NECESSITY OF PROVISION FOR HIGH SCIENTIFIC TRAINING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1319, 10 March 1877, Page 3

NECESSITY OF PROVISION FOR HIGH SCIENTIFIC TRAINING.

It may, perhaps, appear to many a paradoxical assertion to maintain that the industries of the country should look to the calm and serene regions of Oxford and Cambridge for help in the troublous times of which we have now a sharp and severe note of warning. But I have not spoken on light grounds, nor without due consideration. If Great Britain is to retain the commanding position she has so long occupied in skilled manufacture, the easy ways which (owing partly to the high qualities of her people, partly to the advantages of her insular position and mineral wealth) have sufficed for the past, will not be found to suffice for the future. The highest training which can be brought to bear on practical science will be imperatively required ; and it will be a fatal policy if that training is to be sought for in foreign lands, because it cannot be obtained at home. The country which depends unduly on the stranger for the education of its skilled men, o.r neglects in its highest places tEa~primary c dtfty f may 6xpect to find the demand for such skill gradually to pass away, and along with it the industry for which it was wanted. I do not claim for scientific education more than it will accomplish, nor can it ever replace the after training of the workshop or factory. Rare and powerful minds have, it i 3 true, often been independent of it ; but high education always gives an enormous advantage to the country where it prevails. Let no one suppose lam now referring to elementary instruction, and much less to the active work which is going on (everywhere around us, in preparing for examinations of all kinds, ■These things are very useful in their way, but it is not by them alone that the practical arts are to be sustained in the country. It is by education in its higher sense, based on a broad scientific foundation, and leading to the application of science to practical purposes — in itself one of the noblest purauita^of the human mind — that this result is -tzYjae reached. That education of this kinacan be most effectively given in a University, or in an institution like the Polytechnic School of Zurich, which differs from the scientific side of a University only in name, and to a large extent supplements the teaching of an actual University, I am firmly convinced ; and for this reason, among others, I have always deemed the establishment in this country of Examining Boards with the power of granting degrees, but with none of the higher and more important functions of a University, to have been a measure of questionable utility. It is to Oxford and Cambridge, widely extended as they can readily be, that the country should look chiefly for the development of practical science ; they have abundant resources for the task ; and if they wish to secure and strengthen their lofty position, they can do it in no way so effectually as by showing that in a green old age they preserve the vigour and elasticity of youth.

If any are disposed to think that I have been carrying this meeting into dreamland, let them pause and listen to the result of similar efforts to those- 1 have been advocating, undertaken by a neighbouring country when on the verge of ruin, and steadily pursued by the same country in the climax of its prosperity. " The University of Berlin," to use the words of Hofmann, "like her sister of Bonn, is a creation of our century. It was founded in the year 1810, at a period when the pressure of foreign domination weighed almost insupportably on Prussia; and it will ever remain significant of the direction of the German mind that the great men of that time should have hoped to develop, by high intellectual training, the forces necessary for the regeneration of their country." It is not for me, especially in this place, to dwell upon the great strides which Northern Germany has made of late years in some of the largest branches of industry, and particularly in those which give a free scope for the application of scientific skill. "Let

us not suppose," saysM. Wurfcz in his recent report on the Artificial Dyes, " that the distance is so great between theory and its industrial applications. This report would have been written in vain, if it had not brought clearly into view the immense influence of pure science upon the progress of industry. If unfortunately the flame of science should burn dimly or be extinguished, the practical arts would soon fall into rapid decay. The outlay which is incurred by any country for the promotion of science and high instruction will yield a certain return ; and Germany has not had long to wait for the ingathering of the fruits of her far-sighted policy- Thirty or forty years ago, industry could scarcely be said to exist there ; it is now widely spread and successful." As an illustration of the truth of these remarks, I may refer to the newest of European industries, but one which in a short space of time has attained considerable magnitude. It appears (and I make the statement on the authority of M. Wurtz) that the artificial dyes produced last year in Germany exceeded in value those of all the rest of Europe, including England and France. Yet Germany has no special advantage for this manufacture except the training of her practical chemists. We are not, it is true, to attach undue importance to a single case ; but the rapid growth of other and larger industries points in the same direction, and will, I trust, secure some consideration for the suggestions I have ventured to make. — Dr. Andrews be/ore the British Association.