THE SCHOOL OF MINES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1429, 15 February 1888, Page 3

THE SCHOOL OF MINES.

(Contributed.)

In a recent issue of the Tuapeka Times a paragraph appeared announcing that the Government, yielding to the persuasion of Professor Black, had agreed to contribute £500 towards the maintenance of the School of Mines in Otago. The genuineness of Professor Black's zeal In this matter and his belief in the efficiency of scientific knowledge as a means of benefiting the mining population, are not to be for a moment doubted. The professor, with the true instincts and enthusiasm of men of his class, has an almost unlimited faith in the science of which he is universally admitted to be a master. The assertion may sound paradoxical, but it Is nevertheless true that the very qualities which place Professor Black at the head of his profession, in the colony at least, are precisely those that unfit him to take a practical or common sense view of the matter. The mere fact that the professor in his up-country peregrinations can gather round him an audience of admiring rustics, amused at his quaint and genial banter, and mystified at his curious chemical displays, is to him the most conclusive evidence of the people's desire for scientific knowledge. What appears to the mind of the enthusiastic scientist as a ravening thirst after knowledge, is, to the ordinary unprejudiced mind, nothing more than an exhibition of idle curiosity. For instance, the "students" who attended his lectures at Lawrence consisted mainly of giggling school girls, destined, most of them, to adorn the profession of schoolteaching, and attracted thither for the fun of the thing and the assuranoe that admission to the show was gratis. It is within the mark to Bay there w>s not a single working miner who followed up the entire course of lectures. There may possibly have been a few mine managers desirous of acquiring a little rudimentary knowledge, or desirous of honouring the professor, who attended the lectures ; but for any practical results, the lectures from beginning to end in this district may be safely pronounced a failure. The results at Waipori were of a similar character. In his official report the professor speaks in glowing terms of the miners of this place, and of their desire to receive instruction, while, in reality, what the professor took for enthusiasm, etc., was little more than an intelligent form of curiosity, very natural on the part of miners, and particularly on the part of men who so very seldom experience anything so intellectually entertaining as one of Professor Black's lectures. How many of these men have an opportunity, or, indeed, find it necessary, to adopt any of the scientific \ methods recommended by the Professor 1 The fact is, every experienced gold-miner has ways and methods of his own — unprofessional they may be, but they are at all | events reliable — by which he Is enabled to satisfy any doubt or settle any little difficulty which may arise in the pursuit of his calling . As everybody k no ws, the crucible and the other accessories of the scientific theorist are not in much request with the practical working miner. Of this we have a very fair illustration close at hand. The committee of our local Athenaeum were induced when this craze first set in to purchase at great expense a large number of chemicals and chemical appliances ; yet, from all accounts, they have not been once used by a miner of the district. The expenditure of so much money by the managers of the Athenssum was a wanton piece of extravagance, and can never result in any practical good. Government interference in the gold- mining industry is no doubt necessary, but not in the manner in which it is now directed. Assisting in the discovery of payable goldfields, and in the introduction of suitable machinery and modern appliances for the extraction of gold on a large scale may perhaps be enumerated among the useful functions of Government ; but certainly not the equipping of peripatetic lecturers at a large expense to the country for the dissemination of scientific crotchets and theories which never go below the surface ; and, even if they did, are, from a variety of causes, outside the range of practical application.