interest in scientific subjects on the part of employés, thus developed, in turn reacts to the pecuniary advantage of their employers, because mechanics who have been trained in the scientific principles that underlie their handicrafts are thereby enabled to understand the technical publications affecting their trades, and to utilize new inventions and improved methods of work; while men uneducated in the rudiments of science ignore such sources of knowledge, and, quite naturally, oppose all improvements as innovations calculated to work injury to the laboring-classes. Cultivate a laboring-man's intelligence to a point where it recognizes improvements and comprehends their nature; his opposition ceases, and he will himself likely invent improved processes, which will inure to his employer's benefit. Technical education has been the means of attracting capital not only to specific localities, but to countries. Indisputable evidence of this is found in Switzerland, and notably in Zürich, where for years a technical school has been conducted at government expense. When, recently, the Federal Council was disposed to lessen the usual grant for its support, the manufacturers showed, by undeniable evidence, that this single institution had in a few years been the means of bringing capital to the country to the extent of millions of pounds sterling."
The British Royal Commissioners testify that a few years ago the question of technical education in England would have been a debatable one, but that now no argument is needed to convince English employers of its importance; that it has been tried, and has given the highest satisfaction; that in nearly all the great industrial centers schools of science and art, of various grades, together with numerous art and science classes, are to be found in successful operation, and that their influence may be traced in the improved productions of the localities in which they are placed; in the decreased consumption of crude material, and in saving of time required for the performance of labor. Through the agency of technical schools, wherever they have been established, originality has taken the place of servile imitation; decaying industries have been revived, and new ones promoted; while they have exerted a most marked influence in developing the intelligence and skill, and consequently in securing the permanent prosperity of the industrial classes generally, by enabling them to develop the sources of wealth peculiar to each country.
A noteworthy example of the collective advantages which technical education can confer is afforded by Switzerland, a country which is without navigable rivers, canals, mines, fertility, and the other natural gifts which are the usual foundation of the prosperity of civilized states, but where industrial education is highly developed. From it are yearly exported industrial products exceeding in value all the importations of the cantons, and also more than sufficient to cover the cost of internal administration.
If the results of an educational system can be ascertained from a
