THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION.
THE Report on Scientific Instruction just made by a Select Committee of the House of Commons is, on one point, quite adverse to the current of opinion which led to its appoint- ment. Amid the clamour that the foreigner was catching us up and surpassing us in manufacturing, that our industrial pre-eminence was in danger, that it was doubtful whether we could even maintain equality and avoid sinking to a second-rate position,—this other cry gained a good deal of notice: that the foreigner was beating us because of his scientific knowledge. A general impression was created that in foreign workshops there was a great deal more of the light of science than among their English competitors, and hence a superiority in organiza- tion and production with which we could not compete. The Select Committee do not echo this cry at all. On the contrary, they say that the pressure of foreign competition, where it exists, is attributable to other causes—to the "artistic taste" of foreigners, "to fashion, to lower wages, and to the absence of trade disputes abroad, and to the greater readiness with which handicraftsmen abroad, in some trades, adapt themselves to new requirements." The acquisition of scien- tific knowledge is only one of the elements of industrial pro- gress, and so far as the workmen are concerned, is only essential in certain trades. Another and an indispensable element of industrial success is "the acquisition of practical experience and manipulative skill," which are "possessed in a pre-eminent degree by our manufacturing population." And these acquirements are obtained in our factories and work- shops, which in their organization and appliances are gener- ally the models that "other nations have hitherto imitated and followed, but not surpassed." In point of fact, foreign workmen, as a rule, have not more knowledge of science than our own ; and the inference is, though not expressly put by the Committee, that whatever advantage foreigners have in the more general knowledge of science among masters and man- agers, it is counterbalanced by their deficiencies in other indis- pensable conditions of success. So far the Committee's report is reassuring. It removes all cause of panic, and encourages sensible people to enter with good-will and hope on the task which may really be before them, instead of depressing them with the notion of a long con- test, in which the chances of failure preponderate. There is something reassuring even in the phrase applied to foreign competition generally, "where it exists," coupled with the scantiness of the instances which are actually re- ferred to. There was, no doubt, a good deal of exaggera- tion in the clamour about foreign superiority, as well as in the cry that the superiority was due to scientific knowledge.
The Committee have nevertheless ascertained enough to
justify some important recommendations. First of all, they find that from the want of primary education the powers of our workmen are not developed as they ought to be. The majority of the foreign workmen in the industries alleged to compete with us are not better educated, but the extraordi- narily rapid progress which Continental nations have made in manufacturing, though not so far as to surpass us, is partly due to the elementary instruction which is universal among the working population of Germany and Switzerland." If our workmen had elementary education, they would be competent to receive scientific instruction at a later period, and the area from which foremen and managers could be drawn would be enlarged. Unfortunately, the instruction now given in ele- mentary schools is insufficient, a statement which as a rule applies to the education given to " half-timers " under the Factory Act. "The little rudimentary knowledge acquired at school is rarely retained after the young people have been at work for two or three years." The second fact ascertained is that foreigners have been assisted in their progress by the scientific training of the proprietors and managers. They enjoy incomparably greater facilities than we do for studying theoretical and applied science ; and above all, the secondary education which enablesthem to takeadvantage of these facilities is more advanced than with us. In short, it is this superiority in secondary education which is the root of the matter. The model schools in which young men may be trained to be engineers, or chemists, or practical agriculturists, of which so much has been heard, are asserted by the Committee to have had nothing to do with it. Such schools are pronounced an in- different substitute for real factories. What is wanted is a
general scientific training preliminary to the specific study for a particular industry ; and when explained, the common sense of this is apparent. The habits of mind suitable for a cer- tain class of occupations, and some acquaintance with their general subject-matter, are most appropriately gained in the course of general education ; but apprenticeship to real work is necessary, or, at least, most useful to follow a particular calling. Yet this fact, which is so obvious, and is known to be so true in the professions, was obscured in the early dis- cussions about foreign scientific superiority. Had they done nothing else, the Committee would have done no little service in bringing out the truth on this point.
The leading recommendations singularly reinforce those of the Schools' Inquiry Commission. The course of inquiry has been different and more special ; but the result is the same. The beginning of improvement must be efficient elementary instruction, with the regular attendance of the children secured for a sufficient period ; and the second step is the reorganization of secondary instruction. What the Committee recommend is the selection of certain endowed schools to be reconstituted as science schools, and rendered available by exhibitions to the surrounding districts. They do not explain to what extent the scientific training in these schools should be carried, but that is mainly a matter of detail. The important thing for industrial purposes is to have a number of schools where preparation for an industrial career can be made by those who are not to enter the Universities. Thus another effective blow is struck at the effete grammar-schools which pretend to teach classics. Whatever theories or disputes about culture there may be, here is a necessity of the national existence which can only be supplied in a certain way. The practical English mind, which is really set upon industrial superiority, will take care to find the means, although only bewildered between classics and science when the dispute is conducted on a less practical issue.
These are, in our view, the main recommendations— elementary instruction and a reorganization of secondary education. Some of the minor recommendations, how- ever, are important enough ; for instance, that draw- ing might be taught in elementary schools, drawing being useful to most ordinary workmen. Again, an addi- tion to the emoluments of science teachers, and the pay- ment "for results" of teachers in elementary day schools who teach science to older scholars, are small matters, which might yet tell in diffusing scientific education. At present, one of our deficiencies is the want of men who can teach even the elements of science. Most of those who do teach only do so as a supplement to some other occupation, and their classes are time very intermittent. By enlarging the grants a little we may greatly encourage the growth of a class of science teachers. Another valuable recommendation is the granting of degrees in science at Oxford and Cambridge so as to encourage higher science teachers ; and with the same end, the opening of a greater number of fellowships to distinctions in natural science. We miss, however, what seems to us a most important suggestion which Professor Fleeming Jenkin, one of the witnesses examined by the Committee, makes in a very able article in the new number of the Fort- nightly Review. It is that the only avenue to Government appointments to which scientific knowledge is necessary should be through the secondary and other science schools which may be established ; and that civil engineers and master manu- facturers, to whose business scientific knowledge is requisite, should be stimulated to admit no pupils who have not passed through the same mill and satisfied certain examinations. In this way only will the necessary vogue to a scientific course be given.
The other recommendations of the Committee relate mainly to the principle on which grants in aid to local schools should be given, as well as to superior colleges of science and schools for special scientific instruction. With obvious propriety, the Committee say that such grants should be chiefly designed to promote local activity. But we attach less importance to this part of the matter, just because the main battle is to have the efficient elementary instruction and the reorganized secondary education. Beyond these, any great extension of Government aid seems both uncalled-for and of doubtful utility. The duty of Government is to supply information at a time of preparation like this, and establish appliances for giving degrees,—that is, for certifying good instruction, so that people need not choose their schools and teachers at random. This done, there is sufficient eagerness to get educa- tion for children among the classes that need scientific train- ing, and sufficient means to pay for it, to make the rest secure. As the Report points out, the class which pays hundreds of guineas to have sons entered with engineering firms, can afford to pay for any education that is shown to be indispensable. Scientific training will indeed be rather at a premium in a short time, and there is no use in helping people to get it for nothing. There is always an advantage in leaving much to private enterprise, where it is possible to do so. We may have been resting too securely on our pre-eminence, and so have allowed the foreigner to gain ground upon us ; but the fact that so much has been done already to remedy the oversight shows the value of our self- governing habits, which too much Government organization in education, as in other matters, might check.
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