spread of sound and thorough teaching among the handicraftsmen of this country will be taken by the livery companies of London.

[This hope has been fully justified by the establishment of the Cowper Street Schools, and that of the Central Institution of the City and Guilds of London Institute, September, 1881.]

It is perhaps advisable to remark that the important ques tion of the professional education of managers of industrial works is not touched in the foregoing remarks.

XVII

ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION

[1887.]

MR. MAYOR AND GENTLEMEN,-It must be a matter of sincere satisfaction to those who, like myself, have for many years past been convinced of the vital importance of technical education to this country to see that that subject is now being taken up by some of the most important of our manufacturing towns. The evidence which is afforded of the public interest in the matter by such meetings as those at Liverpool and Newcastle, and, last but not least, by that at which I have the honour to be present to-day, may convince us all, I think, that the question has passed out of the region of speculation into that of action. I need hardly say to any one here that the task which our Association contemplates is not only

one of primary importance-I may say of vital importance to the welfare of the country; but that it is one of great extent and of vast difficulty. There is a well-worn adage that those who set out upon a great enterprise would do well to count the cost. I am not sure that this is always true. I think that some of the very greatest enterprises in this world have been carried out successfully simply because the people who undertook them did not count the cost; and I am much of opinion that, in this very case, the most instructive consideration for us is the cost of doing nothing. But there is one thing that is perfectly certain, and it is that, in undertaking all enterprises, one of the most important conditions of success is to have a perfectly clear comprehension of what you want to do to have that before your minds before you set out, and from that point of view to consider carefully the measures which are best adapted to the end.

Mr. Acland has just given you an excellent account of what is properly and strictly understood by technical education; but I venture to think that the purpose of this Association may be stated in somewhat broader terms, and that the object we have in view is the development of the industrial productivity of the country to the uttermost limits consistent with social welfare. And you will observe that, in thus widening the definition of our object, I have gone no further than the Mayor

in his speech, when he not obscurely hinted-and most justly hinted that in dealing with this question there are other matters than technical education, in the strict sense, to be considered.

It would be extreme presumption on my part if I were to attempt to tell an audience of gentlemen intimately acquainted with all branches of industry and commerce, such as I see before me, in what manner the practical details of the operations that we propose are to be carried out. I am absolutely ignorant both of trade and of commerce, and upon such matters I cannot venture to say a solitary word. But there is one direction in which I think it possible I may be of service-not much perhaps, but still of some,-because this matter, in the first place, involves the consideration of methods of education with which it has been my business to occupy myself during the greater part of my life; and, in the second place, it involves attention to some of those broad facts and laws of nature with which it has been my business to acquaint myself to the best of my ability. And what I think may be possible is this, that if I succeed in putting before you-as briefly as I can, but in clear and connected shape-what strikes me as the programme that we have eventually to carry out, and what are the indispensable conditions of success, that that proceeding, whether the conclusions at which I arrive be such as you approve or as you disapprove, will nevertheless help to clear the course

In this and in all complicated matters we must remember a saying of Bacon, which may be freely translated thus: " Consistent error is very often vastly more useful than muddle-headed truth." At any rate, if there be any error in the conclusions I shall put before you, I will do my best to make the error perfectly clear and plain.

Now, looking at the question of what we want to do in this broad and general way, it appears to me that it is necessary for us, in the first place, to amend and improve our system of primary education in such a fashion as will make it a proper preparation for the business of life. In the second place, I think we have to consider what measures may best be adopted for the development to its uttermost of that which may be called technical skill; and, in the third place, I think we have to consider what other matters there are for us to attend to, what other arrangements have to be kept carefully in sight in order that, while pursuing these ends, we do not forget that which is the end of civil existence, I mean a stable social state without which all other measures are merely futile, and, in effect, modes of going faster to ruin.

You are aware-no people should know the fact better than Manchester people-that, within the last seventeen years, a vast system of primary education has been created and extended over the whole country. I had some part in the original