The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3008, 15 February 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1881.

While our new educational system is on its trial, and its working exciting considerable interest, it might be of value to consider if something cannot be done in the direction of scientific education which would be specially adapted for that portion of the children attending our schools which is destined to form the artizan class of the future. Towards the close of last year a college was opened at Birmingham, which will play a prominent part in the branch of education in the old country. The college was founded by Sir Josiah Mason, and the building and site cost the enormous sum of £170.000. At Oxford and Cambridge, scientific instruction has not been neglected, but at those venerable institutions science has been to a large extent subordinate to Greek and Latin, or to what Sir Josiah Mason has described as " mere literary instruction." Classical learning is not for a moment to be despised, but grubbing among Latin and Greek roots will never fit the pioneer of material progress to grapple with the hard problems which meet him at every step. The one thing needful to the workman who aspires to be something superior to a mere unthinking machine is a scientific acquaintance with the chemical and other properties of the materials with which he works. Rule of thumb work, as Professor Huxley pointed out recently, can never be so satisfactory as that which is the outcome of a competent knowledge of the why and wherefore on the part of the workmen. For a number of years back the British workman has failed to compete successfully, in many branches of manufacture in which they had almost a monoply, with foreigu rivals. The reason for this overthrow of their monoply is not to be looked for in any positive deterioration in the skill or enterprise of British artizans, but in the fact that they have been standing still while foreign workmen have been steadily progressing. It seems that if the British workman is to retain his formerly undisputed supremacy amid the feverish competition of the present day, he must make up his mind to have done with the traditional rule of thumb upon which he has hitherto placed too implicit dependence ; he must, above all things, strive to attain a scientific knowledge of his work. The brains as well as the muscels of the artizan must, be educated; and the head must be taught to work with the hands. The present position of this colony is pecularly favourable for the introduction of this branch of education, and the efforts of the real friends of education could be much more usefully employed in developing this branch than in splitting hairs upon the question of Bible reading in schools. There is no advantage to be gained by having the battle between denominationalists and secularists fought over again. The arguments for and against have been discussed usque ad nauseam in tbis as in every other civilised country. The discussion is as profitless as any other exercise in dialectics, and can be of ultimate value to no one in this colony. The real greatness of the colqny will consist in the intelligence, enterprise, physical hardihood, and moral stamina of her artizan class, and these are the qualities which it ought to be the aim of our educational reformers to develop and foster. ~