SilkāNot many years ago Bradford was known as the town
where plain fabrics of cotton and coarse, strong wool were produced. These goods required no technical skill to manu- facture. They were cheaply dyed, and exported to all parts of the world. As.the purchasing power of the people increased fashions changed rapidly, and Englishwomen demanded goods of greater variety and taste. Thus the plain fabrics of Brad- ford came to be superseded by the finerā¢ goods from France. To-day Bradford is able to produce the very finest materials in silk, silk and wool, and all wool. All the conditions have altered entirely except the Englishwoman's " fashion " of asking for French productions.
Bradford owes to two causesāindividual enterprise and the spread of educationāits present ability to compete successfully in producing the finest fabrics. To a few pioneers a great deal is due, but we owe more to the general advance in education, supple-
excelled anywhere, and they have supplied an education which has made Bradford's young men quicker to grasp opportunities and more receptive and adaptable to new conditions.
The Technical College was founded in 1880 by a few true
citizens to supply the specialised trai essential to the success of the city's industries, and in 1899 the ity Council, recognising the importance of this institution to the welfare of the city, took it over and assumed full financial responsibility. The College is organised in four departments, dealing re- spectively with textile industries, chemistry and dyeing, engineering, and art, and provision is made for instruction in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and other fundamental sciences in well-equipped laboratories. Instruction can, therefore, be given not only in the textile trades, but in all mechanical and chemical industries and art handicrafts. No provision is made for the dilettante, the keynote of the College being to supply advanced techno-scientific instruction as a serious preparation for
life's work. The full course in all subjects extends over at least three years, and for satisfactory work in such a course a " diploma " is granted, a distinction which is now acquiring a considerable commercial value. The number of full-course day students is 230; and there are 48 day students taking short courses, 63 apprentices, and 946 evening students, making a total
of 1,277. The best indication of the effect of the work on local industries is to be found in the large number of applications received for students who have obtained the " diploma ' ā¢ and by the success of these in the works the influence of the College is permeating the industries which it was established to promote. Bradford is not only a great manufacturing city, but it is also the largest centre of the dyeing trade in England, and the College has been of much value in connection with the rapidly changing and developing dyeing industry. With respect to this industry also great credit is due to the enterprising directors of the Bradford Dyers' Association.
The desire of the managers of the College to make a close alliance between theory and practice is illustrated by an arrange- ment made with the master painters and decorators, whose apprentices spend each morning in their masters' shops and each afternoon in the College studying the artistic side of their work. A large number of scholarships are given (some with a money grant attached) in order to render the College available to all, the total cost of the scheme of scholarships being about Ā£1,600 per annum.
The policy of the Committee of Management is framed with a full appreciation of three demands,āfirstly and principally, the assistance and advanoement of industry ; secondly, the provision of facilities for Bradford's young men to better their material condition by improving their educational equipment; and thirdly, the supply of a substitute for the old system of apprenticeship, to which modern manufacturing conditions are entirely antagonistic. It is, therefore, the aim of the Committee to carry the in- struction on the scientific side to the highest attainable point,
while the utilitarian aim is always kept in view ; and it will be recognised that Bradford fully acknowledges the necessity of
technical education, and that, largely owing to this fact, the Exhibition now being held in that city will clearly prove .to Englishwomen that it is possible to support home industries in a patriotic manner, and at the same time be dressed in the finest fabrics suitable for the most up-to-date fashion.
āI am, Sir, &c., W. E. B. PRIESTLEY,
Chairman of the Education Committee.
Bradford.
[Bradford's handling of the problem of technical education should prove an example to all our great towns ; but in truth we have, we believe, already made up as a nation a great deal of the lost ground in the matter of technical educa- tion. Pessimism on this bead, which was reasonable in the " nineties," is not reasonable now.āEn. Spectator.]
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