learn, as being things truly pertinent to the technique of their industry, and as such will be taught in every well-organized building trades school. Take, again, the case of the silversmith's craft. How rarely, in the modern ultra division of labor, can the all-round man be found! The chaser can chase but not engrave, the engraver can engrave but not chase; neither chaser nor engraver can do the simplest bit of enamel work, and neither chaser, engraver, nor enameler can do metal spinning or silver casting. Yet here, one would have thought, in an essentially artistic trade, was the chance for rearing good all-round craftsmen. It is cheering to learn from the recent report of the technical education board (1896–97, page 8) that at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, lately established, the subject of gold and silver smiths' work has been taken up "essentially as an artistic craft." "Every effort," they say, "is made to give students a broader view and practice of the craft in which they are engaged." These golden words might well be the motto of all technical instruction. It is to be hoped that it will soon be made compulsory for every technical student to take at least one accessory subject besides the immediate one concerned in his actual employment. Thus every silver chaser might be required to learn also either engraving or enameling; every bricklayer to learn either brick cutting or that part of plastering that is common to the two trades of plasterer and bricklayer; every plumber should also learn lead bossing and lead burning. I can not conceive of any more helpful thing to the prosperity of workmen than such a widening of their experience.

This, again, suggests another reform urgently needed in the organization of technical instruction, particularly in London, namely, the proper selection of subjects taught in the several technical institutes, so that they shall each be developed to the utmost without interfering in one another's work. Admirable as the idea of a polytechnic may be, as an idea, there is no question that good and sound technical instruction flourishes better in the school of monotechnic than in that of polytechnic type. Who attempts one thing well succeeds better than he who attempts everything and dabbles all round. Not one of the London polytechnics is to-day doing as much for any industry as the tanning school is doing for the tanning industry in Bermondsey, or the leather trades school is doing for the Bethnal-Green industry. Very wisely, the Borough road polytechnic has refused to attempt all sorts of so-called technical classes and has concentrated itself on certain groups of trades. So also the Bolt court school is doing an admirable monotechnic work for the printing and lithographic industry. The Shoreditch Municipal Technical School has wisely pushed its cabinet-making classes. The Battersea Institute excels in its engineering side. Without going further, one may hail this tendency as a most hopeful sign. Each institute must find its own appropriate work and do it, otherwise it will inevitably drivel away in the sensations of Pepper's ghosts and diving bells, or whatever may be their modern equivalent in scientific toys. All this points to proper adaptation to the local industries as a desirable line of reform. We shall need more schools than at present we have, but they will be schools where the work is better, more serious, more sincere. A technical institute for training reporters and journalists and a school of foreign tongues for teaching the spoken languages of the world might well be added to the monotechnic institutes of London.

Lastly, we have got to learn how to discriminate between education which is purely secondary on the one hand, and that which is purely "universitary" on the other hand, as against that which is truly technical. It will be an evil day if ever the technical institutes, whether monotechnic or polytechnic in type, neglect their proper work and take to "preparing" their students for university degrees. If they are giving a training that is really of technical value, then their certificate of that training will be more valuable to their students than any university degree. If technical institutes can not make their training of more use to their students than the holding of a B. A. degree, then that training stands self-condemned. As explained above, chemistry is almost the only subject in which the technical training and the

universitary training are really comparable, and the technical training in general goes far beyond anything required for a mere degree examination. In no other subject does the proper work of a technical institute run along the lines of a degree preparation. If it were made a rule in the day departments of our technical institutes to admit no student who had not already matriculated into the university, the case might be different. Yet this suggestion is hardly within practical range If such a rule were possible, how marvelously it would quicken the educational work of those institutes. In this connection it is well to remember that the abiturient examination required as a preliminary before entering a German polytechnic is vastly more severe than an English matriculation. How many students in a London polytechnic have, before entering, shown that they can pass an examination in differential and integral calculus? In Germany-and there is no mistake about it-the polytechnic schools are places for serious and responsible educational work. They do not, it is true, teach playing; neither do they play at teaching. If we wish our technical institutes to do as much for English industries as the Continental polytechnics have done for Continental industries, let us learn one thing from them. Let us make the serious instruction of the day classes accessible to all by its cheapuess, while excluding the incompetent by entrance examinations suitable to the standard attained in our existing secondary schools.

EVENING SCHOOLS.

By SWIRE SMITH, Member of late Royal Commission on Technical Instruction.

At a conference of the mechanics' institutes of Yorkshire in 1886 I read a paper on the above subject, in which I made the following statement:

The magnitude of this question of evening schools expands illimitably the more it is considered, and yet if earnestly grappled with it offers the most practical and economical solution of the problem of the technical education of our artisans. There is no country in the world in which evening classes are so necessary, and can be so usefully and cheaply conducted, as in England. There is no country in which they can be so conveniently attended; in no country have young persons engaged in manufacturing pursuits so much leisure.

EDUCATIONAL CONDITIONS TEN YEARS AGO.

The ten years since 1886 have been years of great educational activity. The Royal Commission on Technical Instruction had presented its report to Parliament two years previously, and the recommendations contained in it were beginning to lay hold upon the public mind. In giving practical shape to the conclusions at which we had arrived after inspecting the schools of other countries and inquiring into their influence upon the manufacturing industries which they have been designed to promote, and after making ourselves thoroughly acquainted with the educational organizations of this country and their effect upon the occupations of the people, we made certain modest recommendations which at the time were considered by many educational enthusiasts to be altogether inadequate to meet the requirements of the times. We were of opinion, however, that it was better to ask for a little, with a chance of getting it, than to ask for much and have the favor refused. At that time the subject of drawing, which an education minister had graphically described as "the mainspring of the technical education of the artisan," was not taught to more than one in four of the scholars in elementary schools, and that often so badly as hardly to be worthy of the name of instruction. Elementary science fared even worse than drawing. Modeling was almost unknown; manual instruction had scarcely been heard of-the pen was the only industrial weapon that boys intended for skilled handicraftsmen were taught to use—and domestic subjects for girls, excepting needlework, had not come within the range of practical education. The local authorities, however much they might have desired it, had no power to appropriate any of the ratepayers' money toward the development of the brains of the ratepayers in the way of providing technical instruction or contributing to technical schools.

RECOMMENDATIONS OF TECHNICAL COMMISSION.

The recommendations of the commissioners dealt with the above and many other deficiencies, and it is very satisfactory that several of them have been adopted. Drawing is now taught to all boys, and usually with the aid of suitable casts and examples; modeling has been introduced in many localities; school museums have been established, and elementary science is now extensively taught with, in some instances, laboratory practice. Manual instruction is being given in the most progressive schools, and in agricultural districts the facts of agriculture are being taught, to which has been added the use of tools, with practical instruction in garden plats. In addition to drawing and needlework, the elements of cookery and household management are being taught extensively to girls. The above subjects influence the prospective life work of the scholars and prepare them on becoming apprentices to take up in the evening classes the special subjects of science and art which have a bearing on their daily occupation.

TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION ACT.

But the most memorable and effective impulse to technical education and evening schools has been given by the passing of the technical instruction act of 1889, which enables local authorities, to the extent of one pence in the pound sterling, to build and maintain technical schools and contribute to technical evening schools out of the rates. This was followed by the local taxation act of 1890, which practically handed over certain of the profits of the excise, amounting to about £750,000 a year, to the county councils and county boroughs of the country, empowering them to devote, if they were so disposed, the whole of the funds toward the promotion of technical instruction. The embodiment of these simple acts into practical legislation is silently working a revolution which is already most favorably affecting the civilization and industrial efficiency of all who have been brought under its influence. England is proverbially slow in the adoption of reforms, but it is satisfactory to state that already 172 municipalities and local authorities, including London and others of the largest cities, have adopted the technical instruction act, while of 126 county councils and county boroughs in England and Wales, 111 have devoted all their funds derived under the local taxation act, and 13 the larger part to that purpose, the amount last year being £724,000. The county councils of the agricultural as well as the manufacturing districts, where, in many instances, not the slightest interest had been taken in technical instruction, are devoting themselves to their new duties with conspicuous energy, and although, as was inevitable, some mistakes have been made, there are many instances of most gratifying success. The public authorities that are entering upon this business are "learning by doing," and among them there is an encouraging spirit of cooperation and of friendly rivalry. The county councils in many instances have followed their own methods, without any general organization, in allocating the funds at their disposal. The most advanced have organized their areas somewhat on the model of the science and art department of South Kensington, with responsible local committees, giving grants on buildings and apparatus, attendance, examinations, lectures, etc., and providing scholarships with maintenance, enabling painstaking students of the artisan class to pass from elementary day or night schools to the highest technical and university colleges. Others have distributed the grants according to population-leaving the administration of them to the various local authorities themselves-a more doubtful proceeding. Concurrently with the beneficial assistance of the county authorities, there has been an increased demand upon the education and the science and art departments, the latter of which has recently issued a new code of regulations for evening continuation schools, embracing literary subjects, languages, science, and commercial subjects, covering the whole field of preparation for those in search of useful or refining knowledge. The above agencies-cooperating with the school boards, voluntary school managers,

the Recreative Evening Schools Association, and the Society of Arts, guided in many instances by the National Association for the Promotion of Technical and Secondary Education-have put new life into the evening continuation schools of the country, enabling vast numbers of young people to rescue their school knowledge, which was in many instances rapidly disappearing, and to make it distinctly available as a help to the business and pleasures of life.

TEN YEARS OF PROGRESS.

The following figures from the report of the Recreative Evening Schools Association indicate the progress of evening schools during recent years:

Under the science and art department the total number of students under instruction in science, art, elementary drawing, and manual instruction was, in—

1886 1895..

..students.. 1,016, 793 .do.... 2,641, 388

These figures give evidence of great progress during the last ten years, amounting to a sevenfold increase in the scholars of ordinary continuation evening schools, and to more than two and a half times the number of students in science, drawing, and manual instruction under the science and art department.

There are 70 new technical schools which have recently been opened, involving an outlay of £768,000. There are in addition 67 schools in course of erection, or about to be erected, of which 55 are estimated to cost £756,000, the total being 137 schools, and representing an expenditure of £1,524,000. Another indication of the development and increasing popularity of this movement is to be found in the fact that the State expenditure on education, which amounted in 1872 to £1,077,894, in 1895 reached the sum of £7,644,885.

CITY AND GUILDS OF LONDON INSTITUTE.

A great impetus was given to technical instruction, especially in the manufacturing towns, beginning in 1876, by the organization of classes, and by practical examinations in the application of science to the industries of the country by the City and Guilds of London Institute, comprising the worshipful companies of mercers, drapers, fishmongers, goldsmiths, merchant tailors, vintners, cloth workers, leather sellers, carpenters, and others, which have taken such a generous and cordial interest in the promotion of this congress.

The technological classes of the institute are held in 63 subjects representing as many trades, in which practical instruction is being given. In 1886 there were 329 classes, with 7,660 students, and in 1896 there were 1,128 classes, with 26,609 students. The increase in the attendance is not more remarkable than the improved quality of the instruction and the higher standard of the examinations during the period.

By their organization of the above classes and by their splendid contributions to the People's Palace, and the polytechnic institutions of the metropolis, their erection and maintenance of the Finsbury Technical College, the South London School of Art, and, above all, of the Central Technical College for the training of engineers, industrial chemists, and technical teachers, these London livery companies have rendered invaluable service to thousands of students, and have thereby most favorably influenced the industries of the country.

CLOTH WORKERS' COMPANY AND TEXTILE SCHOOLS.

Nor can I, as coming from Yorkshire, abstain from acknowledging the great public services rendered by the Cloth Workers' Company to that county. It is now more than twenty years ago, at a time of great depression and suffering among the textile industries that the Cloth Workers' Company, of London, conceived the idea of rendering practical assistance to the wool industries of Yorkshire. Successive masters and leading spirits of the company, with the untiring assistance of their esteemed and public-spirited clerk, Sir Owen Roberts, made frequent visits to West Riding towns, where they were brought face to face with the difficulties of manufacturers and operatives in meeting the competition of their continental rivals. They recog. nized that the weakness of our position was not due to inferiority of machinery, or of manual skill, but rather to the scientific and artistic knowledge of the competing foreigner which could only be permanently overcome by "finer knowledge" on the part of the Englishman. They therefore boldly and generously challenged the public-spirited men of the various manufacturing centers with the offer in each instance that in proportion as they would help themselves in the erection of suitable buildings for technical instruction they would help them, not only by grants to the buildings, but by annual subsidies toward their maintenance. And what was the result? The challenge was accepted by every manufacturing center in the county, and it was to this practical initiative that the woolen and worsted manufacturing towns of Yorkshire owe their technical schools, and to the same cause the recent

progress of the wool industry is largely due. But their wise and far-seeing generosity did not stop here. At their own cost they built and equipped a central textile college as a department of the Yorkshire College at Leeds, with all the practical, as well as the theoretical aids to the complete instruction of those intended for the textile industries. The new laboratory for dyeing research, which, without regard to cost, has been furnished with the most modern appliances for the prosecution of original research and for the conducting of experiments, bids fair to institute a new departure in the invention of colors and in their application to textile fabrics. In the necessary provision for the higher instruction of those engaged in the manufacture of textiles, in which this country has been so lamentably inferior to its continental neighbors and has temporarily lost some of its best business in consequence, the Textile College at Leeds stands forth as a noble institution, offering facilities for the highest technical training in the departments of weaving, dyeing, and finishing, which, so far as the wool industry is concerned, are not surpassed by those of any similar institution in the world. I am glad to be able to express the testimony of the best authorities to the fact that at the present time the wool industry of Yorkshireboth the woolen and worsted branches-is fairly able to hold its own against its competitors, and if it can not be said that this result may be credited entirely to the technical schools, so generously supported by the Cloth Workers' Company, it is certainly due to the improvements in designing, dyeing, and finishing of the goods, which it is the aim of the schools to promote, and to the greater skill, efficiency, and energy of those engaged in the trade.

SUPERIOR EQUIPMENT OF CONTINENTAL COUNTRIES.

The general provision for technical instruction in this country, especially in the higher branches, is as yet incomparably inferior to that of the leading continental countries. We have neither the buildings, nor until recently have we possessed the legislative means of obtaining the necessary financial aid, but perhaps at the present time our greatest inferiority is in the lack of preparedness on the part of the great bulk of the scholars when they leave the day schools.

The humiliating confession was recently made by the president of the National Union of Elementary Teachers that, with a register of 5,326,000 children last year, the average attendance was only 4,346,000, and that practically two-thirds of the