Also on Saturday last, Mr. Muudella, in distributing the prizes
to the Bristol Trade and Mining School, passed a warm eulogium on the admirable and admirably graded technical schools of Ger- many, into which yoang artisans pass from the primary schools, gaining simultaneously practical and theoretical knowledge by the system of half-time. Mr. Mundella admitted that we could not begin to build up a system of technical schools till the primary instruction was thoroughly organised, advocated the extension of compulsion, and complained of the " religious difficulty" as one of a completely artificial kind, which might easily be overcome by the help of a little honest zeal for education. Doubtless ; but artificial difficulties are often quite as insurmountable as natural difficulties, if the artificial foundation on which they rest is a structure slowly formed, like our party life, out of generations of traditional jealousy and distrust. It would be quite as mighty a task to raze London, though an artificial structure, to the ground, as to level the bills by which it is surrounded.
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