Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Technical Education
TECHNICAL EDUCATION. The special education, the object of which is to train persons in the arts and sciences that underlie the practice of some trade or profession, is technical education. Schools in which this training is provided are known as technical schools. In its widest sense, technical education embraces all kinds of instruction that have direct reference to the career a person is following or preparing to follow; but it is usual and convenient to restrict the term to the special training which helps to qualify a person to engage in some branch of productive industry. This education may consist of the explanation of the processes concerned in production, or of instruction in art or science in its relation to industry, but it may also include the acquisition of the manual skill which production necessitates. The term technical, as applied to education, arose from the necessity of finding a word to indicate the special training which was needed in consequence of the altered conditions of production during the present century. Whilst the changed conditions of production, consequent mainly on the application of steam power to machinery, demanded a special training for those who were to be engaged in productive industry, the prevalent system of education was not adapted to the requirements of these persons, and schools were wanted in which the necessary instruction could be obtained. Other circumstances resulting mainly from the application of steam power to machinery have rendered technical education necessary. Production on a large scale led to a great extension of the principle of the division of labour, in consequence of which it was found economical to keep a man constantly engaged at the same kind of work, since the more he practised it the quicker and more skilful he became. Thus employed, the workman learned little or nothing of the process of the manufacture at which he assisted, or of other departments of the work than the particular one in which he was engaged, and his only opportunity of acquiring such knowledge was outside the workshop or factory in a technical school. The economy effected by the division of labour led to the extension of the principle to other industries than those in which machinery is largely employed. There are many trades in which manual skill is as necessary now as ever, but even in these the methods of instruction prevailing under the system of apprenticeship are now almost obsolete.
In many industries, including trades in which machinery is not as yet extensively employed, production on a large scale has increased the demand for unskilled labour, numbers of hands being required to prepare the work to be finished by a few artisans. Rapidity of execution is attained by keeping a workman at the same work, which after a time he succeeds in mechanically performing, and continues to do until some machine is invented to take his place. In most trades, as formerly practised, the master employed a few apprentices who assisted him in his work, and who learnt from him to understand the details of their craft, so that, when the term of their apprenticeship was over, they were competent to practise as journeymen. But now the master has neither time nor opportunity to instruct young lads, and the old relation of master and apprentice is changed into that of capitalist and workman. In consequence of these altered relations between employer and employed, there is an acknowledged want of properly trained workmen in a number of trades in which skilful hand work is still needed; and in these trades a demand has arisen for technical schools, or some other substitute for apprenticeship, as a means of suitably training workmen and foremen. The ever-increasing competition in production has led to the employment, in many trades, of children to do work of a mechanical kind requiring little skill; but, whilst thus employed, these young people have little opportunity of learning those parts of their trade in which skill and special knowledge are needed; and when they are grown up, and seek higher wages, they are dismissed to make room for other children. Numbers of young men are thus thrown upon the labour market, competent to do nothing more than children's work, and to earn children’s wages, and knowing no trade to which they can apply their hands. To remedy this, by creating some substitute for the old apprenticeship, is one of the objects of a system of technical education.
A complete system of technical education should provide necessary instruction for the different classes of persons engaged in productive industry. It is usual to divide these persons into three classes:—(1) workmen or journeymen; (2) foremen or overseers; (3) managers or masters.
The industries in which they are employed may be grouped under four heads:—(1) those involving the use of extensive machinery, such as iron and steel manufacture, machine making, the textile industries, and some of the chemical trades; (2) those which mainly require the use of hand tools, as cabinet-making, brick-work, plumbing, and tailoring; (3) those depending on artistic skill, as wood and stone carving, metal-chasing, decorative work, and industrial designing generally; (4) agriculture in all its branches. These industries will be referred to as manufactures, handicrafts, art industries, and agriculture. The foregoing classification comprises groups which necessarily, to some extent, overlap one another. Every factory contains a carpenter’s and smith’s shop, and handicraftsmen of group (2) are required in every manufacturing concern. Whilst the industries in which hand labour is exclusively employed are becoming fewer and fewer, there are many trades which, owing to the frequent invention of labour-saving appliances, are passing gradually from the class of handicrafts to that of manufactures. In these trades, of which watch and clock making and boot and shoe making may be taken as examples, there is still a demand for goods largely if not entirely produced by hand work. In such trades, owing to the absence of facilities for instruction in the ordinary shops, there is a want of skilled hand labour which there is an increasing difficulty in satisfying, and to supply this want technical schools of different kinds have been established. Then, again, there are many branches of manufacturing industry which greatly depend for their success upon the designer’s art, and it is necessary that the industrial designer should possess a knowledge of the processes of the manufacture in which his designs will be utilized, as well as of the properties and capabilities of the material to which they will be applied. Indeed, it is the possession of this knowledge which mainly distinguishes the industrial designer from the ordinary artist. To determine the best training for such designers is one of the problems of technical education. There are many trades, too, in which the handicraftsman and the designer should be united. This is the case in such industries as wood-engraving, metal-chasing, and silversmith’s work. In these and other trades the true artisan is the artist aud handicraftsman combined.
In order to reconcile some of the different views which are held as to the objects of technical education, it is necessary to keep in mind the broad distinction, above referred to, between the conditions of production on a large scale, as in those industries in which goods are manufactured by the use of extensive labour-saving machinery, and in those trades in which hand work is chiefly employed. Much of the diversity of opinion regarding the objects of technical education is due to the difference of standpoint from which the problem is regarded. The volume of the trade and commerce of Britain depends mainly on the progress of its manufacturing industries. It is these which chiefly affect the exports and imports. The aim of manufacturers is to produce cheaper and better goods than can be produced by other manufacturers at home or abroad; and technical education is valuable to them, in so far as it enables them to do so. But the artisan engaged in hand industries looks to technical education for the means by which he may acquire a knowledge of the principles of his trade, which the absence of the system of apprenticeship prevents him from acquiring in the shop. Hence the artisan and the manufacturer approach the consideration of the question from different sides. To the spinner or weaver who almost exclusively employs women to tend his machinery, or to the manufacturing chemist whose workpeople are little more than labourers employed in carrying to and fro materials, knowing little or nothing of the scientific principles underlying the complicated processes in which they are engaged, the technical education of the workpeople may seem to be a matter of little moment. What such manufacturers require are the services of a few skilled engineers, artistic designers, or scientific chemists. From the manufacturer's point of view, therefore, technical instruction is not so much needed for the hands he employs in his work as for the heads that direct it. But in trades in which machinery plays a subsidiary part, technical teaching supplies the place of that instruction which, in former times, the master gave to his apprentice, and the workman looks to it to supply him with the knowledge of the principles and practice of his trade, on the acquisition of which his individual success greatly depends. In the former class of industries, technical education is needed mainly for the training of managers; in the latter, for the training of workmen. Hence has arisen a double cry,—for the teaching of art and of the higher branches of science, with a view to their application to manufacturing industry, and for the teaching of trades, and of the scientific facts which help to explain the processes and methods connected with the practice of these trades. This double cry has led to the establishment of technical universities and of trade schools.
Owing to the conditions under which manufacturing industry is now carried on, it is difficult to select competent foremen from the rank and file of the workmen. The ordinary hands gain a very limited and circumscribed acquaintance with the details of the manufacture in which they are engaged, and have little opportunity of acquiring that general knowledge of various departments of work, and of the structure of the machinery in use, which is essential to the foreman or overseer. It is in evening technical classes that this supplementary instruction, which it is the workman's interest to acquire and the master's to encourage, can be obtained. The history of invention shows how frequently important improvements in machinery are made by the workman or minder in charge of it, and adds weight to the arguments already adduced for giving technical instruction to persons of all grades employed in manufacturing industry. To these advantages of technical education, as affecting the workmen themselves as well as the progress of the industry in which they are engaged, must be added the general improvement in the character of the work produced, resulting from the superior and better-trained intelligence of those who have had the benefit of such instruction.
In order that the different classes of persons who are to be engaged in productive industry may receive a fitting preparatory training, the programme of elementary and secondary as well as of the higher education must be organized with reference to their special requirements. If the demand for technical instruction is to be fully satisfied, a great part of our existing system of education must be reconstructed, and the training provided in our several schools must be made a more fitting preparation for industrial work than it is at present.
Schools in which the course of instruction is not specialized with a view to any particular industry, but is so arranged as to form a general preparation for manufacturing or other trade pursuits, are often spoken of as professional, technical, or trade schools; but such schools must be distinguished from apprenticeship schools, the object of which is to teach trades. Of the former class of schools there are excellent examples in the different countries of Europe as well as in the United States, and some few have recently been established in the United Kingdom. Of the latter class the best examples are found in France and Austria. The study of these schools, and of the means of providing fitting education for the different classes of producers, may be simplified by a statement of the following propositions:—
1. The ordinary education of all persons who are likely to be engaged in productive industry should be determined by the general requirements of their future work. This proposition affects the curriculum of all schools in which different classes of producers are to be trained, i.e. of primary, secondary, and higher schools, and involves the consideration of the extent to which, in such schools, modern languages, science, drawing, and manual instruction should take the place of literary and classical studies.
2. Special schools or classes should be established (a) for instruction in art, and in those sciences which serve to explain the processes of productive industry, including agriculture, manufactures, and engineering; (b) for instruction in the application of art and science to these departments of industry; and (c) for the teaching of, and in certain cases for practice in, various handicrafts or trades.
3. The special schools should be adapted to the requirements of the different grades of workers, and to the different kinds of work in which they are or are likely to be engaged.
A survey of the technical schools in different countries shows how these different requirements are met. Owing to the complexity of the problem, a complete or an ideal system of technical education is nowhere to be found. Schools have been established to meet local and present wants, and the greatest variety exists in the attempts that have been made to establish schools in accordance with the foregoing propositions.
1. Workmen.—Many attempts have been made to provide a substitute for apprenticeship, but hitherto with no great success. Two classes of workpeople have to he considered—(1) those engaged in manufacturing industries, and (2) those engaged in handicraft industries. The education of all classes of workpeople begins in the public elementary schools; and, in view of the future occupation of the children, it may be taken for granted that primary instruction should be practical, and should include drawing and elementary science, with some amount of manual training for boys, and with needlework, cookery, and domestic economy for girls. In nearly every country of Europe, and in the United States, primary instruction includes drawing, in addition to reading, writing, and reckoning. In England this is not yet the case, drawing being taught in very few schools outside of the jurisdiction of the London school board. In France, Belgium, Holland, and Sweden handicraft instruction is generally included in the curriculum of elementary schools. Rudimentary science is also taught in nearly all the primary schools of Europe. Modelling is taught both to boys and girls in many Continental schools; and in Sweden "slojd," or elementary woodwork, in which simple and useful articles are constructed with the fewest possible tools, is taught with considerable success to children of both sexes.
In Germany and Switzerland there exists an excellent system of evening continuation schools, known as Fortbildungs- or Ergänzungs-Schulen, in which the instruction of the children who leave school before fourteen, and of those who leave at that age, is continued. In most of these schools drawing is taught with special reference to local industries. ln England an attempt is being made to attract children to evening schools by means of recreative classes. These classes are intended to continue the child's general education, and to supplement it by some amount of practical teaching between the time that he leaves the elementary school and is prepared to take advantage of evening technical instruction. The training of most workpeople, and of nearly all those who are engaged in manufacturing industry, consists of—(1) primary teaching in elementary schools; (2) practice in the factory or shop; (3) evening technical instruction.
In all the principal towns throughout Europe evening classes have been established for teaching drawing, painting, and designing, and the elements of science in their application to special industries. On the Continent these classes are mainly supported by the municipalities, by the chambers of commerce, by industrial or trade societies, by county boards, and in some cases by the fees of the pupils. They receive little or no support from the state. They are well attended by workpeople of all grades, who are encouraged by their employers to profit by these opportunities of instruction. In England evening technical instruction is more systematically organized than in any other country. It is under the direction of the committee of the council of education known as the Science and Art Department, and of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the advancement of technical education, an institute founded and supported by the corporation and by a large number of the livery companies of London. The department encourages instruction, in pure science and in art; the institute in the application of science, and to some extent of art also, to different trades.
Both the department and the institute make grants on hehalf of properly registered teachers on the results of the examination of their pupils. The directory of the department contains a detailed syllabus of the twenty-five different subjects on the teaching of which grants are paid, and in the programme of the institute are found syllabuses of instruction in the technology of fifty different trade subjects. In the evening classes organized by the depart- ment, as well as in those in connexion with the institute, the workman or foreman engaged in any manufacturing industry has the opportunity, by payment of a very small fee, of studying art in all its branches, science theoretically and practically, and the technology of any particular industry. Provided his early education enables him to take advantage of this instruction, no better system has been suggested of enabling workmen, wlxilst earning wages at an early age, to acquire manual skill by continuous practice, aud at the same time to gain a knowledge of the principles of science connected with their work and explanatory of the pro- cesses of the manufacture in which they are engaged.
For those engaged in handicraft trades this evening instruction is eq^ually valuable, and in many parts of Europe there exist evening trade schools in which the workman is able to supplement the “ sectional ’* practice he acjiuires in the shop by more general practice in other branches of his trade. In Vienna, for example, and in other parts of Austria, there are found practical evening classes for carpenters, turners, joiners, metal-workers, and others; and similar classes, some of which are subsidized by the City and Guilds Institute, have recently been established in England. Throughout Europe schools for weaving, with practical work at the loom and pattern designing, have existed for many years.
To provide a training more like the old system of apprenticeship, schoofe have been established in many parts of Europe which are known as professional, trade, or apprenticeship schools {ecoles 'pro- fessionelles, ecoles des apprentis, FacJiscJiiden), The object is to- train workmen ; and the pupils, after completing their course of instruction in such a school, are supposed to have learnt a trade. The school is the substitute for the shop. In such a school the pupils have the advantage of being taught their trade systemati- cally and leisurely, and production is made subsidiary to instruc- tion. Tinder such an artificial system of production, the pupil is less likely to acquire excellence of workmanship and smartness of habit than in the mercantile shop, under the strain of severe com- petition.. Moreover, the cost of maintenance of these schools renders it impossible to look to them as a general substitute for apprenticeship. By sending into the labour market, however, a few highly-trained workmen, who are absorbed in various works and exert a beneficial influence on other -workmen, these schools serve a useful purpose. Schools of this kind have been tried with more or less success in different countries. In Paris there is the W’-ell-known Nicole Diderot for the training of mechanics, fitters, smiths, &c. ; and similar schools have been established in other parts of France. A furniture-trade school of the same category has recently been opened in Paris, and for many years a society of Christian Brethren have directed a large school in which several different trades have been taught. In this establishment, situated in the Rue Vaugirard, all the secular and general instruction is given gratuitously by the brothers, and in the several shops attached to the school skilled workmen are employed, who in- struct the j>upil apprentices, and utilize their labour. This system combines many of the advantages of shop work and school work, hut it depends financially for its success upon the religions spirit which actuates its promoters and supporters. The Artane school, near Dublin, is conducted on somewhat similar principles, but is intended for a lower class of children. In Austria, particu- larly in the rural districts, there are numerous schools for the training of carpenters, joiners, turners, cabinetmakers, workers in stone and marble, in silver and other metals, &c. Schools of the same clsiss are found in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere. It is only in certain cases, however, that apprenticeship schools can be said to satisfactorily answer the purpose for which they have been established. VTiere a new industry, especially in. rural districts, lias to be created ; where decaying industries need to be revived ; where machinery is superseding hand work, and, owing to the demands for ordinary hands, there is a dearth of skilled workmen ; where through the effects of competition and other causes the trade is carried on under conditions in which competent workmen cannot be properly -tiained in the ordinary shop, — in these cases, and in various art industries, an apprenticeship school may prove to be the best means of training workmen, and of advancing particular trades. Generally, an apprenticeship school should be looked upon as a temporary expedient, as a form of relief applied at the birth or during any temporary depression of a particular industry. The proper training school for workmen is the factory or shop.
2. Foremen , — The foreman must be familiar with the various
EDUCATION
branches of work he is to overlook, and the training which the workman receives in the factory or shop affords him but scanty opportunities of obtaining this general knowledge. The foreman needs also a generally superior education. How then are foremen to be trained ? The problem is somewhat easier than that of training workmen, because the number required is fewer. The variety of schools in Europe devoted to this purpose is very great. There are three distinct ways in which foremen are being trained.
{a) The evening technical classes in Britain and on the Continent offer to ambitious workmen an opportunity of acquiring a know- ledge of other departments of the trade than those in which they are engaged, as well as of the scientific principles underlying their work. These classes serve the double purpose of improving the workpeople and of affording a means of discovering those who are best fitted to occupy higher posts.
(5) Special schools have been established for the training of fore- men. There are many trade schools of this kind in which selected boys are received after leaving the elementary school. The best known are those at Chalons, Aix, Nevers, Angers, and Lille in France. These schools are intended for the training of foremen in engineering trades. They are state institutions, in which practical mechanical work in the shops is supplemented by theoretical, instruction. The first of these schools was founded in 1803. The course lasts three years, and the number of students in each school must not exceed three hundred. The students spend from six to seven hours a day in the workshop, and are trained as fitters, founders, smiths, and pattern-makers. As in all such schools, , saleable goods are produced, but, as production is subordinated to instruction, the school does not bind itself to deliver work at a given date, and therefore does not compete with any manufacturing establishment. The students on leaving these schools are com- petent at once to undertake the duties of foremen, managers, or draughtsmen. At Komotau, Steyr, Klagenfurt, Ferlach, and many other places schools have been established on somewhat similar principles. In Germany there are special schools for the training of foremen in the building trade, which are chiefly frequented in the winter, and numerous schools are found in all parts of the Continent for the training of weavers. At Winterthur in Switzer- land a school has been established the main purpose of which is the training of foremen. In Italy there are numerous technical institutes, 3ie object of which is to train young men for inter- mediate posts in industrial works. In the United States the manual training schools, the number of which is rapidly increasing, have somewhat similar objects. In London, the Finsbury technical college of the City and Guilds of London Institute has a day de- partment, the main purpose of which is the training of youtns as foremen, works managers, &c. ; out in this school, as well as in. those last mentioned, the character of the instruction deviates considerably from that given in French schools, and aims rather at preparing youths to learn, than at teaching them, their trade.
(c) A fiiird method adopted for the training of foremen is by en- couraging selected children of the ordinary elementary schools to continue their education in schools of a higher grade of a technical character. It is thought that, by developing to a higher degree the intelligence and skill of those children who show aptitude for scientific and practical work, they will be able, when they enter the shop, to learn their trade more quickly and more thoroughly, and to acquire that general knowledge of their work, and to exhibit those special aptitudes, which may qualify them for the position of foreman or manager. The education given in these schools, although having direct reference to the future career of the pupil, is disciplinary in character, and consists of the subjects of pnmary instruction further pursued, — of drawing, modelling, science, mathematics, and manual exercises. The curriculum is varied to some extent according to local requirements, the technology of the staple industries forming in many cases part of the instruction. Such schools, under varied forms, have been established in most Continental countries, some of the best examples of them being found in Paris, Lyons, Rheims, Rouen, and in other towns of France. The want of similar schools in Britain has been frequently pointed out. One of the oldest of these schools is the Ecole Martini^re at Lyons. The school was founded in 1820 hy a bequest from Major-General Martin, who had fought against the English under Tippoo Sahib. In this school, in which the education is ^atuitons, as in nearly all the higher elementary schools of France, instruction is given in drawing, modelling, chemistry, mechanics, and physics, in the working of wood and iron, and in German and English in addition to the subjects of an ordinary school education. Surveying is also taught to some of the pupils, and the instruction generally is of a very* practical character. The students visit fac- tories under the guidance of the masters, and on their return they write out full descriptions of their visits. The school hours are from seven till, eleven in the morning and from one till seven in the I afternoon. The boys from this school rapidly obtain places in the I commercial and industrial houses of Lyons, and many of them, after a time, succeed in obtaining high positions, A very ai-mila-r I school, on more modern lines, has been established at Rheims, and is accommodated in a building especially adapted to the purpose. In this school instruction is directed towards the staple industries of the district, namely, weaving, dyeing, and engineering. There are many other similar schools in France, the object of which is to ^ive the children of artisans and small shopkeepers a higher practical education in order to fit them to occupy the posts of foremen, overseers, and superior clerks in manufacturing and commercial firms. A large number of poor children showing talent are selected from the primary schools and receive scholarships; and the objection sometimes urged against the establishment of higher elementary schools, — that the better classes only are able to benefit by them — is thus obviated. In Germany the real-schools in which Latin is not taught, known as Ohnelatein Realschulen^ have very nearly the same objects as the higher elementary schools of France. The instruction in these German schools is not yet so; practical as in the schools of France. Drawing is always well taught, and the schools generally contain good chemical laboratories, as well as collections of physical apparatus and museums. From the children of these schools the ranks of fbremen are largely recruited. They receive no special trade instruction, but the general training is so arranged as to qualify them for higher posts ?n industrial works. The cost of this higher education seldom exceeds £3 per annum. In Bavaria it is two shillings a month. In most of these schools, as well as in the chief intermediate commercial schools, the exit certificate exempts a lad from two of the three years* compulsory military service, and this regulation, to which nothing corresponds in England, is an incentive to parents to allow their children to receive higher instruction, which operates very forcibly in largely increasing the number of well-educated youths in Germany. In these opportunities for higher education England is still very deficient, and the complaint is generally heard of 1 the difficulties of obtaining competent foremen.
3. Masters, — The best special schools for the training of future masters, managers, engineers, manufacturers, and industrial chemists are in Germany, and are known as technical high schools or polytechnic schools. Schools of a similar character are found in other countries, and in England the facilities for higher technical education have within the last few years greatly improved.
In Germany the polytechnic or technische Hochsdiule is an institution of university type in which the education has special reference to industrial purposes. lu many respects the teaching coincides with that given in the universities. The chief distinction consists in the arrangement of courses of instruction in the several departments, in the admission of students having a non-classical preliminary training, and in the absence of certain faculties found in the university and the addition of others. It is not correct to say that the polytechnic is a professional school as distinguished from the university ; for the faculties of law, medicine, and theology give to the university as distinctly a professional character as the faculty of engineering ^ves to the polytechnic, l^or can it be said that the scientific studies at the universities are less practical than at the polytechnic. For, whilst workshops for instruction in the use of tools are found in very few of the polytechnic schools, the laboratories, for the practical study of chemistry and physics, are perhaps better fitted and under more eminent professors at some of the German universities than at the polytechnic schools. At the same time, engineers of every description, architects, and builders, besides a great number of manufacturing chemists, find in the polytechnic the scientific and technical training which the lawyer or i^hysician, and in many cases the industrial chemist, seeks in the university.
In some of the large cities — in Berlin, Vienna, and Munich, for instance — ^the university and polytechnic coexist; and in certain cases, in which a very special training is required to fit a youth for his career, the German student, after spending three or four years at a polytechnic school, passes on to another institution, such as a dyeing school, in which his studies are further specialized with a view to his future work.
Taking the technical high school of Munich as a type of other similar institutions, we find the cost of the building and of the various collections it contains to have amounted to nearly £200,000, and the annual cost of maintenance to be about £20,000. The institution consists of six schools:—(1) the general; (2) the civil engineering; (3) the building; (4) the mechanical engineering; (5) the industrial chemical; and (6) the agricultural. A department for electrical technology is now being built. In . other institutions there are architectural, pharmaceutical, and mining schools. The programme of the Munich school gives a list of about 180 different courses of instruction distributed over the several departments. A separate professor is engaged to lecture on that particular subject with which he is specially conversant, and the number of such professors attached to a polytechnic school is very large. In the engineering department there are six or seven distinct courses of lectures under the direction of thirteen professors. ^ The largest and most recently constructed of aU these institutions is the polytechnic school of Berlin, which was completed in 1884 at a cost of about £450,000. In France the institutions in which the highest technical instruction is given are concentrated in the capital. There are a large number of provincial colleges where the education is somewhat more practical, hut where the mathematical and scientific teaching is not carried to so high a point (the ^cole Centrale at Lyons, the Ecole des Mineurs at St Stienne, and the Institut du Nord at Lille, &c.). The ]6eole Centrale of Paris, in which the majority of French engineers who are not employed in the Government service are trained, is a rare instance of an institution for higher technical instruction which is self-supporting and independent of Government aid.
In Switzerland the federal polytechnic of Zurich is similar to the polytechnic schools of Germany and Austria. Italy has three su]^rior technical institutes, — one at Milan, one at Turin, and one atTNaples, in which technical education is given on the same lines as in German polytechnic schools. Holland has an excellent institution at Delft, which was opened in 1864; and in Russia the imperial technical school at Moscow is a high-class engineering school, in which the theoretical studies are supplemented, to a greater extent than in the German schools, by workshop practice.
In some of the German schools the fees charged vary according t© the number of lectures and to the number of hours of practical work which the student takes per week. Thus at Munich the entrance fee for each student is 10s., and the lecture fee is 2s. 6d. for each hour’s lecture per week, including the use of materials. At Zurich the cost of a student in a chemical department, including laboratory practice, does not exceed £12 per annum, and in other departments it does not exceed £4 per annum. At Delft the student pays about £16 per annum for a complete course.
In England there is a growing tendency to associate technical with university education. This is mainly owing to the fact that the colleges which have recently been established to give university education are poorly endowed, and have found it necessary to attract students by meeting the increasing demand for technical instruction. Most of the provincial colleges may indeed be regarded as technical schools with a literary side. In order that they may provide university education in addition to sound technical instruction, it is necessary that they should be placed on a sound and satisfactory footing by means of state endowment. Of the more recently erected English colleges, the Owens College at Manchester is the most important, combining the faculties of a German university with those of a polytechnic school. The Yorkshire College, Leeds, possesses a special school for the teaching of weaving and dyeing. Other somewhat similar institutions are found in Birmingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Nottingham, Dundee, Cardiff, and elsewhere. The university of Edinburgh has a good school of chemistry, physics, and engineering, and the university of Glasgow has been long distinguished for the excellence of its physical laboratories. In University College and King’s College, London, the metropolis possesses two institutions each of which may be likened to a university and a polytechnic combined. In the nniversity of Cambridge there are mechanical workshops in connexion with the chair of engineering. The Royal School of Mines and the normal schools of science and art in South Kensington are the only technical institutions in England supported by state aid. The central institution in London has more in common with the German polytechnic school than any other institution in Britain. This school is designed for the technical teaching of engineers, architects, master builders, and industrial chemists. It was built at a cost of £100,000, and is maintained by an annual grant from the City and Guilds of London Institute of £10,000, in addition to the students’ fees.
Such is a brief outline of the means provided for the technical education of masters in different parts of Europe. It will be seen from the foregoing statement that efforts are now being made to bring Britain more nearly on a level with other countries in the provision of those kinds of instruction which are best adapted to the different classes of producers. But as yet only a beginning has been made, and in England technical students can be counted by hundreds, whilst those of Germany are numbered by thousands.
For further information the reader is referred to the JR^ert of the royal commissioners on technical instruction, published in 1884.(P. M*.)