The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 7, 1906. IMPERIAL TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 33, 7 February 1906, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 7, 1906. IMPERIAL TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

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The report of the Committee of the *■ Royal College of Science, which appears in our cables to-day, would seem to show that England is at last aroused to a sense of her responsibilities in the matter of technical education. After ' long deliberation and an exhaustive investigation of all the attempts made in ». this direction in Germany and America, ■ a the Committee recommend the establishment of "a group of associated colleges of science and technology," which k " are intended to serve as "the chief tech* :- nical schools of the Empire." At these [J colleges the best possible instruction would be provided, and every facility ' would be afforded for research in the higher branches of technical and scientiS fie work. The existing institution at South Kensington, which has done so ~ much for the cause of technical education, is tb be improved and extended. The financial basis of this scheme will probably be an annual Government grant of £20,000, and a similar contribution from the London County Council. It is expected that the Universities, the' ISSI Exhibition Commissioners, and the wealthy City Guilds will co-operate with the promoters of the scheme, and the munificent gift of £ 100,000 offered by Wernher, Beit and Co. for the encouragement of technical training, in England will be available to meet the cost of buildings. A considerable proportion of the administrators of the funds, and directors of the establishment B would be Government nominees, and every effort has been made, in drafting the scheme, to represent it as a work of Imperial significance and Imperial magnitude. Certainly. we may be con- . tent to accept the dictum of the Com> • mittee that if these proposals are carried into effect England will have no reason to fear comparison with Germany or America so far as concerns her _ efforts in. the cause of technical trainS. ing. The whole question of technical education is one of vital interest to the world at large to-day. But the chief importance of this present scheme to us lies in the fact that the schools and colleges which it is now proposed to establish are intended to become the centre and focus of all the efforts made by the i- Erapire in-' the direction of technical JJ training: Already ttie colonies have a H more or less direct connection with the c syetem of technical education estab- '* lished in England. For the students of our technical colleges and classes have eagerly taken advantage of the exam- ™ inations provided by various technological institutions at Home; and we recently commented upon the successes of the pupils of Auckland Training College at the London Institute tests last -« year as an occasion, for hearty coni- gratulation. But we gather that a great deal more than this rather casual ' Connection* between colonial and British technical training is contemplated by the proposals which we are discussing. If these great central colleges for I. social science, mining, and general technics are established, it will be easy to provide scholarships and exhibitions rt by virtue of which the best of our colonial students in technical science may be drafted Home to profit by the most if modern and advanced methods of traihl ing obtainable there. For- various reasons it is difficult to attach colonial d universities by any direct and definite tie to British universities; and though • the Rhodes Scholarships are a bold ex- } periment in this direction, they are- not i likely to produce the impression that I Oxford j* t&s n»feiral_goal at the cokm-

ial graduate's career. But now that England is just inaugurating her national system of. technical training it should be easily possible to elaborate a' system uniting the important technical colleges in the colonies with an Imperial Technical Institute in London, and i providing means for the transference oi successful colonial students to the heart of the Empire, there to complete their training. For the first rime such a scheme has come within the range of practical politics, and nothing but the well directed philanthropy of some enterprising millionaire is needed to ensure its consummation. It must always be remembered that technical education is hot to be regarded as merely as a secondary phase of intellectual training.. Within the last 20 years, more especially in Germany and America, the authorities have turned their"attention moist largely to the practical applications ol education, and the purpose, of the elaborate and ..expensive systems of technical construction now in vogue in both the Old and the New World is rather industrial and 1 commercial than intellectual. A generation or more ago the leaders of commerce and industry were inclined to . hold that success in their walks of life depended very little upon abstract or theoretical training. But in America and Germany, the countries which have made technical education their peculiar care, it is now generally recognised that the "captains of ■ industry," if not the rank and file, in the great army of workers, are best qualified for success by a regular course of .more or less theoretical instruction. The report of the Mosely Commission on Education in America shows that in the United States it is everywhere admitted that properly trained college students make their way most rapidly to the top of the ladder in commercial and industrial life. At the Carnegie steel works, where 7000 men are employed, seven of the 23 leading officers are college graduates. In the Baldwin locomotive works 43 graduates are employed; among the Illinois Central Railroad officials about 200 have graduated from some technological institution. It is frequently said that the best ability in the 'States, is devoted, not to politics and professional work, bnt to the industries and commerce. And this " is, of course, largely the effect of the close association now generally admitted between, technical training and commercial or industrial efficiency. The problem of technical education is therefore two-fold—to train the intelligence and to secure success in practical life. As it has been put by Mr JBlair, the. Secretary of Technical Instruction for Ireland, "the establishment of a close connection between institutions for technical education on. the one hand, and industrial and commercial organisations on. the other, is.an essential factor in a successful solution of the.- problem of technical education as of that of industrial and' commercial progress." The whole subject of technical training is thus closely involved in the struggle for commercial and industrial supremacy, which is of snch portentous interest to the Empire and to every part of it; and we should welcome the establishment of a central Imperial Technical Institute as one of the first attempts made to deal adequately and practically with this great Imperial problem.