1.—14 c

4

The Chemical Laboratories are so extensive that a comparatively hasty inspection occupied some four hours. Many of the laboratories appeared to be nearly 300 ft. by 100 ft. Their equipment is complete. The Physical Laboratories, which are under the direction of the famous Professor Weber, are on the same liberal scale; whilst in the Steam and Hydraulic Laboratory, on which some £65,000 has been expended, there are engines, turbines, dynamos, and pumps aggregating over 2,000-horse power. Instruction in the strength of materials and testing is given in the " Profungs Anhalt " or Government Testing-house, where the novel and ingenious method is adopted of evaluating the clays and earths of the country by manufacturing from them model bricks which are burnt and subsequently tested in the laboratory. In this way a brick-and-tile industry is being built up on a firm basis. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that in Switzerland there exists a system by which an exceptionally promising boy, whose education his parents may be unable to pay for, becomes a ward of the State, by whom he is educated and trained, and, if he desires it, employed. The feature of the system is selection, as opposed to competitive examination. Germany.—Some six years have now elapsed since the great technical high schools of Germany were given full university status, carrying with it the right to grant degrees. As far as a stranger can judge there is little or no friction between them and the older institutions with which they now appear to rank on absolutely equal terms. Professors are chosen for new posts indifferently from either class of establishment, the status of a chair in a technical high school being the same as that of a similar position in the university. The technical high schools are State-supported institutions to which entrance as a student can only be obtained by the production of a Maturity Certificate from a German gymnasium or real gymnasium. These certificates are granted after satisfactory attendance for nine years and the passing of a leaving-examination, about equivalent to our B.A. examination in the case of the gymnasium, or B.Sc. examination in that of the real gymnasium pupil. On his entrance having been approved, the student is, for engineering and kindred subjects, advised to spend one year in the workshops, and then embarks on a four-years course, which he completes, and receives his diploma when between twenty-three and twenty-four years of age. The examinations are chiefly oral, and are invariably conducted by the professors under whom the student has studied. He is usually required to justify the conferring of his degree by writing a thesis, which is printed and circulated through the universities and technical schools of the country. While at college the average technical student works hard. There are two terms, giving thirty-eight working-weeks in the year, during which he attends lectures and. laboratories for no less than forty hours per week. There are naturally a small proportion of idlers : these are much devoted to beer-drinking and duelling, and I am informed that some of their number develop into excellent waiters. Specialisation by the instructors is most marked, there being on the average about one instructor to every ten students attending these schools. As far as the training of engineers is concerned, the weak point of the German system appears to be that up to the time of leaving college, if the optional twelve months' work before entrance be excepted, the student has had no real workshop-training, and, although he has had a considerable amount of practice in the laboratories, workshop methods and the character and ideas of the men he may be called upon to control are entirely foreign to him. Many German professors with whom I have discussed this point are in agreement with me as to the superiority of a system in which practice and theory alternate ; such a system has been in use here for the last ten years, and is now being warmly advocated in England under the name of the " sandwich system." The Kdnigliche Technische Hoch Schule, Charlottenbitrg, Berlin, is a State institution under the immediate direction of the Cultur Minister. It is the largest technical high school in Germany. There are the following departments: (1) Architecture, in which are 495 students; (2) civil engineering with 617 ; (3) mechanical engineering, with which is included electrical engineering, 1,432; (4) naval architecture, including marine engineering, or, as it is called in Germany, ship and ship-machinery engineering, 365 ; (5) chemistry and metallurgy and mining, 323; (6) general science and mathematics, 8; total students, 3,260; hospitanten, 897 : total, 4,157 students. In addition there are some four hundred officers in the navy and adult persons from various Government Departments taking special courses. A large proportion of the students trained here, especially in engineering and naval architecture, eventually enter the Government service, the Government making extensive use of the school for the training of its departmental officers, a system which might be followed with advantage in this colony. The small attendance at mathematics and general science is characteristic of all these schools, and is due to : (1) the high standard required at entrance ; (2) the academic freedom in choosing his course of study, which is jealously guarded by the German student; (3) a natural reaction from the undue importance, to the average engineer, which was at one time attached to a study of the higher portions of these subjects. The most striking feature of the engineering course is the amount of time devoted to mechanical drawing and designing, and the manner in which it is taught. Professor Eiedler carries on a large consulting practice in the building, and employs some thirty engineers and draughtsmen, under whom the students work more or less as assistants, and from whom they also receive their instruction. Prominent in the Charlottenburg laboratories are the large experimental tanks in connection with the Department of Naval Architecture, where much of the experimental work of the navy is carried out; the steam-, gas-, and oil-engine laboratory, where the engines aggregate some 1,000-horse power, and to which a professor and several assistants devote their whole time ; and a very extensive museum of kinematic and machine models.