as much 
 to their commercial as to what is usually understood by their 
 technical education. The defects of the latter in our case were 
 more conspicuous in the more refined chemical manufactures 
 than in mechanical engineering. In reference to the second 
 class, we found that, whilst there are on the Continent, and 
 more especially in France, a limited number of establishments 
 designed for the systematic training of foremen in mechanical 
 engineering, and in some other branches of manufacturing, 
 and in Germany schools for instruction in the principles of 
 textile manufactures and dyeing, on the other hand, the instruc- 
 tion afforded by classes in connection with the Science and Art. 
 Department of South Kensington, supplemented by those of 
 the City Guilds, covers a wider area of elementary, and what 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 may be distinguished as lower secondary scientific and technical 
 instruction, in this than in any other country. To this pro- 
 vision, however, instruction in art, in view of its application to 
 industry, forms an exception. This latter we found, partly by 
 reason of its gratuity, far more widely diffused in France and 
 Belgium than amongst ourselves. Lastly, as to the instruction 
 of the artizans, we found that their defective elementary in- 
 struction in this country, as compared with that of the 
 corresponding class in Germany and Switzerland, and latterly 
 in the principal cities of France, prevented our people from 
 availing themselves of the opportunities which the science 
 classes already referred to would otherwise afford them. At 
 the same time, we ascertained that it was a fallacy to suppose 
 that the workpeople of foreign countries (again excepting as to 
 art) have received a better technical education than our own. 
 The contrary rather is the case, thanks to the training which our 
 people have received for several generations in our workshops. 
 
 At the same time, we found that the technical skill of 
 foreign artizans was rapidly increasing. We observed that 
 elementary instruction in the use of tools for working in wood 
 and iron was being introduced into the principal elementary 
 schools of France, and that under the name of higher elemen- 
 tary schools gratuitous technical schools rendered available by 
 bursaries to artizans for their more advanced technical 
 instruction had been and were being set up in many French 
 cities. We did not approve of the French schools which 
 profess to give instruction to artizans in mechanical engineering 
 and the other more important handicrafts, as a substitute for 
 apprenticeship in the workshop, but we recognised the advan- 
 tage of the schools in some poor and remote parts of the Con • 
 tinent, which afford instruction in such domestic employments 
 as wood-carving and lace-making as a means of procuring some 
 slight addition to the precarious and slender income of families 
 in those districts, and it appeared to us that the circumstances 
 of Ireland might render such instruction very useful in some 
 parts of that country. 
 
 As the result of our inquiries, we were induced to make the 
 following, amongst other recommendations : — As to elementary 
 schools, that drawing should be taught systematically in all of 
 them ; that no school should be considered efficient in which 
 proper appliances — such as casts and models, &c. — for this 
 purpose were not provided ; that the limits of age and acquire- 
 
Prep ACE. v 
 
 ments authorising the employment of the whole time of children 
 in labour should be raised in England and Ireland to the 
 standard of Scotland ; that proficiency in the use of tools for 
 working in wood and iron should be recognised as a " specific 
 subject;" that in rural schools the principles and facts of 
 agriculture should be taught to the older children. 
 
 As to science and art schools, we recommended that local 
 authorities should have power to establish them, and to 
 contribute to their maintenance ; that the inspection exercised 
 by this department should be more efficient ; that greater 
 encouragement should be given to industrial designing; that 
 the building grants should be more liberal ; that grants should 
 not be conditional on the payment of fees by all the students in 
 science and art classes, but that artizans might be admitted to 
 them gratuitously. 
 
 We desired that science should be more efficiently taught 
 in the training colleges for teachers, and that the students in 
 these colleges should. be allowed to avail themselves fully of 
 the instruction in art and science to be obtained in the 
 Government schools of South Kensington and Dublin. 
 
 We recommended the liberal application of ancient endow- 
 ments to secondary schools in which so-called modern subjects 
 should take the place of the classics ;- that power should be 
 given to local authorities to establish schools of this kind ; and 
 that the existing restrictions with reference to tlie establishment 
 of free public libraries and museums should be removed. 
 
 These, and some special recommendations in regard to 
 Ireland, relating to instruction in home industries, to grants in 
 aid of agricultural schools, and to the functions of the Royal 
 College of Science in Dublin, were our chief deinands, so far 
 as they depend on the action of the Government and of public 
 authorities. 
 
 In addition, we considered ourselves justified in hoping 
 that there would be greater liberality than heretofore on the 
 part of private individuals in the provision of scholarships in 
 technical and other secondary schools for the more promising 
 pupils of elementary schools ; that employers and Trades Unions 
 would give greater encouragement to, and, if necessary, insist 
 on, young persons employed in manufactures and handicrafts 
 availing themselves of instruction in science and art classes ; 
 that the managers of such classes would encourage more 
 systematic and advanced instruction; and that the great 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 national agricultural societies would promote the establishment 
 of schools in which agriculture is taught. 
 
 Successive Ministers of Education have in various ways 
 shown that they concur, on the whole, with our demands ; but, 
 with the exception of drawing having, under difficulties ©n the 
 part of the 'I'reasury, been made a class subject in elementary 
 schools, and of more stringent requirements on the part of the 
 Science and Art Department in reference to practical work in 
 the science classes, the Government did not feel itself sufficiently 
 supported by public opinion to give effect to our recommenda- 
 tions until the present session. The Bill for the establishment 
 of technical schools, introduced a few nights ago by the Vice- 
 President of the Council, encourages those who have for so 
 many years laboured perseveringly in the promotion of technical 
 instruction to hope that some real progress will at length be 
 made, not only in a few favoured places, but throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land. The intention of its authors 
 is to give effect to our recommendations so far as they relate to 
 elementary and secondary technical instruction. It is to be hoped 
 that the power to be granted by it to local authorities will not 
 be hampered with unnecessary restrictions. Those conferred 
 on the Science and Art Department are ample, and I believe it 
 has every disposition to exercise them liberally if it can rely on 
 the support of the country and of the House of Commons. A 
 few of the City Guilds, and notably the Clothworkers' Company, 
 have shown great liberality in the judicious provision of funds 
 for the encouragement of technical instruction, and I see no 
 reason why, in the case of those Companies who now devote 
 their incomes to less useful purposes, a fair contribution to 
 what is properly their work should not be insisted on, in aid of 
 ■ schools maintained jointly by the localities in which they are 
 situated and by the State through the agency of the Science 
 and Art Department. 
 
 Several such schools are now in good working order. 
 Amongst these are the Technical Schools of the City Guilds in 
 Finsbury, the day and everiing classes of which are full to over- 
 flowing. The Technical College at Bradford, assisted by the 
 Clothworkers' Company, is in full activity in all its depart- 
 ments. The courses of the dyeing school, conducted by an 
 energetic young professor trained at Zurich, are followed 
 both by middle-class arid artizan students ; and the weav- 
 ing department is attracting students even from Germany. 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 The Bristol Trade School, erected and maintained by the 
 liberality of the Merchant Adventijrers' Guild of that city, in- 
 tended chiefly for the instrnction of chemists, engineers, and 
 miners, is well equipped, both as regards its staff and its 
 laboratories. The school at Keighley is a conspicuous example 
 of a good science school. The Heriot-Watt School of Edin- 
 burgh, the Glasgow and West of Scotland College, and the 
 Manchester Technical School, are old schools amalgamated or 
 otherwise reorganised. I name these as instances of the 
 higher elementary and secondary technical schools which are 
 already in operation in various parts of the country. As yet 
 they are few ; but in Stockport, Blackburn, Wakefield, Preston, 
 Hull, and in several other towns, similar schools are either 
 being established, or the proposal to establish them has been 
 warmly taken up, and is likely to lead to practical results. 
 
 Elementary instruction in the use of tools has been intro- 
 troduced tentatively in some of the London Board Schools, 
 successfully in Sheffield and elsewhere. 
 
 The signs of progress in the highest technical instruction 
 are less hopeful. The Central Institute of the City Guilds, in 
 the Exhibition Road, has an ample provision of professors and 
 of laboratories and class-rooms ; but its students are not till 
 now so numerous as might have been wished and expected, 
 even making allowance for the short time that it has been 
 opened ; and the various local University Colleges are, with 
 some few exceptions, inadequately provided with funds and 
 not very numerously frequented. It will be seen from the 
 digest of our Report how munificently colleges of similar and 
 of higher rank are supported by the Governments of continental 
 countries. The highest technical instruction is not — and pro- 
 bably never will be — self-supporting in any country ; and if, in 
 consideration of the exceptionally liberal contributions of the 
 State with us to elementary instruction — which in Germany 
 and Switzerland is defrayed almost exclusively from local funds 
 — we can scarcely expect that as much will be done here as in 
 those countries out of Imperial funds for this important — per- 
 haps the most important — grade of technical education, some 
 assistance may be fairly asked for from Government, and will 
 not, I believe, be asked for in vain when it shall appear that 
 there is a genuine demand and sufficient preparation for in- 
 struction of this advanced type. 
 
 A branch of the subject not less important, though, as I 
 
viii Preface, 
 
 have said elsewhere, it has not hitherto been regarded as 
 strictly within the lines of technical instruction, is that of 
 commercial education. Our youths are far behind those of 
 Germany in the cultivation of modern languages, arithmetic, 
 and geography. The Oxford and Cambridge Local Examina- 
 tion Board has recently devised and submitted to the Chambers 
 of Commerce a special scheme of examination in these sub- 
 jects, which it is to be hoped will act as a stimulus on the 
 secondary schools. 
 
 Amongst the encouraging signs of the interest taken in 
 technical instruction, I would mention the recent establish- 
 ment of an association for its promotion which owes its in- 
 ception to Sir Henry Roscoe and Mr. Arthur Acland, and of 
 which Lord Hartington is the President. Its chief objects are 
 to stimulate public interest in the subject, to assist local bodies 
 with its advice, and to take Parliamentary action in the direc- 
 tion in which legislation is required. 
 
 I will conclude this somewhat hasty review with an ex- 
 pression of the hearty wish that our people throughout the 
 country may at length arrive at a full sense of our educational 
 deficiencies, and at the determination that they shall cease to 
 
 ^^'^^' B. SAMUELSON. 
 
 July 20, 1S87. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 I.— Introduction ii 
 
 II. —Technical Instruction in Manufacture^, Mintno, etc. : — 
 
 A. Primary Instruction 15 
 
 B. Intermediate Instruction 32 
 
 C. Advanced Instruction 50 
 
 Note on Technical Instruction for Women 56 
 
 III. — Technical Instruction in Agrtcultuke 58 
 
 IV. — Conclusion 66 
 
TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 I.— INTRODUCTION.* 
 
 During the first half of this century we enjoyed an unchallenged 
 industrial supremacy, the result of many contributory causes. 
 Among them were physical causes, such as our mineral wealth, 
 our position, at once safe and accessible, our prolonged sea- 
 board, and our bracing climate ; moral and intellectual causes, 
 such as the natural energy and inventiveness of our people ; 
 political causes, such as the happy union of individual liberty 
 with public order ; economic causes, such as the gradual accu- 
 mulation of capital in earlier times ; and many other causes too 
 numerous to be specified. Full scope for the operation of 
 all these causes was given by the long Napoleonic war whicli 
 devastated the Continent, whilst it left us in secure isolation to 
 perfect our manufactures, and to grasp the carrying trade of the 
 world. So conspicuous was the supremacy thus established 
 that some among us came to regard it almost as part of the fixed 
 order of Nature. These good people took the same view re- 
 specting their country which a Sheffield manufacturer expressed 
 respecting his town : — " Sheffield was really a very fine town, 
 and he questioned whether any part of the world was equal 
 to it." Although conceivably we might improve ourselves, yet 
 we were so superior to other nations that improvement was 
 hardly a thing of practical concern. Nay, there was some 
 fear of doing harm in the rash attempt to ameliorate that 
 which was already so excellent. In this frame of mind, our 
 
 * The Commissioners and the Report referred to in these pages are in- 
 variably the Commissioners appointed to inquire into technical instruction, 
 and the second Report prepared by them. The Report itself may be pur- 
 chased either directly or through any bookseller from any of the following 
 agents : — Messrs. Hansard and Son, 13, Great Queen Street, W.C. , and 
 32, Abingdon Street, Westminster ; Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode, East 
 Harding Street, Fleet Street, and Sale Office, House of Lords ; liessrs. 
 Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh; Messrs. Alexander Thorn and Co., 
 or Messrs. Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Dubhn. 
 
12 Technical Education. 
 
 industrial classes were little disposed to vex their souls with 
 problems of technical education. 
 
 Our neighbours, however, saw things more clearly. The 
 industrial supremacy of Great Britain appeared to them the 
 effect of definite causes, not of an indefinite perfection in the 
 British. They were inferior to us in material resources and in 
 natural ingenuity ; but their inferiority in these respects forced 
 upon their attention the value of thrift and of education. 
 Thrift multiplied their capital, and education multiplied their 
 industrial efficiency. England served them as a model of 
 organisation and equipment ; but their trained intelligence 
 enabled them to improve upon this model. For some time 
 past, whilst we have advanced, they have advanced faster 
 still ; they have driven us from several of their domestic 
 markets, and they are sharply competing with us in the 
 markets of other nations. We find that our industrial empire 
 is vigorously attacked all over the world. We find that our 
 most formidable assailants are the best educated peoples. 
 Upon this matter let us listen to the testimony of an English- 
 man, for thirty years manager in a Bavarian engineering 
 works : — 
 
 "Germany thirty years ago, as compared with England, was simply 
 nowhere ; but placing English and German workshops side by side now, 
 we should find that the progress in the latter had been positively mar- 
 vellous. During all these years the Germans had been following the 
 English step by step, importing their machinery and tools, engaging, when 
 they could, the best men from the best shops, copying their methods of 
 work and the organisation of their industries ; but, besides this, they had 
 devoted special attention to a matter which England had almost ignored : 
 the scientific or technical instruction of their own people. And what has 
 been the result of all this ? They have reached a point at which they 
 have little to learn from the Englisfi." — " Report," Vol I., p. 335. 
 
 This testimony was confirmed by the observation of the 
 Commissioners themselves. In their description of a visit to the 
 factories of Alsace, they tell us that 
 
 " Our rivals have possessed themselves outwardly of all the advantages 
 and excellences which have been the growth of English inventiveness and 
 enterprise during the last generation. To the casual observer, strolling 
 from room to room, and watching the varying processes from the soft 
 white sliver to the ' built up ' cop of yarn, there would not appear to be 
 a very appreciable difference between a German and a Lancashire factory. 
 The raw material, machinery, and appointments, are equal in both cases. 
 In general appearance the operatives do not compare unfavourably with 
 those of Lancashire." — "Report," Vol I., p. 295. 
 
Introduction. 13 
 
 We know to our cost that the equahty of English and 
 German manufacturers is sometimes real as well as apparent. 
 Thus, weaving firms in the Saxon town of Chemnitz send 
 their fancy goods to London, Bradford, or Manchester, and 
 sell them in the very centres of competition. Similar instances 
 could be drawn from other industries. 
 
 The success of our rivals is not to be explained by reference 
 to the low wages and long hours of work general on the 
 Continent. If labour is cheaper there, coal is dearer, 
 machinery is dearer, and imported raw material often pays 
 a tax. Moreover, the artizans abroad have not the energy of 
 our own men, who eat better and more abundant food, and 
 have more rest. The foreign employers questioned by the 
 Commissioners allowed that for strength and spirit the English 
 operative was unrivalled. Some of them thought that they should 
 ultimately gain by such a rise in wages and curtailment of 
 work as would improve the health and strength of their own 
 hands. The Commissiojiers expressly state that the foreign 
 competition which presses us most seriously is more frequently 
 that in which the conditions of hours and wages approach 
 nearest to those prevailing here. In so far as the competition 
 between ourselves and foreign nations depends on the work- 
 man, it is mainly the sobriety and the intelligence of their 
 workmen which give them the advantage. But in that com- 
 petition it is not only the intelligence of the workman; it is the 
 intelligence of the foreman, the manager, the master, nay, it is 
 the intelligence of the whole people, which is of so much weight. 
 
 Let us dwell a little longer upon this point, for it is one of 
 supreme consequence to ourselves. We have begun to see 
 the commercial value of elementary and of technical education. 
 But our perception of their commercial value will not help us 
 unless it is joined to a perception of their place and relations 
 in the whole scheme of enlightenment. We must again and 
 again repeat that neither elementary education nor technical 
 education can be perfected apart from education in general, 
 or could by themselves have made Germany so puissant a 
 rival as we now find her. The strength of Germany lies in 
 the culture of every class of Germans, in the real love of 
 learning which animates ,the people and their rulers, in the 
 patient, inquiring, and scientific spirit which has transformed 
 almost every branch of human activity from metaphysics to 
 the art of war. This culture, this love of learning, this 
 
14 Technical Education. 
 
 scientific spirit, are not rare among us, but neither are they 
 diffused ; they are the property of individuals and of small 
 groups. In Germany the problem how to educate the 
 whole nation as well as possible has for many years been 
 constantly present to the minds of scholars and statesmen. 
 In England, and still more in Ireland, it is less the education 
 of the people than the advantage which parties can draw 
 from controlling education that has fascinated journalists 
 and members of Parliament. Education, however, is too 
 grave a concern to be dealt with by men who lack single- 
 ness of aim and purity of purpose. In spite of the growth 
 of a genuine interest in the object, we are still far behind 
 Germany in primary, in secondary, in university education, 
 and therefore in technical education, which grows out of 
 and always remains entwined with all three. The education 
 of a people is a whole, and has a unity. Technical education, 
 the education which makes a man expert in his calling, has 
 its allotted place in that wider education which makes him a 
 worthy member of a civilised commonwealth. The education 
 which draws out all the intelligence of the community is a 
 necessary antecedent to the education which draws out the 
 capacity of this or that man for this or that calling. 
 
 Technical education falls into two great divisions : the edu- 
 cation of those who will be engaged in manufactures, mining, 
 building, and similar occupations ; and the education of those 
 who will be engaged in agriculture. Each of these principal 
 divisions may again be subdivided into three grades : the 
 primary, the intermediate, and the advanced. In each of these 
 grades the instruction must be varied according to the nature 
 of the particular branch of industry which is taught. From 
 these considerations we may see how vast and intricate is the 
 subject of technical education. Its full discussion would pro- 
 duce a large library of monographs which only experts could 
 understand. But many persons beside experts are beginning 
 to concern themselves in technical education, and for them a 
 general survey of the field which it covers may be useful. Such 
 a survey, based upon the results of long and laborious investi- 
 gation, helps to show the ends at which we must aim, the results 
 which we have already achieved, and the principles which 
 should guide us in making good our deficiencies. In the hope 
 of rendering this assistance to the public, the following abstract 
 has been written. 
 
15 
 
 II.— TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION IN MANU- 
 FACTURES, MINING, ETC. 
 
 A. — Primary Instruction. 
 
 By primary instruction is here understood such technical 
 instruction as is required by the ordinary artizan. The educa- 
 tion of the artizan may be divided into the education given in 
 the pubUc elementary schools and the education given in schools 
 purely technical. Accordingly, the Commissioners, in their 
 inquiries and recommendations, constantly kept in view the 
 state of elementary education. So much has recently been 
 done to improve the elementary schools of this Country that we 
 are apt to think them even better than they are — to suppose 
 them practically perfect. In truth, we have still many things 
 to learn from countries where the school system has been 
 maturing through a long course of years. If anybody questions 
 this statement, let him take a favourable specimen of our public 
 elementary schools, and compare it with the Swiss school of the 
 same class, described in the following passage of the Repoit : — ■ 
 
 " One of the best elementary Swiss schools visited by the Commissioners 
 is that on the Lindescher Platz, in Zurich. The cost of building this 
 school was ;^43,ooo, which amounts to £,(>(i per head. Irregularity of 
 attendance is practically unknown ; all the children learn one foreign 
 language ; moreover, they are all taught drawing, and have object lessons 
 in natural history. In the higher classes they are instructed in the rudi- 
 ments of chemistry and physics, great pains being taken to place before the 
 children well-arranged specimens, which are contained in a school museum. 
 These museums form very noteworthy objects in the Zurich schools. 
 Among the objects we found there were simple chemical and physical 
 apparatus, chemical specimens, geographical relief maps showing the 
 Alps and their glaciers, typical collections of commonly-occurring and 
 useful rocks and minerals^ excellent botanical models, as well as collections 
 of insects, carefully labelled, a complete herbarium, zoological and 
 anatomical specimens and models : the collection, in fact, serving as a type 
 of what such a school museum should be. Many of the specimens were 
 collected and arranged by the teachers. 
 
 " All the school subjects were taught intelligently and well. We were 
 spetially struck with the clean and tidy appearance of the boys, and there 
 was a difficulty in realising that the school consisted mainly of children of 
 the lower classes of the population." — " Report," Vol. I., p- 20. 
 
1 6 Technical Educatiox. 
 
 The chief faults of our elementary school system are two — 
 the average period of attendance at school is too short and the 
 programme of school teaching is too meagre. It is convenient 
 to examine these defects separately. In England a child can 
 be compelled to attend school when it is five years old ; but 
 as soon as it has passed the Fourth Standard it may be 
 employed for hire, and as soon as it has passed the Fifth 
 Standard it is free from any obligation of further attendance.* 
 
 The Fourth Standard is ridiculously low, and an intelligent 
 child, fairly well taught, can easily pass it at the age of ten years. 
 Consequently, ill those districts which especially concern us 
 here, in the manufacturing districts, where the labour of children 
 is valuable, almost every child has passed the Fourth Standard 
 at that age, and thenceforward is employed half its time in the 
 factories. It is plain to the meanest capacity that a child's 
 education must be hindered by putting it to work as soon as it 
 has completed its tenth year. The child, even when working 
 half time, can usually pass the Fifth Standard in another year, 
 and it is thus released from school when but eleven years old : 
 that is to say, after a school life of six years. In Germany and 
 Switzerland they order these things very differently. They act 
 on the principle, admitted by everybody who knows or cares 
 anything about education, that the way to secure a good train- 
 ing for the mind is not to end the school life as soon as the 
 scholar can pass an examination, but to insist that every 
 scholar shall spend a certain number of years under sound 
 teaching. The period of compulsory attendance at school 
 begins later and lasts longer there than here. In the city of 
 Hamburg it commences at the age of six and continues for 
 seven years; in the kingdom of Saxony it is practically the 
 same. In Baden, Bavaria, Zurich, and elsewhere, young persons 
 .leaving the elementary school at the age of twelve, thirteen, 
 or fourteen years, are required by law to attend the Fortbil- 
 dung, or continuation schools, for two or three years more. 
 
 " These evening schools," say the Commissioners, "help to sustain a 
 boy's interest in study at a time when he is likely to forget what he has 
 acquired in the ordinary primary school. For the want of them apprentices 
 
 * The age at which a child may be employed for hire is fixed by statute ; 
 the standard of total exemption from attendance at school is fixed by a bye-law 
 of the School Board or School Attendance Committee, which has received the 
 approval of the Education Department. In such bye-laws the Fifth Standard 
 is usually but not always, selected as that of total exemption. 
 
Frimary Instruction. 17 
 
 or young workmen frequently find themselves too ignorant to avail them- 
 selves of the special technical instruction which they have the opportunities 
 of obtaining, and on this account, and also because they serve to give the 
 youth a taste for study at the time when he begins to appreciate the value 
 of instruction, these schools have proved to be most serviceable to German 
 and Swiss artizans in quickening their intelligence, and in affording them 
 useful information bearing upon their trades." — " Report," Vol. I., p. 37. 
 
 In Germany and Switzerland there are not only more years 
 in the school life j there are also more hours in the school 
 day. Having thus secured the necessary time, the law lays 
 down a more liberal programme of elementary instruction than 
 the one adopted here. Examinations, developed here to the 
 great detriment of primary as well as of advanced instruc- 
 tion, are there kept in their proper bounds. There is less 
 "cramming," and the instruction is slower, more thorough, 
 and more reasoned, than it can be under our system of hurrying 
 children to the point where they may be rewarded by having 
 their education cut short. To lengthen the school life is, 
 therefore, the first reform needed in our school system. The 
 Commissioners contented themselves with recommending that 
 no child should be allowed to work half time before it had 
 passed the Fifth Standard : practically, before it was eleven 
 years old. This is a step in the right direction, perhaps as 
 long a step as can be taken now ; but we must not fancy that 
 even this change puts us on an equality with Switzerland or 
 Germany. With us the period of compulsory attendance at 
 school would still average only six years, and would still begin 
 at an unusually early age. It is desirable that children under 
 twelve years should not be employed in factories, and should 
 be compelled to attend school without reference to the 
 standard which they may have attained. Continuation schools, 
 open in the evening, should be estabUshed throughout the 
 country, and all persons under the age of fourteen years who 
 are not attending other schools should be required to attend 
 them. We have already seen the opinion of the Commissioners 
 as to the service done by the Fortbildung schools in Germany 
 and Switzerland. In this country they would be still more 
 useful, inasmuch as children leave school in a less advanced 
 stage of instruction. With us, the child who has attended an 
 elementary school too often leaves it at that very period of life 
 when the power of fixing the attention and the taste for know- 
 ledge begin for the first time to show themselves ; he goes back 
 to a home without intellectual interest^, where life is sacrificed 
 
i8 Technical Education. 
 
 to getting a livelihood ; he spends his days in a narrow routine 
 of mechanical labour and his evenings in utter listlessness, and, 
 on reaching manhood, finds that he has lost, in great part, the rudi- 
 ments which he so painfully acquired : that he is, if not exactly 
 illiterate, yet unfit to make progress in any branch of knowledge 
 which may relate to his calling. The true remedy is not to try 
 to crowd much more into the short period of compulsory 
 attendance at school, but to lengthen that period, whilst inter- 
 fering with industry as little as possible. This can be done only 
 by establishing evening schools to carry further the instruction 
 given in the day schools. 
 
 In the second place — and this is a fault which naturally 
 grows out of the fault first mentioned — our public elementary 
 schools do not teach as much as the model artiz'an should 
 know. There are, at least, three weak points in their system 
 of instruction, as tried by this humble and practical test. 
 Drawing is taught ill, the rudiments of natural science are 
 taught slightly, and the use of tools is taught rarely. Each of 
 these points demands separate consideration. 
 
 I. Drawing. — All experts are agreed that practice in draw- 
 ing is valuable as a means both of general and of technical 
 education. It imparts steadiness and delicacy to the fingers, it 
 develops clear and exact perception, and it cultivates the sense of 
 elegance and beauty, which, however feeble in most people, is 
 wholly absent only from the lowest minds. A knowledge of 
 drawing is useful in every handicraft, and indispensable in many. 
 Yet it appeared, from the evidence given before the Commis- 
 sioners, that drawing is not taught in more than a fourth of the 
 elementary schools in England. Even in these schools it is not 
 taught to every pupil. The teaching is generally bad, because 
 the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses themselves have not 
 been properly taught to draw. When the Commissioners drew 
 up their report, the grant for drawing might be earned by a 
 school which did not allot to the subject more than one hour a 
 week ; but this miserable allowance has since been increased 
 to pne hour and a half. Formerly the examination in draw- 
 ing was of the most futile character. A prodigious quantity of 
 work was sent up from every part of the kingdom to South 
 Kensington, and was there judged by the unhappy officials. 
 It should be noted that the drawing in public elementary 
 schools is in the charge, not of the Education Department, but 
 of the Science and Art Department. By the same Minute, 
 
Primary Instruction. 19 
 
 which requires more time to be given to drawing, it is provided 
 that the examination in drawing shall henceforward be held 
 in the school itself by a local inspector or by his assistant. 
 These changes are good, but they do not raise the instruction 
 in drawing to the standard attained in France or Germany, nor 
 do they fulfil the recommendations of the Commissioners. 
 The Commissioners recommended : — (i.) That rudimentary 
 drawing should be incorporated with writing as a single ele- 
 mentary subject, and that instruction in drawing should be 
 continued through all the standards; (ii.) that a proper supply 
 of casts and models for drawing should be included in that 
 " apparatus of elementary instruction " which a school must 
 possess before it can receive public money ; (iii.) that model- 
 ling should be constituted a subject on which grants could be 
 earned; (iv.) that art should be properly taught in the training 
 colleges to those who will subsequently have to teach art to 
 others ; (v.) that the inspectors of the Education Department 
 should be made responsible for the instruction in drawing given 
 in elementary schools. To these recommendations may be 
 added another, which they involve : namely, that the time given 
 to drawing in the school programmes should be increased. 
 Mr. Armstrong, the Director of Art for the Science and Art 
 Department, thought that four hours a week should be allotted 
 to drawing alone, before taking any time for such a subject as 
 modelling. This once done, he thought that one hour a week 
 for modelling would be time well spent. Drawing is not a sort 
 of work which harasses or exhausts the mind, and, for its sake, 
 the present school hours might, with advantage, be lengthened. 
 II. Natural Science. — In our infant schools the pupils have 
 object lessons in natural science, and in our elementary schools 
 certain sciences are class subjects, which may be taken up by 
 scholars who have passed the lowest standards. Geography 
 may, however, be regarded as a science, and geography may be 
 taken as a class subject in the lower division of elementary 
 schools. The Commissioners recommended that elemeritary 
 lessons in natural science, including geography, should take the 
 place now occupied by geography alone. The effect of this 
 change would be to continue the object lessons in' elementary 
 science now given in the infant school up to the point at which 
 they would be succeeded by definite teaching of special 
 sciences, so that the impressions made upon very young 
 children should not be allowed to vanish before they are old 
 
 B 2 
 
20 Technical Education. 
 
 enough to profit by higher methods of instruction. But when 
 we try to develop the study of natural science in elementary 
 schools, we are met with the same difficulties as in the case of 
 drawing — the want of time, the want of money, and the want 
 of well-trained teachers. Little science can be taught to back- 
 ward children,- whose school hours are so few. The cost of 
 apparatus wherewith to illustrate lessons in natural science is 
 more than most schools can afford. The teachers from the 
 training colleges have often been "crammed" with science 
 rather than disciplined in science. These difficulties, perhaps 
 insuperable in country places, have been partially overcome in 
 a few large towns by the employment of itinerant demonstrators, 
 or by the foundation of higher elementary schools. 
 
 At Liverpool and Birmingham the itinerant demonstrator 
 has proved useful. He works in unison with the teachers in 
 the various elementary schools, and his demonstrations rein- 
 force their lessons. The apparatus used in the demonstrations 
 is kept at a central laboratory, and is transferred from school 
 to school by means of alight hand-cart. The demonstrator 
 visits each school once a week, giving in the week eighteen or 
 twenty demonstrations. In the intervals between the demon- 
 strations the teachers of the respective classes, who have them- 
 selves been present, go over the subject of the last demonstra- 
 tion, and frequently illustrate their lectures with simple experi- 
 ments. For the help of the teachers there has been prepared 
 a simple text-book, with reading lessons on the subjects of the 
 demonstrations, and exercises to be worked by the scholars. 
 Schools not under the control of the School Board may have 
 the benefit of the system on condition of contributing to the 
 expense. At Liverpool the cost of the apparatus used during 
 five years did not exceed ;^i2o. These demonstrations have 
 proved equally beneficial to the teachers and to the scholars. 
 The teachers have been improved in their method of teaching 
 natural science. The scholars, when examined in the subjects 
 of the demonstrations, have shown a remarkable proficiency, 
 and this without any detriment to their other studies. 
 
 The foundation of higher elementary schools, sometimes 
 known as " graded " schools, has had good results in Manches- 
 ter, Sheffield, and other towns. These schools are recruited with 
 the most forward scholars from the common schools. In 
 Manchester all the children attending the graded schools have 
 passed in the Fifth Standard. They are taught French, 
 
Primary Instruction. 21 
 
 drawing, mathematics, physiology, chemistry, physics, and 
 geography. The school fee is only gd. a week, and there are 
 many scholarships for children entering from the primary 
 schools or leaving for the Manchester Grammar School. 
 The Commissioners stated that they had not seen on the 
 Continent any school which surpassed these in general 
 efficiency or in the tuition in any special subject, except 
 drawing. In a school of the same type, the Central School of 
 Sheffield, all the pupils take the ordinary subjects together with 
 some of the special subjects named in the Code. Both boys 
 and girls throughout the school are taught German. All the 
 girls learn needlework and practise cookery ; those in the higher 
 classes take chemistry. Drawing is thoroughly taught, and is 
 made the basis for practical work carried on in the school 
 workshops. This work comprises the production of simple 
 but perfect surfaces and solids in wood and iron, of models 
 and of apparatus for the experimental illustration of mechanical 
 principles. It appeared to the Commissioners that the manual 
 work deserved to be encouraged by grant, and could not well 
 be carried on without such encouragement 
 
 The Commissioners expressed in their Report the warmest 
 approval of these " graded " schools, and a desire for their 
 establishment in all our large towns.* To these and to the 
 system of demonstrations above described they trusted for the 
 diffusion of such elementary scientific knowledge as must form 
 the basis of ordinary technical education. At the same time 
 they insisted on the imperfection of the teaching in science 
 given by the training colleges. They suggested that the 
 training colleges should send up every year to the Normal 
 School of Science at South Kensington, or to similar institu- 
 tions of established merit, the students who show scientific 
 aptitude. They further recommended that the great School 
 
 * It is only right to say that some persons of great experience disapprove 
 of the institution of graded schools, and would prefer to see the higher instruc- 
 tion of advanced scholars given in the same school and by the same masters 
 in which and by whom their elementary training has been given. Their 
 arguments are briefly as follows ; — (i) Parents are more easily induced to 
 prolong the attendance of children at an old familiar school than to send them 
 to a new untried one. (2) A child's education is more likely to be systematic 
 and of a piece throughout if entirely given by the same teachers.- (3) The 
 teachers are improved both in zeal and in intelligence by having occasionally 
 to give instruction which is not elementary. Considerable weight attaches to 
 these arguments, and it must be owned that the question is one of much 
 difficulty. 
 
22 Technical Education. 
 
 Boards should be empowered to found training colleges for 
 day students. 
 
 III. Instruction in the use of Tools. — Such instruction has 
 been introduced into many, and is to be introduced into 
 all, the primary schools in France. It has been success- 
 fully tried at Manchester, and at other places. At Man- 
 chester the lessons are given by the School Board carpenter 
 before and during school hours, in rooms separate from the 
 rest of the school, and fitted with joiner's benches and lathes. 
 The boys work one-and-a-half hours a day. The Com- 
 missioners recommended that manual work, like modelling, 
 should be included among the subjects on which grants may be 
 earned. The instruction in the use of tools which can be 
 given in a primary school is, of course, very hmited. Children 
 of less than ten or eleven years are not strong enough to 
 use tools properly, and older children have scanty time to 
 spare. The lessons cannot be profitable unless the teachers 
 are skilful and the appliances good, and the expense of 
 providing these for a variety of handicrafts is beyond the means 
 of any one school. All that can be done is to give the 
 scholars a chance of making themselves acquainted with the 
 common tools for working wood and iron. Such knowledge is 
 useful to them, even if they do not afterwards become artizans. 
 The work is agreeable as a relaxation from reading and 
 writing. It helps to foster a taste for active industry, and to 
 check the foolish prejudice that the life of a copying clerk is 
 finer and happier than the life of a skilled craftsman. 
 
 Seeing how short is the school life of most children, it 
 remains to consider the education given to the workman in 
 purely technical schools. We are not here concerned with 
 workmen who possess unusual talent, scientific, artistic, or 
 administrative- — workmen who will, in the natural course of 
 things, become inventors, designers, or organisers. They should 
 be encouraged and assisted to seek the fullest technical instruc- 
 tion. But here we have to do with the common man, and the 
 problem is how to train him so that he shall be able to execute 
 in the best possible manner his common work. Formerly this 
 training was given by the system of apprenticeship ; and now 
 that apprenticeship has lost most of the peculiarities which made 
 it valuable as a means of education, it is proposed to supplement 
 the lessons of the workshop by those of the school. To com- 
 bine these so as to get the happiest result is a task of extreme 
 
Primary Instruction. . 23 
 
 nicety. The apprenticeship schools which abound in France, 
 Germany, and the neighbouring countries, vary in efificiency 
 and usefulness ; but, as a rule, they have not fully met the 
 wants of the class for which they were designed. A few 
 examples taken from the Report will give a general idea of all. 
 We shall then take a survey of the means of primary technical 
 instruction possessed by our artizans, notice the recommenda- 
 tions made by the Commissioners, and add a few observations 
 upon the possibilities of improvement. 
 
 The school of the Boulevard de la Villette, Paris, is intended 
 for workers in wood and iron. The instruction is gratuitous. 
 It comprises a general literary and scientific course, continuing 
 the course of the primary school, together with a special 
 technical training. The technical training combines lessons 
 on the nature of tools, materials, and processes, with practical 
 manual exercises in the workshop. The manual work is 
 divided into two courses : in the first year the pupil spends six 
 hours in the shops daily, and is taught the nature and con- 
 version of materials; in the second year he spends six, and in the 
 third year eight hours every day in the shop, and is busy with 
 actual construction appropriate to the trade which he adopts. 
 The school hours are from seven o'clock in the morning to 
 seven o'clock in the evening, with two hours of interval for meals 
 and recreation. The students pay visits to industrial establish- 
 ments, and write descriptions of that which they have seen. A 
 large proportion become engine-fitters or pattern-makers, and 
 are said to earn good wages immediately on leaving the school. 
 There are 250 pupils, and nearly _;£'5o,ooo has been expended 
 on the buildings. 
 
 Another apprenticeship school visited by the Commis- 
 sioners was the Royal Trade School of Iserlohn, in Westphalia, 
 the first school of the kind established in Prussia. The 
 manufacturers of the district were moved to found it by the 
 ignorance of the pupils who entered their works. In this 
 school industrial art suitable to metal work is combined 
 with handicraft teaching. The scholars go through a three 
 years' course, and are trained as designers, modellers, wood- 
 carvers, moulders, founders, turners, and pressers, chasers, 
 engravers, gilders, and etchers. The theoretical instruction 
 includes drawing in all its branches, modelling in wax and 
 clay, the elements of chemical and physical science, mathe- 
 matics, German, technology, and the history of artistic work in 
 
24 Technical Edvcation. 
 
 metal. The practical instruction consists of lessons in the 
 different branches of industry which the pupils are likely 
 to follow, each pupil stating on entrance in which craft he 
 wishes to be trained. In this, as in other technical schools, 
 the hours are much longer than in schools where there is little 
 or no practical work, the alternation of mental and bodily 
 labour giving rest to the different faculties in turn. 
 
 Particularly interesting are the apprenticeship schools 
 which have been established in Southern Germany and in 
 Austria for the encouragement of petty manufactures carried 
 on by the peasants. At the present day such manufactures 
 are limited both in number and in extent by the development 
 of machinery, and the consequent development of factories. 
 But if they require the exercise of taste, and if they are carried 
 on by persons who depend largely upon somie other calling, 
 such as agriculture, they may still minister to the well-being of 
 great numbers of people. Industries of this sort are wood- 
 carving, clock-making, straw-plaiting and, under peculiar cir- 
 cumstances, some sorts of weaving and pottery. For all these 
 crafts elementary technical schools have been provided in 
 Baden, Bavaria, and Austria. At Furtwangen, in Baden, there 
 is a remarkable school for wood-carving recruited among the 
 peasant lads of the neighbourhood. The scholars first draw 
 and then model the copy before carving it. They pay for the 
 wood, but become owners of everything which they execute. 
 The local authorities provide the building, and the State pays 
 the teachers, besides supplying models, examples, and tools. 
 For literary and technical instruction the pupils all resort to 
 the neighbouring Trade School, and for lessons in cabinet 
 work they frequent a joiner's school. At Arco, in the Southern 
 Tyrol, a school much humbler than the one at Furtwangen 
 proved the germ of a flourishing industry. The people of 
 Arco, who had long regarded olive-wood as fit only to be 
 burned, noticed at last that at Bergamo and other places just 
 over the frontier it was manufactured into many pretty or useful 
 articles. Thereupon the authorities opened a school, with 
 workshops for turning and inlaying ; skilful teachers and good 
 examples were procured ; the scholars became first expert, and 
 then famous ; orders poured in from every quarter, even from 
 America, and now many persons are employed in carving olive- 
 wood, either in the factory or in their own homes. 
 
 It is worth while to contrast the skill and ingenuity of the 
 
Primary Instruction. 25 
 
 wood carving done in the districts where these schools have 
 been established with the lack of the same qualities in much of 
 the carving done in Ireland, where the artistic power of the 
 peasantry has not been called forth by instruction. And in 
 this context we may notice an instance of the revival of an old 
 peasant industry by timely artistic training. 
 
 In the Erz Gebirge, far from manufacturing towns, the 
 women, to the number of 20,000, earn a livelihood by making 
 lace. At one time the lace made in this district was much 
 admired, and fetched a good price. But fashion changed, and 
 foreign makers undersold the peasants, who could not under- 
 stand why their lace was no longer wanted, and went on 
 making what they could not sell, until many were at the point 
 of starvation. The Government then held an investigation, 
 established a lace department in the Industrial Art School of 
 Vienna, caused a number of girls to be annually brought up 
 from the country for a three months' course of lessons in 
 designing and making lace, and thus restored comparative 
 prosperity to the unfortunate lace-makers. Instances like 
 these point to the establishment of small technical schools as 
 one of the best means of reducing the poverty and idleness 
 which prevail in some parts of Ireland. People without 
 capital, without knowledge, and without enterprise, must be 
 taught like children. It is perverse pedantry to apply to them 
 maxims of letting well alone which have only a partial truth 
 when applied even to rich, enlightened, and energetic people. 
 
 Compare with the Irish pictures which we know too well 
 the following picture from Thuringia : — 
 
 " If the neighbourhood through which we passed is fairly representative 
 of the forest country of Thuringia, it is impossible to overrate the impor- 
 tance, in a material point of view, of these home industries. The cottages ■ 
 were pretty and well kept ; most of the windows contained flowers 
 beautifully grown in pots, and many of the houses had gardens attached 
 to them. The people were well-dressed, and had the air of being well- 
 fed and contented. They are evidently a most industrious race, and their 
 success may depend as much upon their natural disposition and tempera- 
 ment as on the fact that they have been trained for generations in these 
 various occupations. Still, whatever may be the cause of their success in 
 home industries, we think it is impossible to doubt that the influence for 
 good of such work is of vast importance. We found populous and thriving 
 villages, filled with busy workers, in districts remote from railways, and 
 where carriage and transport must be matters of extreme difficulty, and in 
 parts of the country, moreover, where agricultural work would in many 
 cases be wholly insufficient to provide support for more than a small 
 
2 6 Technical Education. 
 
 proportion of the present population. It is in such cases as these that the 
 provision of suitable employment for the masses of the people is so 
 important, and the question of the mode in which such industries are 
 introduced, and the way in which they are fostered, is surely one which 
 deserves the most careful attention of the economist." — " Report," Vol. I., 
 P- 549- 
 
 In Belgium the apprenticeship schools give gratuitous 
 teaching, and are supported chiefly by the State and the 
 municipalities. They are open on every evening in the week, 
 and on Sunday mornings. But there is no uniformity in their 
 programmes, which are adapted to the different industries of 
 different places. The general instruction takes in French or 
 Flemish, arithmetic, geometry, the elements of chemistry and 
 physics, technology, the laws of health, and industrial economy. 
 Drawing is the basis of all the technical teaching, and is 
 regarded as the universal language. The drawing lessons follow 
 a graduated course, from drawing lines in chalk on the black- 
 board to the study of projection and ornament, industrial 
 drawing for special trades, and original designing. The course 
 at these schools lasts from three to five years, according to the 
 circumstances of each place. As a rule, the pupils must 
 be at least fourteen years old at the time of admission, and 
 most of those attending at any one time are less than 
 eighteen years of age. Many of the pupils intend to become 
 clerks or draughtsmen, but every class of skilled artisan is 
 represented among them. 
 
 Holland has some good apprentice schools, of~ which the 
 Ambachts School at Rotterdam is a favourable specimen. The 
 general teaching continues that ^iven in the primary school, 
 but extends to all the subjects recognised in the three years' 
 course of the Dutch middle-class schools. Drawing is well 
 taught, always with a view to practice. As regards technical 
 instruction, the boys, as soon as they have learnt the use 
 of tools, begin to make small articles, which can either be sold 
 or else used in the school itself. It is found that" they become 
 more industrious by being employed upon work which has a 
 marketable value. The workshops, constantly improved and 
 enlarged, now include shops for carpenters, for . blacksmiths, 
 for metal-workers, for fitters and turners, for cabinet-makers, 
 for masons and for stone-carvers. Boys are admitted . when 
 twelve years old, and the full course lasts three years. When a 
 pupil has finished his time, the school committee finds him a 
 
Primary Instruction. 27 
 
 situation. The fees, which amount to 8s. 4d. for the year, are 
 readily remitted to the sons of poor parents. It is unnecessary 
 to say that the school is maintained chiefly by the assistance of 
 the Government, the province, and the city. 
 
 The provision made in this country for the technical 
 instruction of the artizan may be considered under four princi- 
 pal heads : I. Schools maintained by private firms for the 
 benefit of those in their employment ; II. Schools open to the 
 general public ; III. Classes organised by the City and Guilds 
 of London Institute for the promotion of Technical Education ; 
 IV. Science classes organised by the Department of Science 
 and Art. (The Art Schools under the Department will be 
 noticed in the next chapter.) 
 
 I. Under this head are comprised such schools as that 
 estabhshed by Messrs. Armstrong at Elswick, or those 
 established by the London and North-Western Railway 
 Company at Crewe, or the school attached to the works of 
 Messrs. Mather and Piatt, at Manchester. The last-named 
 school was inspected by the Commissioners, under the guid- 
 ance of Mr. Mather, who explained its intimate connection 
 with the works. The drawings made in the school are of work 
 actually in progress in the shops. One day the teacher gives 
 the necessary explanations and calculations, and the next day 
 the scholars see, as it were, on the anvil, the very thing which 
 has been the subject of his lecture. The teachers are also 
 employed in the works, know what each pupil is doing there, 
 and readily adapt their lessons to his wants. Thus every 
 arrangement is based on the principle that you must bring the 
 school to the workshop, not the workshop to the school — a 
 thoroughly sound principle, as applied to certain industries 
 like engineering. The school has well repaid the firm for 
 their pains in setting it up. Mr. Mather told the Commis- 
 sioners that the works had derived from the school an 
 incalculable advantage. 
 
 " We desire to send out yearly one or two thoroughly competent men, 
 who shall not be simply mechanics in the ordinary sense of the word, but 
 who shall be able to turn their attention to anything coming under their 
 notice, whether they have done the thing before or not. We had the 
 greatest difficulty in finding such men, until we began to take them from 
 the school ; and since the school has been established we have been able 
 to send boys of 20 to 21 to long distances from England, and to place in 
 their hands work which they have not had much to do with before ; and 
 by their own intelligence they have made competent teachers of others, 
 
2 8 Technical Education. 
 
 and given the greatest satisfaction. Thus one was sent out only a few 
 years ago not quite out of his apprenticeship, and is now getting ^4 per 
 weelt."— " Report," Vol. I., p. 430. 
 
 We can the better understand the value of such a school 
 to a great engineering firm by comparing Mr. Mather's testi- 
 mony with that given by Professor Ayrton, of the Finsbury 
 Technical College. 
 
 " The present workman, to a great extent, is nothing more than a mere 
 machine ; he exei-cises no more independent thought than the chisel or the 
 lathe, and the result is that he becomes deadened, and he works in a 
 careless way, scamping his work and wasting material, the consequence of 
 which is that the price of articles has very much risen." — "Report," Vol. 
 III., p. 116. 
 
 But such schools as that maintained by Messrs. Mather 
 and Piatt for the benefit of their own estabUshment can never 
 meet the wants of the country at large. 
 
 1 1. Schools available for apprentices generally are few in this 
 country. The Oldham School of Science and Art is one of the 
 best. The Commissioners described it as an excellent sample 
 of the kind of school which should exist in every industrial 
 town in the kingdom. It had its germ in certain evening 
 classes in science and art commenced in connection with the 
 Oldham Lyceum, and is in alliance with the City and Guilds 
 of London Institute for the advancement of technical educa- 
 tion. By the liberality of Messrs. Piatt, the school is now 
 housed in a large and handsome building, with chemical and 
 physical laboratories.. It is an evening school, with nearly 
 a thousand pupils. The science course embraces practical 
 geometry, machine drawing, building construction, mathematics, 
 mechanics, sound, light, heat, magnetism, and electricity, inor- 
 ganic chemistry, geology, steam, freehand and model drawing, 
 and technical instruction in tools, mechanical engineering, and 
 the cotton manufacture. The leading manufacturers of Oldham 
 support the school generously, and speak highly of its work. 
 A member of an important firm of engineers told the Com- 
 missioners that it got all its foremeri draughtsmen from the 
 School of Science and Art. Before the school existed the firm 
 employed Swiss, French, or German draughtsmen. Now there 
 is hardly a foreigner in the town. Another employer observed : — 
 
 "The working mechanics are much more intelligent. Now a man 
 can be sent out to work, and can transmit his views to the firm in writing, 
 give sketches, and reason about matters ; formerly the man would have 
 
Frimary Instruction. 29 
 
 had to return to the works, and get personal instructions in all cases of 
 difficulty; The suggestions they make to remedy defects are more practical 
 than before. Every man may nvw be equal in intelligence to what the 
 ■master was before the school was established." — " Report," Vol. I., p. 453. 
 
 III. The City and Guilds of London Institute has framed 
 a system of technical teaching in its outlines not unlike the 
 system of teaching science established by the Science and Art 
 Department. It enters into correspondence with local com- 
 mittees throughout the kingdom, helps them to organise classes, 
 finds examiners, holds examinations, and makes a capitation 
 grant for successful candidates. The qualification needed for 
 a teacher of any of these classes is partly theoretical and partly 
 practical. He must hold a certificate of honours, granted either 
 by the Science and Art Department or by the Institute, and he 
 must have filled some place, such as that of foreman, in the 
 industry which he professes to expound. The Society of Arts 
 had conceived and, i i part, realised the idea of local examina- 
 tions in technical knowledge, but as it did not pay for results, 
 the results were small. Few candidates offered themselves, 
 even in the few places where examinations were held. Since 
 the Institute took over the examinations, and made them the 
 basis of payment, the centres of examination and the candidates 
 at each centre have multiplied exceedingly. In some places 
 technical schools already existing have affiliated themselves to 
 the Institute, and prepare candidates for its examinations. In 
 other places the classes established with the help of the Insti- 
 tute have grown, or promise to grow, into technical schools. 
 Some disadvantages always attach to a control over education 
 exerted by a central examining body ; but these disadvantages 
 are not to be weighed against the advantages of a uniform 
 standard and a coherent organisation, which the Institute 
 assures to the technical teaching of so many localities, differing 
 so greatly in their knowledge of what constitutes a good tech- 
 nical training, and in their means of providing it. There is 
 some danger lest, for want of skilled teachers, high standards, 
 and adequate resources, our small technical schools may dis- 
 credit technical instruction altogether. The Institute does 
 what it can to avert. this danger. It is now becoming well 
 known throughout the kingdom ; but, oddly enough, when the 
 Commissioners visited Ireland it had not been heard of outside 
 Belfast 
 
 IV. The Science and Art Department does not profess to 
 
30 Technical Education. 
 
 give technical instruction in its science classes. But these 
 science classes do more than any other agency to spread 
 among our artizans that elementary knowledge of natural 
 science which is the only possible basis of technical know- 
 ledge. The Department has been so long at work, and its 
 methods are so well known to all who interest themselves in 
 education, that any lengthened criticism is needless here. We 
 have only to note the suggestions for increasing its usefulness 
 which were made in the Report. These suggestions, in so far as 
 they related to science, were briefly as follows : — (i.) that School 
 Boards and, in places where there are no School Boards the 
 local authority, should have power to establish, conduct, and 
 contribute to the maintenance of classes for young persons 
 and adult artizans under the control of the Department, (ii.) 
 That the Department should, wherever possible, give a more 
 practical character to the teaching of science, especially in the 
 " honours "stage ; that in the " advanced " stages the payment 
 on results should be increased for all subjects, and that the 
 grouping of subjects should be encouraged, (iii.) That the 
 subject of metallurgy should be broken up into groups ot 
 kindred subjects, such as (a) the precious metals, (b) metals 
 extracted from metalliferous mines, as copper, lead, tin, &c. {c) 
 iron and steel; and that the subject of mining should likewise 
 be broken up into (a) coal mining and \b) metalliferous 
 mining, (iv.) That the Department should make more effective 
 its inspection of science classes, with a view to ascertain the 
 quality of the instruction and the adequacy of the laboratories 
 and apparatus, (v.) That the Department should not insist on 
 the payment of fees by artizans attending the classes, (vi.) 
 That the grants made by the Department for the building of 
 schools of art or of science should no longer be limited to 
 _;^5oo ■ in each case, and that the conditions attached to these 
 grants should be revised. 
 
 Upon a general view it must be owned that with regard to 
 technical instruction for artizans we still have much to learn 
 from our neighbours. At the same time, we possess in the 
 classes of the City and Guilds' Institute, and in those of the 
 Science and Art Department, two unique and valuable 
 organisations, which, if constantly extended and improved, 
 may supply most of our deficiencies. By undertaking this 
 work later than other nations, we get the benefit of their 
 experience. They have now and then committed the mistake 
 
Primary Instruction. 31 
 
 of trying to teach in the school things which can be better 
 taught in the workshop. They have now and then oifered to 
 the artizan an instruction too elaborate for his wants, or 
 given at hours when his work has to be done. Our people are 
 of a practical bent : they can distinguish the knowledge which is 
 useful to them, and if they can most conveniently get it in the 
 workshop they will seek it there. But in our first enthusiasm 
 we may found technical schools for workmen such that work- 
 men will not attend them. The technical school for workmen 
 must teach what workmen want to know. It must adapt its 
 hours and arrangements to their leisure and to their con- 
 venience, and must, therefore, be an evening school. A day 
 school which keeps boys of fifteen or sixteen years from their 
 work lays a heavy burthen upon their parents, and the pressure 
 of this burthen provokes an agitation, first of all for the 
 remission of school fees, and secondly for the supply of food 
 and clothing at the public expense. The Parisian technical 
 schools for workmen are, as a rule, open gratis, and in one of 
 them each pupil costs the community £,1% a year. A pupil 
 leaving this school at the age of seventeen years would not 
 necessarily or probably be a better workman than a lad of the 
 same age who had spent two years in a good workshop, and 
 had attended evening classes at the Finsbury College or the 
 Oldham School of Science and Art. Even in Paris the schools 
 thus lavishly assisted are not filled solely by young artizans. 
 
 The evening school is liable to this objection : that it offers 
 instruction to persons already fatigued with a long day's labour, 
 who may be incapable of application, or at least may feel that 
 they have earned their rest. Yet there is abundant experience 
 to show that evening schools are crowded with pupils, and teach 
 their pupils a great deal. Employers should certainly assist and 
 encourage apprentices to attend these schools. Professor Huxley 
 says, with his accustomed shrewdness : — 
 
 " Of all the practical measures that could be taken for the advancement 
 of technical education and scientific teaching the most important would be 
 that employers should show that they valued it, and that they would do 
 something for the young people who in any way distinguished themselves. " 
 — " Report," Vol. III., p. 322. 
 
32 Technical Education. 
 
 B. — Intermediate Instruction 
 
 Technical education, we repeat, must always be considered 
 with reference to education as a whole. The establishment of 
 a complete system of public elementary schools has made it 
 possible to organise primary technical instruction. Inter- 
 mediate technical instruction cannot be put on a proper 
 footing until we have improved our secondary schools. In 
 England we have asserted the right and duty of the State to 
 secure the efficiency of primary schools by regulation and 
 assistance. But we have hitherto confined the action of the 
 State in respect of secondary schools to the business of ensuring 
 that their ancient endowments, if they have any, shall not be 
 wasted. With this exception we have left our secondary 
 education to the mercy of chance. Any person, however ill 
 qualified, may set up a school for boys of the middle class, 
 and, having set it up, may conduct it as he pleases. No 
 public body undertakes to provide new schools of this order, 
 or to enforce any standard of excellence in those already 
 existing. The consequences are such as we might naturally 
 expect. Test the instruction given in many of thg private 
 adventure schools, whether in classics, in modern languages, 
 in natural science, or in drawing, and you will find it thoroughly 
 superficial and unserviceable. Yet these schools exact fees 
 which in France or Germany would be thought high ; their 
 masters are ill paid; their buildings, although not so bad as 
 everything else about them, are seldom satisfactory ; and alto- 
 gether the proof is ample that they cannot afford to be eflScient, 
 and would not pay if they were useful. Such schools are no 
 fit places of preparation for youths who are to carry on the 
 commerce and manufactures of a great people. 
 
 There are, no doubt, many schools whose celebrity offers a 
 guarantee of their quality ; but these schools do not aim at 
 preparing boys for intermediate technical education. They 
 educate boys for the universities, for the learned professions, 
 for public life, and for the pursuits of literature. There are 
 many schools inferior to these, yet richly endowed, which have 
 been re-modelled by the Charity Commissioners, and give the 
 preparation here suggested. But the Charity Commissioners 
 have not proceeded in the reorganisation of endowed schools 
 
Intermediate Instruction, 33 
 
 quite so fast as we could wish. Besides, endowed schools are 
 distributed very unequally over the country. Whilst they are 
 numerous in a small town like Bedford, they are few in a 
 huge city like Manchester. They are naturally most plentiful 
 in those places which formerly were seats of industry and of 
 wealth, places ' almost without exception left to quiet and 
 forgetfulness by the industrial revolution. So that if all the 
 endowed schools of England could be re-organised in an instant, 
 and with full consideration for those studies which naturally 
 lead up to a technical training, even this would not meet all the 
 wants of middle class education. 
 
 In order to provide for our intermediate education, both as 
 a whole and in its technical branches, we must call in the help 
 of public bodies. Without this we cannot get a sufficient 
 supply of good secondary schools evenly distributed over the 
 whole kingdom. Such schools, experience has shown, cannot be 
 cheap if they have to defray all their expenses out of the fees paid 
 by their scholars. In order that they may be open, not merely to 
 the children of prosperous men of business and professional 
 men, but to the children of the struggling middle class, they 
 must have help, if not from endowments, then from rates or 
 taxes. The local authorities of counties and boroughs must be 
 empowered to establish such schools, and to contribute to 
 their maintenance. There is nothing unreasonable in this 
 proposal. The rich man, whose sons are at Eton or Harrow, 
 at Trinity or Christchurch, cannot well deny the claim of the 
 shopkeeper to give his sons an education better than he could 
 provide out of his unaided means. The poor man, whose 
 children are educated largely at the cost of the middle class, 
 can scarcely grumble if the middle class receive public help 
 towards its own education. Nor will any wise patriot grudge 
 an expenditure so necessary, in order that the class which fills 
 all but the highest posts in all our industries may hold its own 
 against the corresponding class in France or Germany, educated 
 to the highest point by means of profuse expenditure of public 
 money. 
 
 Secondary schools, built and equipped out of local funds, 
 maintained partly by local subsidies, but partly by the 
 fees of the scholars, and inspected by official experts, would 
 differ considerably from the pri^ ate adventure schools to which 
 the middle class now entrusts its children. They would 
 not supersede the private adventure schools, but they would 
 
34 Technical Education. 
 
 kill out all that are hopelessly bad, and drive the rest ' to 
 become better. These public schools should, of course, vary 
 their curriculum according to the needs of different places. 
 Where there already existed schools enough to satisfy all the 
 demand for a literary education, the new schools should chiefly 
 devote themselves to teaching natural science and modern 
 languages.. In other places they might be double — might have 
 two " sides," as the phrase goes : the one chiefly literary, the 
 other chiefly scientific. The majority of these public schools 
 would correspond with the " real " schools of Germany, and, 
 besides discharging other functions, would prepare lads for 
 that intermediate technical instruction which we have now to 
 consider. 
 
 The term intermediate, as applied to technical education, is 
 necessarily vague. Technical education, which must always 
 drive at practice, and adapt itself to all the endless require- 
 ments of a thousand callings, does not admit of that clear and 
 simple distribution which may be used in explaining a scheme 
 of liberal education. The intermediate technical instruction 
 discussed in this chapter is an instruction for students of many 
 descriptions, for that minority of gifted workmen whose talent 
 claims more than elementary training, for managers of depart- 
 ments in large works, for heads of establishments who lack 
 time, means, or inclination for an elaborate culture, and for 
 merchants and distributors who find their advantage in having 
 some theoretical knowledge of the goods in which they traflSc. 
 Schools meant for the use of such a variety of persons must 
 needs be very various in character. They may be roughly 
 classified as follows : — I. Schools giving general technical 
 instruction. II. Schools giving the technical instruction needed 
 in particular industries. Among these schools we may distin- 
 guish building schools, mining and engineering schools, and 
 weaving schools. III. Schools of industrial art. A few 
 remarks respecting each of the above classes will show how 
 rough is the classification even as applied to schools on the 
 Continent. As applied to schools in our own country, it is 
 still rougher. But the absence of concert in our technical 
 education baffles every attempt to classify our technical schools. 
 
 I. — Schools giving a general technical education. The 
 lower grade school of this class ranks just above the 
 apprenticeship school — in fact, may be combined with it, 
 as in several English institutions ; the higher grade schools 
 
Intermediate Instruction. 35 
 
 of this class ranks just below technical schools of the first 
 rank, such as the German Polytechnics .or the Central 
 Institution at South Kensington. The pupils of the inferior 
 technical school will come mostly from the public elementary 
 schools ; whilst the pupils of the advanced technical school 
 will mostly come from the secondary schools. Thus inter- 
 mediate technical schools may be classified according to the 
 average age for admission in each instance. There will be 
 one set of technical schools for those who wish to begin learn- 
 ing a trade at the age of thirteen years, and another set of 
 technical schools for those who can defer learning a trade uutil 
 they are sixteen years old. Intermediate technical schools of 
 the lower grade are few in England. In France they are more 
 plentiful. A French example will serve to show what schools 
 of this class ought to be. 
 
 The Ecole Professionelle Municipale ot Rheims was 
 founded in a.d. 1875, in order to help the youth of that city 
 in getting a practical knowledge of manufactures and commerce. 
 The pupils were to be drawn from such scholars at the primary 
 schools as had passed their examination with credit, but others 
 are admitted on passing an entrance examination in grammar, 
 dictation, and arithmetic. Boys enter the school at the age of 
 thirteen, and the course extends over three years. During the 
 first two years all receive the same theoretical and practical 
 instruction ; but in the third year they are distributed, accord- 
 ing to their aptitudes, between the sections of manufactures, 
 mechanics, commerce, and agriculture. In this year eighteen 
 hours a week are allotted to practical work in the shop. For 
 the practical work a complete plant has been supplied at a cost 
 of ^20,000. In the weaving and spinning department the 
 student can apply his theoretical knowledge to the pro- 
 duction of the various textiles manufactured at Rheims. He 
 can spin and weave the wool which he has washed, carded, 
 dyed, and prepared, and can perform each operation in the 
 school with plant similar to that used in the factory. Drawing 
 is taught on a method which appears to produce accurate and 
 rapid draughtsmen. The students in the first year spend three 
 months in drawing from sketches on the blackboard ; they then 
 proceed to make freehand sketches of geometrical solids, tools, 
 and parts of machines. These sketches are afterwards care- 
 fully figured for dimensions, and from them accurate drawings 
 to scale are prepared. Finally, they produce in the same way 
 c 2 
 
36 Technical Education. 
 
 freehand sketches and finished drawings of the objects that 
 they actually make in the workshop. In the second year, 
 seven, and in the third year six, hours a week are devoted to 
 drawing. The chemical laboratories are well equipped, and the 
 scheme of instruction is so carefully arranged that the whole 
 cost of 200 experiments performed by a student in his first and 
 second year does not exceed five francs. A special laboratory 
 is set apart from those students of the third year who intend 
 to enter chemical works, and in this the chemistry of dyeing 
 is taught. 
 
 The French schools of this class are highly recommended 
 in the Report. 
 
 " In the whole system of French instruction your Commissioners have 
 found nothing, except as regards art teaching, which seems to them so 
 worthy of attention as these higher elementary technical schools." — 
 "Report," Vol. I., p. 84. 
 
 In the grade just above that of the higher elementary 
 schools, the grade of secondary schools, properly so called, 
 come institutions such as the technical department of Firth 
 College, Sheffield, or of University College, Nottingham, the 
 Ecole Centrale of Lyons, and the Higher Trade Institute of 
 Chemnitz. The ]6cole Centrale of Lyons is a school for 
 mechanical engineers who wish to complete their education at 
 the age of nineteen or twenty years. The pupils usually 
 become managers and superior foremen. The Commissioners 
 thought that schools of this type might with advantage be 
 established in our large towns. The Higher Trade Institute 
 of Chemnitz in Saxony comprises four schools ; a higher 
 technical school for mechanists, chemists, and architects ; a fore- 
 men's school for foremen employed in various industries ; a 
 building school for those who wish to follow any branch of the 
 building trade ; and a drawing school for everybody who cares 
 to attend it. The age of the pupils is much the same as at 
 the ;fecole Central of Lyons. The outlay upon the school may 
 show the value which' the Saxons attach to technical instruction. 
 The site and buildings cost nearly ;^82,ooo. The annual 
 expenses amount to upwards of ^^9,000, of which the students' 
 fees hardly cover one-sixth part. The rest is made up by a 
 large subsidy from the State, and a smaller subsidy from the 
 town. The efficiency of this school called forth the admiration 
 of the Commissioners. 
 
Intermediate Instruction. 37 
 
 II. We now pass to the consideration of schools giving 
 special instruction to persons preparing for some one industry. 
 Among the schools of this class the German building schools 
 form an important group. They are large and admirably 
 appointed, supplied with eminent professors, and so moderate 
 in their fees as to be readily accessible to the thrifty, industrious 
 workman. The Building Trade School of Stuttgart is a fine 
 specimen. It is housed in a magnificent building which cost 
 more than ;£^5o,ooo, and its annual expenses are defrayed 
 chiefly by the State. Pupils are admitted at the age of fourteen 
 years. The instruction is organised in two preparatory mathe- 
 matical courses and three special scientific courses, designed 
 respectively for those employed in the building trade, for land 
 surveyors and land agents, and for mechanical engineers. The 
 subjects taught include mathematics, physics, general geometry 
 and statics, freehand and ornamental drawing, geometrical draw- 
 ing, building construction, surveying, mensuration, machine 
 construction, and special drawing for joiners. 
 
 "Drawing in all its applications was most carefully taught, and the 
 studies of the pupils evinced a thorough acquaintance with the subject." — 
 " Report," Vol. I., p. 104. 
 
 No practical work is attempted in the school, as the scholars 
 are presumed to be already working in the builder's trade. The 
 attendance is always best in the winter, when building has to 
 be suspended. It is instructive to compare this superb building 
 school, situated in a petty capital, with the starved Building 
 Trades Institute of the great city of Manchester. 
 
 The metallurgical school of Bochum, in Westphalia, is a 
 good specimen of another class of special technical schools. 
 It was established by the iron and steel manufacturers of the 
 district, who were desirous that their foremen and leading 
 hands should have some tincture of theory to help out the 
 experience gained in the workshop. Only workmen are 
 admitted, and candidates must have been employed for at 
 least four years in iron works or mechanical engineering works. 
 Certificates of good conduct, competence, and elementary 
 knowledge are also exacted. The whole time of the pupils 
 is spent in the school. The course occupies three half-years, 
 the first being devoted to general preparatory study, and the 
 two following either to metallurgy or to the construction ol 
 machines, according to the vocation of each student. In the 
 
38 TscHNiCAL Education. 
 
 preparatory class the programme includes drawing, mathe- 
 matics, physics, experimental chemistry, the principles of the 
 metallurgy of iron and steel, the German language, and the 
 keeping of accounts. In the metallurgical division, these 
 subjects are continued, and the construction of furnaces, 
 smelting, making steel, the analysis of the raw material, and 
 the testing of the finished product are also studied in detail. 
 The mechanical division includes — besides the general sub- 
 jects — instruction in theoretical and apphed mechanics, in the 
 properties of materials ordinarily used in machinery, in the 
 construction of machines, and in the economy of the workshop. 
 The German building schools are not likely to have any 
 direct result in making more severe the foreign competition 
 which we now experience. The German schools of mining 
 and metallurgy are quite recent; but the German weaving 
 schools call for special notice, as having helped foreigners to 
 rival us in our greatest industries. These schools teach what- 
 ever the master, the foreman, or the designer ought to know in 
 reference to his trade, and they also impart to merchants, 
 agents, distributors, and shopkeepers 'a thorough knowledge 
 of textiles and the construction thereof The schools are 
 intended, not to supersede apprenticeship in the factory, but 
 to convey knowledge which is not to be obtained save in 
 exceptional factories. As a place in which to learn weaving, 
 the factory is allowed to possess considerable advantages over 
 any school. It is worked for profit — idleness is not allowed — 
 everything is done under the spur of competition, and the 
 necessities of business forbid anything conjectural, antiquated, 
 or needlessly refined. On the other hand, the instruction given 
 in the factory is merely instruction in routine. There is no 
 time to explain the reason of anything, and labour is so 
 minutely subdivided that every hand is limited to the incessant 
 repetition of a single process. In England especially this 
 subdivision has been carried to a degree which forbids the 
 general knowledge of textiles to be obtained in any one 
 factory ; we might almost say in any one town. 
 
 "Again, there are things not taught in any factory, and hardly to be 
 acquired by the man who is earning his daily bread, which may, neverthe- 
 less, be of vital importance to the man of business whose personal aim it is 
 not to execute more and more swiftly some constantly repeated operation, 
 but to find out what the world wants and how that want can best be met. 
 . . '. Fashions can be set or they can be followed, and the student will find 
 
Intermediate iNSTRVCTioif. 30 
 
 in his industrious experience how capricious and changeable they are ; but ex- 
 perience will also teach him that whoever can satisfy the prevailing taste is 
 sure of customers, and excellence in this respect stands on the some level 
 with good wearing quality and low price. Moreover, this is the variable 
 element, the quality with which calculation and experience of factory 
 management have least to do, the one in which force and versatility carry 
 all before them." 
 
 " As is the case in other branches of industry — in pottery and porcelain, 
 glass furniture and metal work — where the higher qualities of design and 
 artistic workmanship have developed trade and brought wealth to the 
 producers, so in textile industry it is the design that sells the cloth. The 
 quality of the fabric may be hard to tell, but every customer forms his own 
 estimate of the pattern printed upon it or woven into it. The wool-comber, 
 the spinner, the weaver may each do his part faultlessly, but if the design 
 is unsatisfactory or inappropriate, or the colour or finishing of the piece 
 ineffective, it will be cast aside by the purchaser as inferior the moment it is 
 displayed on the shop counter against more effective, even though intrin- 
 sically less valuable, work. False work, it is true, will not be permanently 
 tolerated, even under the disguise of fair seeming ; but it is folly in a 
 manufacturer to neglect excellence in that department of his work where it 
 tells most and costs least." — " Report," Vol. I., pp. 120-121. 
 
 The weaving schools of the Continent aim at giving a 
 general. acquaintance with various kinds of machinery and with 
 a number of processes seldom carried on all together, but they 
 aim still more at giving familiarity with the arts of design. 
 Some students have a natural gift for mechanism ; others for 
 art ; but the mechanist learns a little art, and the artist comes 
 to know something about machinery. Among these schools 
 the German ones are pre-eminent ; and, in Germany, those of 
 Mulhausen, Crefeld, and Chemnitz take the foremost place. As 
 they are necessarily much alike, a brief description of the 
 school at Crefeld may convey an idea of all the rest. 
 
 Students are admitted to the school at the age of fourteen, if 
 they can pass the entrance examination. The scale of fees is 
 graduated for Prussians, for other Germans, and for foreigners. 
 But the paymentsare low, a first year's course costing a Prussian 
 only £,ii, and a second year's course only £^<), with an extra 
 fee of ;£s for the use of a private studio. There are scholarships 
 which enable the poor student to take the benefit of the school 
 without paying anything. The complete course of instniction 
 extends over two years, but shorter courses may be arranged 
 with the director. The course is divided into two sections — 
 the theoretical and the practical : the first including a thorough 
 study of drawing; the second including instruction on the 
 loom. Drawing and painting are taught from copies and 
 
40 Technical Education. 
 
 models, and from natural plants and flowers, with adaptations 
 to printing and other branches of the textile industry. Due 
 prominence is given to geometrical drawing and the drawing 
 of machines, particularly of those parts of the loom which 
 affect the pattern in the woven fabric. There are also lectures 
 on textile fibres, on the elements of weaving, and on machinery. 
 Fabrics are decomposed and explained, looms are arranged 
 for weaving plain goods or goods with simple designs, and 
 technical calculations and bookkeeping are carefully taught. 
 In the second year lectures are given on the principles which 
 govern the ornamentation of woven or printed fabrics, and the 
 art teaching is continued until the student is able to invent and 
 apply oiriginal designs. He is then admitted into one of the 
 studios, where, under the guidance of qualified designers, he is 
 encouraged to give play to his own imagination. At the same 
 time he continues his studies in the decomposition of patterns, 
 and in the composing and calculation of designed materials. 
 He attends lectures on the construction, erection, and action 
 of the looms and other machines used in weaving. He 
 unmounts the power-loom piece by piece, and builds it up 
 again. He works at the forge, and learns the use of the 
 machine and hand-tools in the workshop ; he cuts the cards 
 in accordance with his own designs on the paper prepared by 
 his own hands ; he fixes the cards in the jacquard machine j 
 and at length becomes thoroughly practised in weaving the 
 most complex patterns, both in hand and power looms. 
 
 The weaving school of Crefeld is particularly remarkable 
 for its museum of textile fabrics and patterns; perhaps the 
 finest of the class in Europe. Besides cases of raw material 
 and screens of modern silk and other textile designs, there is 
 the Krauth collection of historical patterns, containing a 
 wonderful variety of valuable specimens. The patterns are so 
 arranged as to assist reference by students and designers. 
 Upwards of 5,000 specimens are kept in glazed frames, which 
 protect them- from dust, yet can readily be removed when 
 necessary. Others are arranged in cabinets in their due order 
 from the tenth century to the present time. The school library 
 contains more than 1,200 volumes of well-chosen books on art 
 and the manufacture of textiles. The patent records are 
 supplied by the Government, and the periodical literature 
 includes the fashion papers from Paris and elsewhere. A large 
 sum has been set aside for the purchase of books, and the 
 
Intermediate Instruction. 41 
 
 library on certain days is open, not to teachers or students 
 from the school only, but to the general public as well. 
 
 The dyeing and finishing department of the school is 
 equally complete. Its aim is twofold : to give to those who 
 ^vish to devote themselves to chemistry an education both in the 
 science and in its practical applications, and to instruct dyers, 
 bleachers, calico-printers, and finishers in the manufacture of 
 dyes and mordants, in the methods of examining and testing 
 the value of dyes and other chemicals, and, lastly, to afford 
 them the means of applying their knowledge to the 
 practice of dyeing, bleaching, printing, and finishing. The 
 buildings include, besides class-rooms, two chemical laboratories, 
 a dyeing laboratory, and a dyeing and finishing house, 
 furnished with new and complete machinery. Collections ot 
 specimens and a library are attached to the school The 
 course, extending over two years, includes the fullest instruction 
 in machinery, drawing, textile fibres, physics, and, above all, 
 chemistry. 
 
 Manufacturers are the best judges of the training given in a 
 school of manufactures, and the leading citizens of Crefeld 
 entertain the highest opinion of these schools. They informed 
 the Commissioners that employers are always eager to secure 
 young men who have been pupUs there, and that old pupils can 
 turn their knowledge to very good account. To the schools 
 these gentlemen ascribed the extraordinary growth of their silk 
 industry. When asked why the weaving school should pay so 
 much attention to the manufacture of other materials — such as 
 jute, wool, and cotton — they replied that they were anxious to 
 introduce new manufactures as a fresh resource in bad times, 
 and that in any case students who are to become designers or 
 distributors of textile fabrics gain by making themselves 
 familiar with every textile material. 
 
 In the Bradford Technical College and in the textile de- 
 partment of the Yorkshire College at Leeds, we have schools 
 which may fairly be compared with the weaving schools of 
 Germany. But a general survey will show at once how 
 few and how ill-provided are our special technical schools. 
 Our general technical schools, although somewhat stronger, 
 are still inadequate. In many of our manufacturing towns 
 the citizens are now making vigorous efforts to amend 
 this state of things. The City and Guilds Institute has 
 undertaken to supply London with intermediate technical 
 
42 Technical Education. 
 
 schools, and in the Finsbury Technical College has given 
 a good model for imitation. It is to be feared, however, 
 that English people do not understand the greatness of the task 
 before them. None but thoroughly good technical schools are 
 worth setting up in a country where practical skill is even now 
 plentiful. In order to set up and maintain a good technical 
 school, we must have a well-considered plan and a copious and 
 regular revenue. The best technical schools of France and 
 Germany are at once grand in scale and elaborately wrought 
 in the parts. Every detail has been worked out ; every appli- 
 ance has been provided ; whilst a generous ideal has inspired 
 the whole. But these schools have been in many instances 
 founded, and are in all cases assisted by, the State, or by 
 municipal bodies, and have, no less than the primary schools 
 and the universities, their place in a vast scheme of national 
 culture. There is some danger less voluntary effort, 
 unaided and undirected by any national agency, may issue in 
 a crowd of incomplete and ill-organised schools. Another 
 danger is that voluntary eflfort may not find a steady and 
 abundant revenue to carry on the work of the schools when 
 founded-. English people are methodic enough in business, 
 but they are not methodic in education. When they become 
 excited about their intellectual coudition, they subscribe a 
 large sum, erect a large building, concoct a programme of 
 lectures, and think the matter ended. In truth the matter is 
 only begun. For a seat of learning a fine edifice, although 
 most desirable, is not the only thing needful. In the present 
 state of knowledge a teaching institution cannot be efficient 
 unless it have a staff so numerous as to allow of a minute 
 subdivision of labour, and unless every member of the staff be 
 really master of his own small province. But in England the 
 demand for experts in applied science to assist in various 
 manufactures is so great, and the salaries offered to them are 
 so high, that they will always be tempted to quit the lecture 
 room for the factory. If they are to sit long in the professorial 
 chair, it must be reasonably well cushioned. The staff of a tech- 
 nical school must be numerous, and it must be well paid ; and 
 to this end an ample endowment is necessary. The indispen- 
 sable equipment of such schools, the apparatus, the museums, 
 and the libraries in cost are second only to the staff. In short, 
 a good technical school is an expensive thing. 
 
 For these reasons the assistance of the community will be 
 
Intermediate Instruction. 43 
 
 wanted to finish the work which individuals have begun. It 
 has been suggested that the School Boards should be em- 
 powered to found apprenticeship schools. The local authorities 
 who may hereafter be judged fit to estabhsh intermediate 
 schools for general instruction should also be empowered to 
 establish technical schools of a corresponding rank. Town 
 councils should at once receive the power of making grants to 
 technical schools within their jurisdiction. We have seen how 
 constantly this power is exercised by municipal bodies on the 
 Continent. At a later day, perhaps, the State may assume the 
 business of inspecting and assisting technical schools. In the 
 meantime the London companies would do nobly in enabling 
 the City and Guilds Institute to increase the number and 
 amount of its subsidies to colleges which are giving sound 
 technical instruction. To strengthen the schools we have is 
 even more urgent than to found new ones. 
 
 In founding intermediate technical schools we shall not have 
 much help from endowments under the control of the Charity 
 Commissioners. Some of these endowments may be applicable 
 to the provision of apprenticeship schools ; but the bulk of 
 them is wanted for schools of a general character. It is 
 an illusion to think that we can have the charge of our 
 technical education defrayed out of the bounty of our 
 ancestors. We must take the burthen upon ourselves, and, 
 after all, it is we, and not our ancestors, who will reap the 
 advantage. 
 
 III. Schools of industrial art form a class distinct from all 
 the schools heretofore discussed. It is difficult and, perhaps, 
 useless to draw a Une between pure and applied art. It is 
 . difficult even to say which is better worth teaching, with a view 
 to technical results. In this country the Science and Art 
 Department began with trying to teach the application of art to 
 manufactures; but now chiefly teaches pure art, and, through its 
 art teaching, exercises a happy influence on our industries. 
 The French have taken extraordinary pains to spread the 
 knowledge of pure art, and find that industrial art takes care of 
 itself. In their art schools the instruction is conformed to the 
 principle that if only you can do enough for art, you are sure 
 to do enough for industry ; that if you can cultivate the work- 
 man's sense of beauty and power of rendering the beautiful, 
 you wiU have done the best for his work and for the wealth of 
 the community. 
 
44 Technical Education. 
 
 "Drawing is taught from the purely artistic point of view, as this 
 method is thought to be the only one by which the artistic power of the 
 pupils can be encouraged and developed." — " Report," Vol. I., p. 35. 
 
 The French schools of art, supported by the State and the 
 municipal bodies, are open free of charge ; the buildings are 
 spacious, well arranged, and well lighted ; casts and models 
 are lavishly supplied ; the masters are skilful and enthusiastic ; 
 and the classes are crowded with eager pupils. The course of 
 instruction is extensive. Thus the programme of the 6cole 
 Nationale des Arts Decoratifs includes mathematics, architec- 
 tural construction, freehand drawing and ornament, modelling, 
 drawing from the antique, drawing from life, the history of 
 ornament and decoration. 
 
 The School of Fine Arts at Toulouse is well known as one 
 in which a knowledge of drawing is rapidly acquired. The 
 plan of teaching is as follows : — Classes of seven sit round a 
 blackboard, on which the monitor makes a sketch, which is 
 copied on slates by the lads forming the class. There is a 
 special class for monitors — seven or eight in number. From 
 this room the boys pass into the next class, in which they begin 
 to draw on sugar paper with charcoal. Here they draw solid 
 forms (what we should call model drawing), only in lieu of 
 doing freehand work, they are supplied with rulers, and 
 encouraged to rule all the straight lines. The aim in this 
 class is not so much to teach drawing as to teach a correct 
 appreciation of form. The pupils begin with squares, cubes, 
 prisms, and solid rectilineal figures, advancing afterwards to 
 spherical forms and architectural details.- When proficient in 
 these exercises, they learn copying from the flat, and then 
 pass into the ornament room, where they make careful studies 
 from lithographed copies of ornament; but some go to the 
 model drawing room, and make shaded studies from solids. 
 They can then commence drawing from the cast, and after a 
 course of fragments, hands, and feet, they turn to the antique. 
 Here the classes are divided, those intending to become 
 painters and those studying as sculptors having each a separate 
 course. 
 
 Elementary classes meet from six to eight o'clock on winter 
 evenings, and from six to eight o'clock on summer mornings. 
 These are attended chiefly by apprentices, and contain upwards 
 of 1,000 pupils. Classes in mechanical drawing and projection 
 are well attended. A good library is attached to the school. 
 
Intermediate Instruction. 45 
 
 In the Belgian art schools the boys begin by drawing 
 geometrical forms with ch.ilk on blackboards, which surround 
 the walls of the room. When they can use the cjialk with 
 readiness, they pass on to drawing similar forms with charcoal 
 on sugar paper. From outline drawing they advance to shad- 
 ing from the cast, and in the third year to drawing from 
 the life. This method produces rapidity and boldness of 
 work rather than precision. The Commissioners thought 
 the quality of the drawing thus taught eminently suitable to 
 artizans. The habit of rapid practice imparts such power of 
 drawing as they require in a far shorter time than would suffice 
 under the system adopted in EngUsh schools of art. AVhich 
 of the two systems is better adapted to the needs of the artist 
 may be a more doubtful question. 
 
 The industrial art schools of Germany differ from the art 
 schools of France in laying more stress upon the application of ^ 
 art to manufactures. The schools of Dresden and Vienna are 
 good examples of the class. That of Dresden has revived old 
 and established new industries. Its work is to be found in 
 every large shop in the city, and extends to every branch of 
 industrial art. It contains no workshops, but the designs made 
 by the pupils are sold to manufacturers. It is divided into 
 the departments of designing, architecture, decorative painting, 
 ornament, figure drawing, art modelling, and decorative paint- 
 ing from the figure. Besides the work done in the studios, there 
 are lectures on such subjects as anatomy and the history of 
 art. The school library contains 2,000 printed books and 
 16,000 mounted patterns and examples, together with 11,000 
 examples of embroidery and lace. It is open to the public, 
 and is visited every year by thousands of persons. The school 
 museum contains 140,000 patterns of textile fabrics of all kinds 
 and of all ages. The director, at the time of the visit of the 
 Commissioners, had studied in the University, in the Poly- 
 technic School, and in the Berlin Academy of Arts. He was 
 also a professional designer in metal work, porcelain, furni- 
 ture, wall papers, and textiles. He held that schools of this 
 class should simply teach design, without making the objects 
 designed. In the Vienna school a different plan is adopted. 
 There carving, metal chasing, and working in brass and bronze 
 are largely practised. The work done in wood-carving sur- 
 passed anything of the kind which can be seen in English 
 schools, and all the workers were qualified to raise the standard 
 
46 Technical Education. 
 
 of taste and execution in the workshops which they might 
 enter. 
 
 Many of the students attending the industrial art schools 
 maintain themselves by working elsewhere a certain number of 
 hours daily, and selling what they make. These students are 
 generally the most successful, because they have begun to 
 attend the school after two or three years spent in seeking a 
 livelihood have taught them their deficiencies, and inspired 
 them with a wish to improve themselves. In South Germany 
 the Fortbilding, or continuation schools, also serve as nurseries 
 to the industrial art schools, and in them are produced excellent 
 examples of modelling, carving, and smith's work. Thus in 
 Germany, as in France, there is a wide diffusion of artistic 
 taste and skill. Although the application of art to industry 
 receives more attention in the German than in the French 
 schools, yet the experts in both countries are thoroughly 
 agreed upon the principles of artistic education. The German 
 professors declare, with the French, that pure art is the ground- 
 work of all good design, and that a thorough discipline in 
 drawing is the key to an understanding of art. 
 
 "If the student has any talent or art-feeling within him, his power ot 
 drawing will enable him to give it expression ; but without thought and 
 imagination there can be no originality in design. Mere knowledge of 
 drawing will not make a man a good artist any more than knowledge of 
 language will make him a poet ; but designer and poet are helpless without 
 the knowledge of the language by which their art can be expressed to 
 others."— "Report," Vol. I., p. 237. 
 
 The Germans, like the French, attach more value than we 
 do to rapidity in drawing. One professor, with whom the Com- 
 missioners conversed, thought that the free use of charcoal and 
 the stump, as practised in France, encouraged originality, bold- 
 ness, and dexterity at the expense of precision and finish ; 
 whilst the English methods, which laid so much stress on exact 
 outline and careful shading, fostered accuracy, but also timidity. 
 He disapproved of the incessant competitions instituted in the 
 French schools of art, considering that, although they might 
 stimulate the sluggish, they exhausted the finer intellects. 
 "Genius in young men," he said, "needs oftener to be 
 restrained than to be pushed forward, and constant com- 
 petitions encourage some of the most prominent students to 
 rush by leaps and bounds to the higher realms of pictorial 
 
Intermediate Instruction. 47 
 
 representation before they have mastered the elementary rules 
 of drawing and colouring." ("Report," Vol. I., p. 239.) 
 
 The Commissioners came to conclusions resembling those 
 cited above. They say that in England we do not lay enough 
 stress upon combining rapidity with accuracy of drawing, and 
 they insist repeatedly upon the necessity to the designer of a 
 discipline in pure art. To quote their own words — 
 
 "Not until the student is thoroughly master of the various materials and 
 processes by which art is capable of expression, and of the influence of 
 style upon the development of the fine arts, can the student do any good 
 by concerning himself with the varieties of design, and the application of 
 the same to industry. It is at this later period of his training when the 
 designer can be materially benefited by placing before him well-selected 
 illustrations of what the best designers and art workers of previous periods 
 have achieved ; and it is here where the influence of industrial museums, 
 collections of patterns, and drawings and exhibitions of art workmanship 
 may exert a most powerful influence for good over the young des^er. 
 If, at the same time, we can make his work valuable to him by the actual 
 use of what he is doing for the manufacturer or art workman, and if 
 we can show him, further, how much more valuable his work may become 
 to him in the future by holding out to him the hope of a profitable and 
 honourable career, we shall present the most powerful stimulus to the 
 creation of the future des^er. . . The dignity of the designer's work 
 and the importance of the position he occupies are not sufficiently acknow- 
 ledged in our own country. . . If the value of his labours were only 
 acknowledged. . . the 'artist designer' would soon take his proper 
 rank in the country." — " Report," Vol. I., p. 165. 
 
 One of the witnesses examined by the Commission, Mr. 
 Rawle, pointed out the good that the Royal Academy might 
 do by recognising the art of design. The City Livery Companies 
 might with advantage spend their wealth more freely than they 
 have yet done in encouraging designers of talent to produce 
 the highest possible work. 
 
 The evideiice given before the Commission by several 
 English witnesses confirms and illustrates the doctrines above 
 laid down. Sir Edward Baines said that our paid professional 
 designers obtained the material for their designs by copying from 
 each other. He complained, and Mr. William Morris echoed 
 the complaint, that they lack originality ; that they are poor in 
 thought. And Mr. Morris, no follower of outlandish fashions, 
 declared that the French, above all other people, are masters 
 of style in the arts of design. " By mastery of style I mean," 
 he said, " a kind of faculty which enables a man to take certain 
 elements of form and work them into a congruous whole which 
 
48 Technical Education. 
 
 strikes the eye at once. In appreciation for beauty," he con- 
 tinued, " in love for beautiful lines and colours, the French 
 cannot be said to be superior to the English ; certainly they are 
 not superior, in matters of colour." If we may put the thing in 
 other words, the Englishman is, perhaps, the equal, possibly the 
 superior, of the Frenchman in artistic sensibility ; but in the 
 logic of art, in the discipline of the creative faculty, he is far 
 inferior to him. Now, a good system of teaching in pure art 
 is Just the influence needed to rescue our designers from the 
 bondage of imitation on the one hand, and from the anarchy 
 of their own artistic impulses on the other. Doubtless we have 
 made considerable progress in :ha arts of design. We are no 
 longer par excellence the makers of hideous things ; but we are 
 only beginning our career as artistic manufacturers. 
 
 It is said that a famous English firm obtained a prize at the 
 Paris Exhibition of 1878 for a cabinet entirely wrought by 
 foreign artists. A Frenchman had furnished the design, a 
 German had cut the marqueterie, and a German, assisted by a 
 Dane, had done the work of the cabinet-maker. 
 
 It is not solely upon the number and excellence of 
 their public schools of art that our neighbours rely for the 
 maintenance of their artistic industries. In almost every one 
 of the large towns of France, Belgium, and Germany may be 
 found a good picture-gallery and a museum either industrial 
 or antiquarian. These galleries and museums are of the 
 utmost service to the local schools of art and industry. The 
 value of a picture-gallery in connection with a school of art is 
 obvious. But the industrial museums are equally valuable to 
 the technical schools. Among all the institutions for technical 
 training which have made Mulhausen famous, none is more 
 prized by the citizens than the museum of textile fabrics. 
 
 "Some went so far as to say that they could not see how the trade 
 could in any degree prosper without it. To the designer it is a constant 
 source of inspiration. The museum is to him what the well-stored library 
 is to the literary man, or a collection of the best pictures to a painter." — 
 "Report," Vol. I., p. 354. 
 
 The usefulness of similar museums at Crefeld and Dresden has 
 been noticed elsewhere in this summary. In France, especially, 
 the good done by galleries and museums has been thoroughly 
 understood. The municipal bodies and the State work to- 
 gether with private munificence to multiply and enrich them. 
 
Intermediate Instruction. 49 
 
 The State assists with grants of money and of such objects as 
 can be spared from the national collection. Reproductions of 
 works of art are invariably supplied on any request by local 
 authorities. The control and management of the museums 
 and galleries is shared between the central authority, which 
 appoirits directors, and the local authority, which appoints a 
 committee of management. 
 
 In England only a few large towns have exerted themselves 
 to diffuse a knowledge of industrial art, whether by means of 
 schools or of galleries. Generally speaking, all that has been 
 done with this object has been done by the Science and Art 
 Department. In furtherance of the work of artistic instruction 
 the Commissioners recommended the following changes, (i.) 
 The abolition of the limit imposed by the Free Libraries Acts 
 on the expense which local bodies may incur for the establish- 
 ment of galleries and museums of art. One would suppose 
 that in this matter the ratepayers were very well able to defend 
 their own purses, (ii.) The abolition of the maximum of 
 ;^5oo for the grant which the Science and Art Department 
 may make in aid of the erection of local schools of art 
 and museums in connection with them. Not only is this 
 maximum in itself absurdly small, but it does harm by giving 
 the public a mistaken idea of the outlay needed to make these 
 institutions useful. The conditions accompanying even such 
 grants as can now be made are embarrassing, and ought to be 
 revised, (iii.) That the Department should not insist upon 
 the payment of fees by artizans attending the art classes, (iv.) 
 That in the awards for industrial design the Department 
 should attend more than it does now to the applicability of the 
 design to the material in which it is to be executed ; also that 
 the Department should make special grants for the execution 
 of designs under such safeguards as would defeat fraud. Al- 
 though experts are not all agreed on this point, it seems right, 
 both on artistic and on commercial principles, that the designer 
 should be familiar with and master of the material in which his 
 design is to be executed, (v.) That the Department, which now 
 supplies reproductions of works of art at a reduced cost, and 
 lends collections of the works themselves to provincial galleries 
 and museums, should also grant tp them original examples of a 
 nature to advance the industries of the several districts in which 
 they are situated, (vi.) The opening of museums and galleries 
 on Sunday. 
 
5° Technical Education. 
 
 These reforms, however, will not have their full effect 
 without the help of individual munificence. England is rich 
 beyond all other countries in private collections of art, and if 
 the fashion of giving were once confirmed, these would be so 
 many reservoirs to feed our public galleries. There is no 
 better or safer mode of bounty than to enrich the community 
 with gifts of this sort. They tend not merely to improve 
 technical skill, but to civilise the whole people, to give them 
 a taste for humane pleasures and a perception of the beautiful, 
 and so, by degrees, to soften and to brighten that dull, hard 
 world which the nation, as a nation, still inhabits. 
 
 C. — Advanced Instruction. ' 
 
 The highest grade of technical education, what we may call 
 the University grade, differs widely in its circumstances from 
 the lower grades. The object of the highest technical instruc- 
 tion is twofold ; first to supply the national industries with the 
 needful staff of experts in applied science, and secondly to 
 supply competent teachers to intermediate technical schools. 
 As the number of persons who can find employment as experts 
 and teachers is comparatively small, technical high schools 
 need not be many, as compared with technical schools of 
 inferior rank; but, as everything depends on the quality of 
 those teachers and experts, the institutions in which they are 
 trained cannot be too complete or too efficient. The technical 
 education of the common workman should be brought to his 
 door, if it is to be of any use ; the technical education of 
 the student who has means and leisure- will be near enough 
 if it is good enough. Therefore, in providing for advanced 
 technical instruction, the essential thing is to have a high 
 standard of what such instruction ought to be. To try to 
 make instruction altogether practical, to be too impatient 
 for results, to exclude the spirit of research and the love of 
 science — this is the certain means to make it poor, shallow, 
 unfruitful, and, in the strictest sense, useless. The technical 
 high school will do no good unless it is liberally planned. The 
 noblest type of such a school is to be found in the Polytechnics 
 of Germany and Switzerland. A very brief description of one 
 of the most celebrated — the Polytechnic of Zurich — will serve 
 to show what our intelligent neighbours think necessary for a 
 
Advanceb Instruction. 51 
 
 technical high school. We should remember that Switzerland 
 in extent is equal to about half of Scotland, in population is 
 little superior to Yorkshire, does not contain a single large city, 
 and may be termed a poor country. 
 
 The Polytechnic is housed in a vast edifice, which forms 
 one of the most conspicuous features of Zurich. It includes 
 seven special schools — of architecture, of civil engineering, of 
 mechanical engineering, of chemical technology, of agriculture 
 and forestry, a normal school, and a school of philosophical 
 and political science. But the magnitude of the foundation 
 will best be understood from the subjoined list of the collec- 
 tions which have been provided for the use of the students : — 
 
 1. Several libraries belonging, some to the school, some to 
 the canton, and some to the city of Zurich. 
 
 2. Various collections belonging to the engineering and 
 architectural divisions, and consisting of models, instruments, 
 &c. 
 
 3 . A collection of plaster casts of architectural ornaments. 
 
 4. A collection of specimens of construction and of mate- 
 rials used in building. 
 
 5. A collection of antique vases. 
 
 6. A collection of engravings, about 24,000 in number. 
 
 7. A collection of geometrical instruments. 
 
 8. A collection of models of machinery. 
 
 9. • A collection of tools and models attached to the division 
 of applied mechanical technology. 
 
 10. A collection of models of raw and finished products 
 attached to the section of chemical technology. 
 
 11. A collection of mathematical and geometrical models. 
 
 12. A collection of interesting specimens, tools, &c., relat- 
 ing to forestry. 
 
 13. A collection of models, implements, and produce in 
 all departments of agriculture. 
 
 14. A collection of specimens relating to natural history, 
 zoology, botany, mineralogy, geology, palaeontology, and ento- 
 mology. 
 
 15. An archaeological collection. 
 
 16. A workshop for moulding and casting in clay and plaster. 
 
 17. A workshop for metal work. 
 
 18. Laboratories for instruction in theoretical and applied 
 chemistry. 
 
5 2 TECiiyiCA L Ed uca tjon. 
 
 19. A special laboratory for agricultural chemistry. 
 
 20. A cabinet of physical apparatus and a physical laborator}-. 
 
 21. An institute of vegetable physiology, comprising a 
 room for microscopic researches, a physiological laboratory, 
 botanical collections, and hothouses. 
 
 22. A botanical garden with a museum for the general and 
 botanical collections. 
 
 The chemical laboratories having become too narrow for 
 the crowd of students resorting to them, the Federal Council 
 recently voted a sum of ;^5o,ooo for their extension. The 
 staff is immense, and at the time of the visit of the Commis- 
 sioners consisted of forty-five professors and thirteen assistants, 
 exclusive of the tutors and the curators of the museums. An 
 establishment of this magnitude is necessarily expensive. 
 Modest as are Swiss salaries and economic as is Swiss manage- 
 ment, the expenses amount to fully ;^20,ooo a year, and ot 
 this sum not one-fifth is recouped by fees received from the 
 students. The fees must be low indeed, since those paid by a 
 student of chemistry, including his laboratory charges, do not 
 exceed j£i2 a year. 
 
 A. student must be at least eighteen years of age on admis- 
 sion. The length of the course of instruction varies in the 
 various departments of the Polytechnic, but on an average is 
 about three years. The instruction is scientific almost to a 
 fault; thus, there is no manual instruction in mechanical work. 
 To quote the words of the Commissioners — 
 
 "This renowned school haS from its very commencement endeavoured 
 to impart the greatest possible extent of scientific instruction in each of its 
 departments, and its efforts have been to direct thought and research of the 
 highest kind in their application to industrial pursuits, and thus to bring 
 about the necessary mutual interchange of ideas between science and 
 practice ; and it has been so far successful that students have come to it 
 from all parts of the world. The Commissioners had the opportunity of 
 judging of the advantages which it has bestowed not only upon Switzerland, 
 but also upon Germany, by the number of thoroughly trained scientific 
 men who have been educated within its walls and who are now holding 
 important positions in various industrial establishments which the Commis- 
 sioners have visited." — " Report," Vol. I., p. 191. 
 
 The German Polytechnics in all their essential features 
 resemble the' school at Zurich. The services which they have 
 rendered to German industry are unquestionable. Professor 
 Zeuner, rector of the Dresden Polytechnic, pointed out to the 
 
Advanced Instruction. S3 
 
 Commissioners that in all the chief industrial centres of Ger- 
 many the Polytechnic students were filling the posts of mana- 
 gers and directors. To their superior education he ascribed 
 much of the advance of Germany in mechanical industry, and 
 said that whereas Germans formerly purchased locomotives 
 from abroad, they now use only those which they build 
 themselves. Professor Helmholtz very clearly explained not 
 only the general advantage, but also the absolute economy 
 of employing as heads of departments persons conversant 
 with the theory of their work, able to anticipate results and 
 to calculate beforehand the quantity and quality of material 
 required. How could it be otherwise? Here in England 
 Professor Huxley has told us that industry under its present 
 conditions depends almost entirely on either " the application 
 of science or the development of mechanical processes of com- 
 plexity, requiring- a great deal of attention and intelligence to 
 carry them out." But this intelligence and attention most 
 people can exercise only after long training. In those indus- 
 tries which depend on chemistry for their first principles the 
 advantage of the education given in the Polytechnic Schools is 
 most apparent. In England, says Mr. Haeffely, there are very 
 few chemists in print works, and generally the sampler is not a 
 chemist ("Report," Vol. III., p. 2). Yet as a knowledge of art 
 forms the basis of instruction for the designer, so a knowledge 
 of chemistry is the true groundwork for the student of dyeing. 
 Chemical industries, we read in the Report, are assuming more 
 and more a scientific character, and a chemical works is nothing 
 more than a large laboratory in which the victory remains to 
 those who have been most scientifically educated. Reasoning 
 from these facts, the commercial heads of- colour works in 
 Switzerland and Germany have been led to the necessity of 
 placing trained scientific chemists at the head not only of the 
 whole establishment, but also at the head of every department 
 in which a special manufacture is going on. 
 
 The extent to which the most successful Continental manu- 
 facturers employ educated talent may be illustrated from the 
 account given by the Commissioners of the chemical works of 
 Messrs. JBindschedler and Busch, at Basle. 
 
 "In the first place," they say, " the scientific director, Dr. Bindschedler, 
 is a thoroughly educated chemist, cognisant of and able to make use of the 
 discoveries emanating from the various scientific laboratories of the world. 
 Under him are three scientific chemists, to each of whom is entrusted one 
 
^4 Technical Education. 
 
 of the three main departments into which the works are divided. Each 
 of these head chemists, who have in this instance enjoyed a thorough 
 training in the Zurich Polytechnic, has several assistant chemists placed 
 under him, and all these are gentlemen who have had a theoretical educa- 
 tion in either a German University or in a Polytechnic School." — " Report," 
 Vol. I., p. 223. 
 
 No less than ten well-equipped experimental laboratories, 
 perfectly distinct from the workshops, were available for the 
 researches of these highly-trained chemists, who could also 
 refer to a complete scientific library. Who ever heard of 
 English chemical works so provided ? 
 
 The number of the Polytechnic Schools of Germany is 
 much in excess of the actual demand for technical instruction. 
 In the early part of this century the Germans found themselves 
 immeasurably inferior in practical knowledge to countries like 
 England. They were obliged to learn in the schools, if any- 
 where, much that EngKshmen could learn in the workshop. 
 Again, a generous emulation moved the States of Germany to 
 vie with one another in making liberal provision for every 
 branch of learning. Lastly, the old Universities, fearing lest 
 the spirit of disinterested inquiry which had hitherto animated 
 their studies might be depressed by the introduction of studies 
 pursued entirely for practical ends, were unwilling to make 
 provision for technical education, and so forced the authorities 
 to found for that purpose independent Polytechnic Schools. 
 Some of these causes have ceased to operate in Germany, and 
 none have much influence in England. Although Oxford and 
 Cambridge will remain, and ought to remain, the seats of 
 liberal learning, cherished -for its own sake, many other institu- 
 tions of University rank, such as the great colleges of the 
 capital, of Manchester, and Liverpool, have departments 
 of applied science, which, if the necessary funds were forth- 
 coming, might be expanded into Polytechnic Schools. The 
 Central Institute at South Kensington might become a true 
 Polytechnic. In short, we have the nuclei of as many technical 
 high schools as we require. 
 
 It is true that advantages may be discovered in the total 
 separation of Universities from Polytechnic Schools. The 
 multiplication of seats of learning is a good thing so long as it 
 does not lower the intellectual standard. The rivalry between 
 institutions similar, yet diverse, may be a spur to improvement. 
 The exclusion of technical studies from the University course 
 
Advanced Instruction. 55 
 
 may favour the disinterested love of knowledge. But the 
 separation of Polytechnic Schools from Universities involves a 
 considerable waste of money and of power. With the utmost 
 economy we shall barely have money and power enough to 
 put technical education on a good footing. Neither the 
 Central Institution in London, nor the colleges in such cities 
 as Liverpool or Birmingham, are rich enough to increase their 
 staff and their appliances to that degree which is imperatively 
 demanded by the present state of knowledge. The money 
 which we can spare should be spent upon a few great schools, 
 not frittered away among a crowd of petty ones. Besides, we 
 are so differently situated from the Germans that their mode of 
 giving advanced technical instruction is not to be copied by us 
 in every detail. The following remarks by the Commissioners 
 clearly show where we may with advantage depart from 
 German precedents : — 
 
 " We should not wish every proprietor or manager of industrial works 
 to continue his theoretical studies till the age of 22 or 23 years in a 
 Polytechnic School, and so lose the advantage of a practical instruction in 
 our workshops (which are really the test technical schools in the world ) 
 during the years from i8 or 19 to 21 or 22, when he is best able to profit 
 by it. 
 
 ' ' In determining what is the best preparation for the industrial career 
 of those who may expect to occupy the highest positions, it is necessary to 
 differentiate between capitalists who will take the general as distinguished 
 from the technical direction of large establishments, and those at the head 
 of small undertakings, or the persons more specially charged with the 
 technical details of either. For the education of the former ample time is 
 available, and they have the choice between several of our modernised 
 grammar schools, to be followed by attendance . at the various colleges 
 in which science teaching is made an essential feature, or the great public 
 schools and Universities ; provided that in these latter science and modem 
 languages should take a more prominent place. 
 
 " Either of these methods may furnish an appropriate education for 
 those persons to whom such general cultivation as will prepare them 
 to deal with questions of administration is of greater value than an intimate 
 acquaintance with technical details. It is different in regard to the smaller 
 manufacturers and to the practical managers of works. Iii their case 
 sound knowledge of scientific principles has to be combined with the 
 practical training of the factory, and, therefore, the time which can be 
 appropriated to the former — that is, to theoretical instruction — will gene- 
 rally be more limited. 
 
 "How this combination is to be carried out will vary with the trade 
 and with the circumstances of the individual. In those cases in which 
 theoretical knowledge and scientific training are of pre-eminent importance, 
 as in the case of the manufacturer of fine chemicals, or in that of the 
 metallurgical chemist, or the electrical engineer, the higher technical 
 
5 6 Technical Education. 
 
 education may with advantage be extended to the age of 21 or 22. Tn the 
 case, however, of those who are to be, for example, managers of chemical 
 works in which complex machinery is used, or managers of rolling mills, 
 or mechanical engineers, where early and prolonged workshop-training is 
 all-important, the theoretical training should be completed at not later 
 than 19 years of age, when the works must be entered and the scientific 
 education carried further by private study, or by such other means as 
 do not interfere with the practical work of their callings." — " Report," 
 Vol. I., p. 514-516. 
 
 Note on Technical Instruction for Women. 
 
 The Commissioners found schools for the industrial and 
 professional training of girls in most of the large towns in the 
 countries visited by them. These schools closely resembled 
 each other. They are intended chiefly for the daughters of 
 small shopkeepers and well-to-do artizans. In most of them 
 the education given in the primary school is continued and 
 supplemented by instruction in one foreign language and in 
 drawing. Drawing is particularly well taught in these schools. 
 At the same time the pupils are taught one or more trades. 
 The technical instruction varies with the habits and industries 
 of the various countries. In almost all the schools needlework 
 and dressmaking are subjects of the first importance. In many 
 of the French schools the girls learn book-keeping, the elements 
 of law, and commercial correspondence. In the German and 
 Austrian schools the technical teaching is almost wholly 
 restricted to plain sewing, embroidery, dressmaking, millinery, 
 laundry work and cooking. In Belgium, Holland, and Italy 
 it includes the making of artificial flowers, the designing of lace, 
 painting on fans, glass, or porcelain, typography, telegraphy, and 
 pharmacy. Many of the pupils pay substantial fees, but some 
 hold exhibitions from the primary schools. Inquiry showed 
 that the education given in these schools was thoroughly 
 practical, and enabled many young women to find suitable 
 employment without having to leave their homes. 
 
 The Royal School of Art Embroidery at Vienna is entirely 
 technical. Girls seeking admission must be at least fourteen 
 years of age, and must have completed their education at 
 the primary school. They must be able to draw, and must 
 have a thorough knowledge of plain needlework. The course 
 of instruction extends over five years. All the pupils are taught 
 
Note on Technical Instruction for Women. 57 
 
 freehand drawing. They have to prepare written accounts 
 of the lectures given by the professors. They are taught 
 every kind of fancy needlework and designing for needlework, 
 and at the end of each year they work samplers, to show their 
 proficiency. Foreign students have to pay fees, but natives 
 are admitted free of charge. Many of the girls become teachers 
 in Austria and in other countries. The directress, at the time 
 of the visit of the Commissioners, was a lady whose books on 
 the subject of embroidery are regarded as standard works. 
 The Commissioners thought the instruction given here the 
 highest which they had found given in any school of the same 
 class. 
 
 The Embroidery School of Vienna is a special school 
 devoted to the cultivation of one art. But technical schools 
 for women, somewhat more general in character, might with 
 advantage be established in our large towns. In such schools 
 the morning hours would be devoted to the study of languages, 
 drawing, and elementary science, and the afternoons would be 
 set aside for practical instruction in some industry. At present 
 the art schools afford almost the only means which women 
 have of learning a craft whereby to support themselves ; but 
 the art schools are overcrowded, and few women are meant by 
 nature to be artists, If it is urgent to open up new pursuits 
 for men, how much more urgent is it to open up new pursuits 
 for women ? Above all, women should have every means of 
 becoming skilled in industries which can be combined with 
 domestic life. 
 
SS 
 
 III.— TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION IN 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Grave difficulties beset the improvement of agricultural edu- 
 cation. Agriculture is practised by men who believe much 
 in tradition and little in science. Country people, living apart 
 from one another, are less capable of concerted voluntary 
 action than are the inhabitants of cities. The administration 
 of our rural districts is certainly not framed so as to supply the 
 lack of spontaneous energy. Just now these districts are 
 somewhat impoverished and particularly averse to paying 
 new rates. All these considerations limit the range of practi- 
 cal proposals for giving that technical instruction which has 
 become more than ever necessary to the prosperity of English 
 agriculture. 
 
 Having quite enough to do in other branches of the 
 inquiry into technical education, the Commissioners assigned 
 the agricultural branch to their Sub-Commissioner, the late Mr. 
 Jenkins, Secretary to the Royal Agricultural Society of England. 
 Mr. Jenkins drew up a report, which will be found in the second 
 volume of the Report of the Commission, and which gives a 
 fuU view of the methods of agricultural education adopted 
 in France, Germany, Denmark, , Holland, and Belgium, as 
 well as in the United Kingdom. In this respect all these 
 countries differ extremely from one another. The agriculture, 
 and therefore the agricultural education of every country, varies 
 with the varying physical and economical conditions, so that 
 foreign examples are to be used more cautiously in this than 
 in any other department of our inquiry. Here it will be enough 
 to note what has already been done in the United Kingdom to 
 further agricultural instruction, and what recommendations for 
 its advancement have been made by Mr. Jenkins and adopted 
 by the Commissioners. 
 
 What has already been done may be briefly summed up. 
 In England the State has recognised instruction in the prin- 
 ciples of agriculture as instruction in elementary science, 
 which may be taken up as a class subject in elementary 
 
Technical Education in Agriculture. 59 
 
 schools. It has established an agricultural department in the 
 Normal School of Science, has appointed a professor of agri- 
 culture, who lectures at South Kensington, and has provided 
 for the formation of an agricultural class in any place which may 
 desire to have one. In Scotland the agricultural instruction 
 given in elementary schools is much the same as in England. 
 The State pays a small stipend to the Professor of Agriculture 
 in the University of Edinburgh. In Ireland the authorities 
 have done more than in England or in Scotland. The principles 
 of agriculture are taught in the elementary schools : but they 
 are better taught, because the National Schools Board has a 
 model farm at Glasnevin, near Dublin, where teachers in ele- 
 mentary schools receive practical instruction in agriculture ; and 
 many of the schools imder the Board have school gardens or 
 small farms, where the teachers can illustrate their agricul- 
 tural lessons and accustom the pupils to agricultural work. 
 The Munster Dairy School is also a Government institution. 
 Other agricultural schools were formerly maintained by the 
 State, but were sacrificed to what many consider a mistaken 
 policy. 
 
 Something has been done, too, by agricultural associations 
 and by privstte enterprise. The agricultural colleges at Ciren- 
 cester and Downton give an excellent training to those 
 who can afiford to pay heavy fees. The Royal Agricultural 
 Society of England, and similar societies in England and 
 elsewhere, hold examinations and give prizes to the candidates 
 who distinguish themselves. By means of their journals, 
 by exhibitions of live stock and agricultural produce, and by 
 various other expedients, these societies do much to extend the 
 farmer's professional knowledge and to sustain his professional 
 enthusiasm. The experimental farm at Rothamstead, founded 
 and endowed by Sir John Lawes, is a unique and magnificent 
 laboratory of agricultural research. . But, after taking account 
 of all these agencies, it may be said that the technical educa- 
 tion of the ordinary farmer — English, Scotch or Irish — is 
 almost wholly empirical, and his technical skill. the result of 
 extreme subdivision of labour. 
 
 The recommendations made by Mr. Jenkins for the im- 
 provement of technical instruction in agriculture may be 
 summarised under the heads of primary, intermediate, and 
 advanced instruction. Primary instruction in agriculture is 
 for the farm labourer, farm bailiff, or small farmer. To 
 
6o Technical Education. 
 
 some extent this instruction could be given in the public 
 elementary schools of country parishes. Agriculture should 
 be made one of the compulsory subjects in rural schools. 
 Each school should be provided with a garden proportioned to 
 the number of scholars, and in this garden they should be 
 employed for a certain time every day. Together with this 
 practice, they would have a series of elementary lessons on the 
 principles of agriculture. Children in the first three standards 
 would have lessons on the common objects of rural life, the 
 familiar animals and plants of the country. In the higher 
 standards they would study these in particular reference to 
 agriculture. They would also study the construction of farm 
 implements and simple agricultural machinery, and of simple 
 mechanical and physical apparatus, such as the lever, pulley; 
 wheel and axle, spirit level, barometer and thermometer. This 
 obligatory course would take the place of the optional course 
 in the principles of agriculture which is now comprised under 
 the title of elementary science. On the above scheme every 
 child going to a country school would obtain some insight into 
 the principles of agriculture, and the common labourer would 
 cease to be merely a living tool. 
 
 But for the clever lads of the labouring class who might 
 hope to rise higher, and for the sons of the small farmer, a 
 further training would be necessary. For these Mr. Jenkins 
 proposed a new system of instruction, suggested by the French 
 farm schools. He stated his plan as follows : — 
 
 "In each county there should be selected a good farm, the tenant ot 
 which would agree under certain terms to take agricultural apprentices for 
 a term of, say, two or three years, according to the age at which the ap- 
 prenticeship commenced. On most grounds I should prefer an agri- 
 cultural district to a county as the definition of the area, but as the county 
 is the only local unit in country districts which calls forth local energy, it 
 is necessary to select it for ray present purpose. It would be a great 
 advantage li to each farm there could be attached a teacher capable of con- 
 tinuing the general education of the apprentices by lessons given in the 
 mornings and evenings, but the remainder of whose time might be other- 
 wise employed, according to local circumstances, for instance — as rate- 
 collector, book-keeper, &c. — or he might also be teacher during the re- 
 mainder of the day at some neighbouring school. He should be capable of 
 teaching the elements of chemistry, land-surveying, book-keeping in a 
 simple way, and the elementary principles of agriculture. Most of this 
 technical instruction could be given during the winter evenings, and the 
 apprentices should be entitled to pass the examinations of the Science and 
 Art Department in the same way as the pupils of science classes, if they 
 
Technical Education in Agriculture. 6i 
 
 desired to do so, and to earn for themselves and their instructois all the 
 distinctions and re\vards that are given to pupils and teachers in elementary 
 schools and science classes. 
 
 " I am not inclined to follow the French system in requiring that all 
 the farm labour should be performed by the apprentices ; on the contrarj-, 
 in my opinion it would be better to limit their number to a manageable one, 
 according to the size of the farm, say, from three to six in each year. This 
 number, with an apprenticeship of three years, would make a inaximura of 
 from nine to eighteen on the farm at any one time ; and of course the older 
 appentices would, or at least should, be worth more as workmen than the 
 ordinary farm labourers. 
 
 " The apprentices should be selected from those who distinguish them- 
 selves most in an examination held annually in connection with that of the 
 Science and Art Department ; and to a great extent, or perhaps entirely, 
 the same papers might suffice for both examinations. ... If the number 
 of elementary school scholarships and of science and art scholarships were 
 increased with a view of encouraging such farm schools, by making a cer- 
 tain number of the scholarships tenable at them, they would be more likely 
 to be established and to work successfully. . . . During their stay at the 
 farm school the apprentices should be compelled to pass an annual examina- 
 tion in practical as well as theoretical subjects, and prizes might be given 
 for proficiency ; but in the event of any of the apprentices being found 
 deficient in knowledge up to a certain point, their apprenticeship should 
 cease. At the termination of their apprenticeship they should receive a 
 certificate of proficiency according to merit. 
 
 " In a somewhat similar manner girls not less than l6 years of age 
 might be sent to leam dairying and household work at selected dairy farms, 
 such as those which abound in Germany and Denmark. 
 
 " I would surest that a period of three months should be the minimum, 
 but that a complete season of from, say, the middle of March to the middle 
 of November would be much better. 
 
 "My impression is that a sufficient number of good farmers would be 
 found to take farm apprentices ard dairy apprentices from public elemen- 
 tary schools in their own locality or county upon terms that would fairly 
 reimburse them for two accessory reasons : — (t.) They would be contri- 
 buting to remove the present inefficiency of the farm labourers and dairy- 
 maids in their districts, and (2.) They would be likely to receive as pupils 
 sons of wealthy people, at highly remunerative terms, in consequence of 
 their farms being recc^nised as 'County Farm Schools.'" — "Report," Vol. 
 II., pp. 3i'6-3i8. 
 
 In consequence of the recognition of agriculture by the 
 Science and Art Department, many agricultural classes have 
 been established in various parts of the United Kingdom. 
 These classes resemble in their organisation the classes in 
 science and art so often mentioned in this summary. They 
 are usually held in market towns and in the evenings. Mr. 
 Jenkins was of opinion that " very few indeed of these teachers 
 can give instruction in objective agricultuie. They may have 
 
62 Technical Education. 
 
 learnt the words of the language, and they can teach them, 
 but they do not know their signification : in fact, they cannot 
 translate them." But he allowed that " some of the teachers 
 are thoroughly well-qualified men, and do really good work." 
 (" Report," Vol. II., p. 231.) 
 
 The education of the teachers themselves must determine 
 the usefulness of their teaching, and their education cannot be 
 complete until it includes a regular course of practical work on 
 a farm, for which apparently provision "has not yet been made. 
 If the farm schools suggested by Mr. Jenkins were in operation 
 they would afford practical instruction to those who wished to 
 teach agriculture under the department, and the apprentices 
 at the farm schools could get scientific instruction by going to 
 the lectures of the teachers. In this way the lower and inter- 
 mediate instmction of farmers would attain a fulness hitherto 
 unknown. But so long as a course of practical lessons is not 
 included in the qualification of a lecturer on agriculture he 
 will be of little use, and will inspire less confidence. The 
 agricultural course of the schools of science at South 
 Kensington might also be made more strictly professional 
 than it is at present ; but of this we shall have to speak a little 
 later. 
 
 We next come to intermediate instruction in agriculture 
 suitable for the ordinary tenant farmer, farm steward, or land 
 agent. The obstacles to the spread of this instruction arise 
 partly from the nature of agricultural education itself, but still 
 more from the bad state of secondary education, and the 
 absence of any energetic administrative power in the counties. 
 Those who are to receive intermediate instruction in agriculture 
 ought to receive also a good general education. Whether 
 they can do this at present depends on the accidental distribu- 
 tion of efficient schools. In most districts such schools are 
 scarce, and the education of the tenant farmer is exceedingly 
 defective. Anybody who knows the rural parts of England 
 can recall cases of men who farm, say, three hundred acres 
 each, and in general culture are little, if at all, superior to an 
 intelligent artizan. The education of the middle class in the 
 country, even more than in towns, will never be put on a 
 thoroughly sound footing without help from local authorities, 
 such as do not yet exist in the counties. Given good middle- 
 class schools, we have yet to find the means of imparting 
 agricultural together with general instruction. For men must 
 
Technical EoucATioif iif Agriculture. 63 
 
 begin to farm early in life if they are to .like fanning or to 
 become able farmers. Mr. Jenkins suggested that in each ot 
 the chief middle-class schools in rural districts there should be 
 established a farming department with a farm of perhaps one 
 hundred acres attached. On this farm all the principal kinds 
 of agricultural produce would be raised, and the boys would 
 in turn share in all the branches of work. Everything should 
 be conducted in a practical manner, and a skilled director of 
 the farm would be necessary. 
 
 It is admitted that there would be some trouble in 
 finding the means needed to carry out this scheme. The 
 school-farm ought to pay its expenses, and yield a profit, 
 otherwise it would not be a place in which to train practical 
 farmers. But the first outlay upon it would be considerable. 
 
 " If we suppose that the school-farm has an area of one hundred acres, 
 it would be desirable to provide under all the circumstances a working 
 capital oi£-20 per acre, or say ;f 2,000. In some cases it would be necessary 
 to spend money in either a farm-steading or a house for a farm manager, 
 who should be" the working bailiff; but it is impossible to give any estimate 
 on this head. Extravagance, however, should be distinctly prohibited, 
 and a complete set of new farm buildings should not be allowed to cost 
 more than ;f ID per acre. Additional annual expenditure would be required 
 for the salaries of the agricultural teacher and the farm bailiff, and for the 
 maintenance of the experimental field (for purposes of demonstration only) 
 and the botanic garden. An allowance of ;fc5oo per annum would be 
 amply sufficient for these purposes, and would leave a maigin to be spent 
 in gradually increasing the means of instruction, such as natural history 
 collections. 
 
 " Scholarships and exhibitions would, of course, diminish the amount 
 of money available out of the profits of the farm towards the payment 
 of the items just mentioned. After a few years' experience, and by keep- 
 ing a reserve fund, any rewards drawn from that source might be rendered 
 tolerably equal." — Report, Vol. II., p. 314. 
 
 Mr. Jenkins suggested that the county in which such a 
 school was situated might raise by subscription the capital sum 
 necessary for its equipment, if the Government would con- 
 tribute to the building fund such a grant as it now makes for 
 the erection of a school of science. Subscribers of not less 
 than a certain sum might be rewarded with the privilege of 
 nombating a pupil to be received for half the usual fees. The 
 exhibitions granted by the Crown in the existing science 
 schools might be made tenable at a farming school, and the 
 Crown might aimually grant a scholarship tenable at the 
 Normal School of Science, or at the Agricultural College of 
 
64 Technical Education. 
 
 Cirencester or Downton, to the best pupil in each of the 
 farming schools. 
 
 Agricultural education of the most advanced kind is more 
 flourishing than primary or intermediate agricultural education, 
 because the class which wants it can afford to pay a heavy 
 price for it. The agricultural colleges of Cirencester and 
 Downton are able to meet all their expenses, and are doing 
 their work well. They are attended chiefly by the sons 
 of landowners and of tenants of the largest farms. They 
 charge fees, indeed, much beyond the capacity of the ordinary 
 farmer's purse. But experience has shown that the ordinary 
 farmer, even when scholarships are available to meet the 
 expense, distrusts a technical training continued to so late 
 a time in life. He prefers to put his sons to work before they 
 have reached the age of twenty-one or twenty-two years. His 
 judgment is probably justified in the majority of cases. 
 For the minority, for the boys of unusual talent, and for 
 the fathers of unusual ambition, the suggested Queen's 
 Scholarships would provide. There would be no use in taxing 
 the public to multiply scholarships or reduce fees at the 
 agricultural colleges merely for the benefit of the sons of 
 rich men. 
 
 For a supply of teachers of agriculture we should be able 
 to look less to the agricultural colleges than to the agricultural 
 department of the School of Science at South Kensington. Mr. 
 Jenkins found several faults in the course of instruction given 
 there. He thinks it unduly prolonged, and would reduce it 
 to three years ; he thinks it too much burthened with non- 
 professional subjects, and would omit some of these, imposing 
 an entrance^xamination to test the general knowledge possessed 
 by candidates for admission ; and, finally, he thinks that it is 
 not practical enough, that it embraces too many lectures and 
 too few demonstrations. 
 
 No scheme of technical instruction in agriculture would be 
 complete unless it made provision for teaching forestry. Great 
 Britain and Ireland contain large tracts of desolate land which 
 might be planted with valuable timber. Some of the commonest 
 trees are almost worthless, and might be replaced with more 
 useful species. Our older colonies already feel the bad effects 
 of the reckless destruction of forests. The Governments of 
 India and Cyprus have dedicated a branch of the public 
 service to the preservation and management of the forests. 
 
Technical Education in Agriculture. 65 
 
 Every enlightened country of the Continent has one or more 
 schools of forestry ; but the whole subject of forestry, as it 
 concerns the United Kingdom, is now under the consideration 
 of a Select Committee of the House of Commons, and it seems 
 better not to anticipate the conclusions which they will be able 
 to found upon the fullest evidence. 
 
66 
 
 IV.— CONCLUSION. 
 
 We have now taken a rapid survey of the whole field of 
 technical education. It only remains to sum up, as briefly as 
 possible, the results of this survey. 
 
 In the first place, technical education, although a most im- 
 portant branch, is only one branch of national education. If 
 national education is bad, technical education cannot be good. 
 Neither the workman, nor the foreman, nor the designer, nor 
 the employer can profit by a technical training unless he has 
 first been trained to use his mind and to feel pleasure in using 
 it. Technical training merely directs into the channels of the 
 various industries that activity of intellect which is called forth 
 by a good general training in literature, science, or art. The 
 first step, therefore, in establishing a complete system of 
 technical education is to supply as far as possible all 
 deficiencies in our system of general education ; and more 
 especially to perfect our elementary and intermediate schools. 
 
 In the second place, schools established to give special 
 technical instruction must be carefully suited to the wants of 
 the particular trades for which they are intended.' They must 
 give really useful instruction, and give it in such places, at 
 such times, and generally in such a manner as to be available 
 to all who would like to profit by it. If the instruction is to 
 be really useful, it must be made as thorough and scientific as 
 possible. The indiiferent technical school will soon be found 
 out, despised, and deserted. Our manufacturers and agricul- 
 turists already know too much to take lessons of bad teachers. 
 If we cover the country with third-rate technical schools, we 
 shall find, too late, that we have spent our money and our 
 pains merely in strengthening that distrust of theory which is 
 already too strong in the half-educated Englishman. We shall 
 have wasted the season of enthusiasm and destroyed the hopes 
 of technical education. At the same time, the technical schools 
 must accommodate themselves to the circumstances of indus- 
 trial life. Especially the primary technical school must be 
 accessible, cheap, and practical, or it will not attract the 
 common workman, with his small surplus of time, money, and 
 
Conclusion. 67 
 
 energy. The higher technical school is not bound by such 
 strict conditions ; yet it must constantly keep in view the needs 
 of industry. It must so contrive its courses of science and art 
 that they shall not clash with the empirical training which can 
 be had only in the factory or the workshop. Extremely diffi- 
 cult is the reconciliation of theoretical with practical instruc- 
 tion ; but upon this reconciliation the whole usefulness of a 
 technical school depends. And it must be remembered that 
 utility, as distinct from culture, is the aim of every technical 
 school. 
 
 Thirdly, we must remember that a good technical school 
 cannot be a good commercial speculation. Its buildings, its 
 equipment, its teaching staff, all are costly, and their cost 
 cannot be recouped out of fees paid by scholars, for high fees 
 would exclude those who must form the bulk of the scholars 
 at all but a few technical schools. Not only must the expense 
 of establishing a technical school be defrayed either out of 
 voluntary subscriptions, or out of rates and taxes ; but the ex- 
 pense of maintaining it must, in a considerable degree, be 
 defrayed from the same sources. The income derived from 
 fees must be supplemented with a further income more per- 
 manent and trustworthy. The wise founders of old time did 
 not exhaust their bounty in building ; they also provided for 
 the sustenance of the schools and colleges which they founded ; 
 and each school or college, having proved its worth, contrived 
 subsequently to supply what might at first have been wantingfto 
 the size or splendour of its home. Modern founders, in their 
 anxiety to leave handsome monuments, too often forget to 
 provide a fund for maintenance, and leave an institution to 
 feel the full severity of a struggle which cripples its usefulness, 
 or even shortens its life. As the flow of subscriptions sinks or 
 swells with the national prosperity, and with the passing fancies 
 of the public mind, a technical school should always have an 
 endowment, and if it has no endowment, it should, on fulfilling 
 reasonable conditions, receive a subsidy from local or imperial 
 funds. 
 
 Lastly, our technical schools must be brought into relation 
 with one another and with schools of other descriptions. If 
 they are left without co-ordination, some of the work will be 
 done twice over, and much of the work will not be done at all. 
 This co-ordination is almost impossible unless we establish a 
 centre of knowledge and of power in reference to technical, 
 
68 Technical Education. 
 
 such as we have aheady established in reference to elementary, 
 education. Voluntary effort can do much, and to it we must 
 chiefly trust. But if voluntary effort cannot guarantee to all 
 the technical schools in the kingdom a revenue adequate to 
 their needs, still less can voluntary effort assign to each of them 
 its right place and function in a scheme of technical training 
 adequate to the necessities of the greatest industrial society in 
 Europe. Soon or late the Government will be forced to 
 inspect and to assist technical schools. It is possible so to 
 contrive this inspection and assistance as not to dry up the 
 stream of private liberality. The experience of other countries, 
 and of our own, the public spirit shown by rich men in France 
 and Germany, the magnificent gifts made to such institutions 
 as the Museum at South Kensington or the National Gallery, 
 all tend to show that private munificence can be led to flow 
 copiously in the channels provided by public authority. It is 
 natural that this should be so. The desire of connecting their 
 names with great and durable institutions, of the assurance that 
 their gifts will be well employed, encourage men to acts of 
 liberality which they would not perform for a merely transient 
 object or under a depressing uncertainty as to whether they 
 could effect any good at all. 
 
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