The Extension of Technology in Education.

I fully appreciate the honour conferred upon me in being allotted the pleasing, if onerous, task of inaugurating the work and aims of so promising an organisation as the Women's Institute. And I am equally conscious of my inability to do justice to that distinction as well as to the ambitious subject I have set myself nevertheless, I must congratulate the Institute that in their choice of a lecturer they have kept clear of politics and politicians. To my mind no more short-sighted policy could be adopted by any such society, organised at this early stage of women's political emancipation, as to make it their first aim and endeavour to preach politics, and select and run politicians.

Music teachers are very careful to insist that their pupils shall serve an apprenticeship at the five-finger exercises before they are allowed to attempt the more finished and fascinating productions of musical art—an illustration of the law in educational development that a thorough acquaintance with the rudiments of an art is an essential preliminary to educational maturity.

Now, the five-finger exercises of politics are a deep and estimate knowledge of social conditions and social needs; and if the women of this and other similar bodies set themselves, heart and soul, to the study of the conditions and requirements of society, and of all social and educational institutions, they will lest prepare themselves to ennoble with their influence, and adorn with their presence, the political life of the future.

I am glad, therefore, of the opportunity, and proud of the privilege vouchsafed to me, of contributing to this meeting my interpretation of some of the conditions and requirements of our educational system.

Let us cease for a season to boast of the greatness and the grandeur of our free, national, secular system of education. We all know it, we all believe it; but as there is a time to be merry and a time to be sad, there is surely a time to boast and a time to cease from boasting, and now is the time for the latter, lest [unclear: wi] remain satisfied with a changeless, unprogressive uniformity in educational system, while all else is in that state of ever restless change that makes for human progress; social conditions [unclear: inte] fied, educational needs extending, new demands from [unclear: th] quarters, for even the crumbs of knowledge that fall from the [unclear: riv] man's table, laden with the bounteous wealth of an ever advancing and beneficent science.

Two conditions have led to the new cry for a new education First, the advance of science, and second, the industrial [unclear: stnf] arising largely from the introduction of machinery. Let [unclear: we] examine for a little this advance in science. Agriculture was once a simple art only, whose sole basis was experiment, the farmer tickled the sides of the mountain with a plough, and [unclear: they] brought forth grain. But what is it now ? It is a science as well as an art. The successful farmer, or the successful nation of farmers, must understand the formation, classification, and distribution of soils, both local and transported, their [unclear: chemi] constituents, and the value of such as food for plants; he must know the influence of subsoils and of climate, as well as the causes of barrenness, fertility, and soil exhaustion. He must be familiar with plants in all their various forms, and their [unclear: uni] genous constituents in relation to the chemistry of the soil, [unclear: fra] which those constituents are derived by root; distribution. He must be thoroughly acquainted with the different system tillage operations, and of irrigation and of manuring. But besides page 5 this acquaintance with the more immediate scientific aspects of agriculture, he must be familiar with many of the allied sciences. A knowledge of botany is indispensable. He must understand the general conditions of plant-life, of indigenous grasses and weeds, and forage plants; he must be acquainted with the morphology and physiology of parasitic fungi, and with the recognised methods of prevention and cure. He must have studied the common insect pests of plants and farm live stock, and know something of the prevention and remedy for their attacks. Lie must be up in all that pertains to rotation of crops, breeding of stock, dairying, building, and fruit-growing, not to speak of book-keeping, surveying and levelling, veterinary surgery, and the hygiene of farm stock. All this is made necessary because of what science has revealed to investigators, and because other men and other nations are applying the teaching of science to agricultural pursuits, to the immeasurable advantage of the individual farmer and the State. We must do so, too, or lag behind in the march of progress Take an example. The farmer who has studied the science of agriculture knows the phenomena of that strange life history in many parasitic pests, with which his stock are liable to be afflicted, termed alternation of generations. In the alternation of generation, as you know, the parasite must pass through two stages of existence, one stage in one kind of animal, and the other stage in another. It may be an innocent and harmless parasite in the one animal or host, and a virulent and fatal one in the other. In the fatal and much dreaded disease of sheep called rot, as the scientific farmer well knows, the parasite is a liver-fluke, which gains access to the bile ducts from the grass the sheep has eaten. In the grass are little suails, in whose bodies this parasite must b undergo development, and without which it is impossible to [unclear: ain] the mature form in the liver of the sheep. This snail, then, [unclear: in] a primary factor in the cause of the disease, and its existence is [unclear: de] possible by dampness of ground, excessive growth of grass, and [unclear: uled] soil. The trained and skilful farmer knows this, and page 6 consequently knows the remedy:—He purifies his soil by rotation of crops; he limes the land and water, and by close feeding with other stock he destroys the harbour and protection which luxuriant growth affords to these little snails. The trained and scientific farmer must therefore be the successful farmer, and the nation of, trained and scientific farmers must be the successful nation, and lead the world in progress and prosperity.

In the mining industry, science has made the same rapid strides, and to-day the miner cannot afford to be ignorant of geology, assaying, mine surveying, mine ventilation and lighting, mechanical drawing, and the extraction of metals from ores by modern processes. Mining to-day is not simply the turning over of clay, and the crushing of stone, and the saving of gold by gravitation. It is a high art, to which all the resources of modern science in engineering and chemistry must be applied in order to make the industry a success, and keep our country abreast of the nations of the earth. The much discussed oyanide process for the extraction of gold is a good example of the application of science to an industrial pursuit, and forcibly illustrates the urgent need of scientific training in every department of the industrial life of the people. The cyanide process is the application of chemistry to mining for gold and silver, and was invented and patented by two doctors, Drs. Robert and William Forrest, and a Mr. J. S McArthur, an analytical and technical chemist. This successful and promising process, which has already enormously increased the output of gold in South Africa, as well as in the North Island of New Zealand and other parts is stimulating and revolutionizing, the mining industry everywhere.

Mechanical and electrical engineering is the prodigious off-spring of a few recent years, and more than anything else marks the triumph of brain over hand in production and distribution in the industrial world. With new machines there must, be new workers and manufacturers, as well as inventors; the machines must be constructed as well as driven and controlled, and the page 7 [unclear: can] and workmen must be educated to accomplish these new With the increasing complexity of new machinery, greater [unclear: in] skill, as compared with manual skill, is required on the part [unclear: facturers] and workmen.

The skill of the workman must be in appreciative touch with [unclear: oius] of the inventor, or his inventions can never be properly [unclear: nd] Scientific skill on the part of the worker is the counter of genius on the part of the inventor. But all this pre-[unclear: crib] scientific education—makes it an absolute necessity in [unclear: the] we are to keep our place in the onward march. A large [unclear: no.] of our youths must take their place in the engineering [unclear: oups] of the world. They must therefore be prepared to take [unclear: Leap] that place by the study of physical science, inorganic [unclear: try], mechanical drawing and designing, applied mechanics, the mechanics of machinery, mathematics, naval architecture [unclear: rine] engineering, and the necessary laboratory and work-practice.

Now a word or two about the industrial stress that I have [unclear: the] mentioned as a contributing factor to the new cry for a [unclear: cation]. Where hundreds of workmen toiled once at the work of production, tens are now employed. Machinery [unclear: new] what human hands did then, and with infinitely greater and precision. Then, manual dexterity was almost the sole [unclear: am] in the workman, and although he had a larger range [unclear: k] there was not the call upon his judgment, ingenuity, and Skill that the manufacture and guidance of machinery [unclear: knd] of the skilled artisan. Thent apprenticeship was the [unclear: ing] the workman received, which was really a constant [unclear: un] of manual work, under meagre direction, until dexterity [unclear: red]; while amongst those thus under training, the few [unclear: fed] natural ingenuity, judgment and ability became the [unclear: emen], and perhaps manufacturers. Now, apprenticeship ceased; boys can do much of the simple work, too for machinery, and these may go through life with no page 8 higher nor more varied employment than the trimming and [unclear: pol] ing of one little iron nut, whose place and function in a great mighty machine it is not even necessary for him to know or about. A mind must cramp, and cannot possibly develops [unclear: un] such conditions, unless by some expert teacher he is systematic taught the science of that nut—its recovery from its native [unclear: on] manufacturing processes it has undergone before it came to hands, its place and function and importance in the engineering mechanism, with something of the allied sciences that bear on particular department, and thus give him an opportunity, only of developing his mind and his interest in his art, but rising in his department by study and application in the light scientific instruction.

There is, then, to be heard all over the civilized world [unclear: a] cry for a new education—an education that will bear an [unclear: infict] relation to the needs of every artisan in the struggle of life. [unclear: he] has this cry been met, and what, is the best way of meeting The cry so far has been responded to by the establishment! system of technical education through the agency of [unclear: Univer] of technical colleges, and of continuation classes.

Let us be careful about our logic, and start with definite Technical education or technology is a system of "instruction the principles of science and art applicable to industries: [unclear: to] the application of special branches of science and art to [unclear: the] industries and employments" (Technical Instruction Act, There is a good deal of misconception about the meaning, scope of technology. Some confuse it with manual training use the terms indiscriminately. It is not manual training may not even include manual training, though by many school is made to cover that ground. Some look upon technical institution as a substitute for apprenticeship, and as a means by boys are taught their trades. They are entirely wrong, and the true function and importance of this branch of education is not designed to be a substitute for apprenticeship, nor is page 9 intended to teach boys or men a trade. If this were its object, it would fail absolutely, and be nothing more nor less than a [unclear: dous] and useless excrescence upon our educational systems, for no State-aided manual training school can supersede or even equal the industrial workshop in practical experience and training.

Many technical schools or polytechnics, as they are called, have of recent years been established, and have produced excellent result the Continent of Europe, in England, and in the United states of America, in which workshop instruction is made an important class, but it is everywhere subordinated to the higher and more important instruction in the science of any particular branch of industry; while in Germany, that model country in everything educational, many of the polytechnics give no workshop instruction, and others give it a very secondary place, and have admitted it tardily. But we cannot take Old World systems as our guide, for many of these schools are either wholly or partially endowed, and the management is at some liberty at least to experiment, and to overlap other institutions. With us, whatever is done in the cause of technical education must be done entirely by the State, and we cannot afford to overlap.

Apart from the waste of overlapping in the matter of workshop instruction, there are grave objections to the establishment of anything like a system of manual training as such. In the first place it is superfluous, and wasteful of time and money. Even in those, schools in which it is adopted in Germany and elsewhere excepting, where the higher, the literary, the scientific aspect of technology is subordinated to trade teaching), the actual workshop practice can only be given to a limited number of boys for an hour a two each week—an amount of practice wholly inefficient to give anything like manual dexterity. More could be, and always is, [unclear: ned] in a factory workshop in the matter of manual training in few months than could be gained by years of school experience. Those who look upon technology as a means of teaching boys and young men a handicraft, and who value and advocate it accord- page 10 ingly, may cease their efforts and turn their attention to other reform. Technology has no such aim, and this opinion held by every competent authority on technological science.

"What is maintained by some experts is this, that [unclear: thro] the advantage gained in manual dexterity by pupils in a [unclear: tech] school does not justify its existence, the advantage as a [unclear: discip] and training in order, form, size, and powers of observation [unclear: tha] Many experts on the other hand, especially in America, will [unclear: be] even admit this, and hold strongly that workshop instruction [unclear: and] manual training are no part of a technological course. Another objection to manual training schools is that boys are [unclear: invari] prone to consider that they are practical experts after [unclear: haii] handled tools for one or two school sessions, and this is one the first things they have to unlearn when they enter an [unclear: indus] workshop. The testimony of all foremen and manufacturer that youths trained in a technical school exhibit an interest [unclear: of] aptitude at their work quite unapproached by those not so trained while the manual experience brought from the school workshop of doubtful advantage.

The workshops of a technical class, and the laboratory of science a class, must not be confused. The laboratory of any [unclear: pract] scientific class is for the purpose of illustrating the lessons taught in the science lectures. In the laboratory, apparatus, model chemicals, and tools and machinery are needed to illustrate the lectures given, and to confirm the lessons taught. The testing experimenting may be done by some or all of the students; but only so far as is necessary or advisable in the interest of an [unclear: inti] and practical knowledge of the whole subject dealt with, should the laboratory be furnished and used. In some branches, of course, it will no doubt happen that there will be little. Difference between a laboratory and a workshop, but the principles under lying the work will differ, and the scientific aspect of the training will be uppermost and of the first and highest importance, the manual work in testing and experiment will not be an end is page 11 itself as in workshop practice, but a means to an end, that end being thorough scientific and practical knowledge.

Of course, if wealthy private individuals choose to endow manual training schools, let them do so—they are no doubt good institutions, but what I maintain is that with such numerous and [unclear: neatly] efficient industrial workshops in the private factory system around us, to which most boys have access, and are free to follow their own inclinations and choice, it would be an unvarrantable waste of money for the State to establish duplicate and inefficient manual training schools.

Let the State supply the literary and scientific training necessary for a high degree of proficiency in the arts and trades And industries, and their pupils will be welcomed by factories and manufactures, where, with disciplined brains, well stored with all the technicalities of the profession they have made their choice, the manual dexterity necessary will soon be acquired.

The cry we have been listening to for 30 years and more is Not a demand for more dexterity, more physical aptitude, more [unclear: ight] of hand. Nothing can surpass the manipulative skill of the artisans of the past, nor the provision for attaining that skill.

In any case, even if it be considered advisable to establish the manual training schools, such a scheme would certainly be [unclear: ture] until every provision was made for technical training [unclear: and] laboratory practice.

It must not be inferred that the demand for technical [unclear: ed] tion and instruction has actually come from the artisans—it has [unclear: no] They have to a large extent at least been unconscious of their need That need has been interpreted by educational and [unclear: soc] reformers and statesmen, who have already done so much satisfy it.

But besides these polytechnics and technical schools for those students who can give all their time to the study, there are continuation schools, which are really evening classes, for the instruction of those who are engaged at practical work during the day, while in many cases the polytechnic schools so arrange their evening classes as to suit the convenience of such. In Germany, attendance at these continuation classes is compulsory for those who have left the other schools before the age of sixteen years. In England many have been established, but some have not been well patronised.

A report on these classes shows that of 25,000 bricklayers in London, only 40 attend at classes; of 30,000 printers and litho-[unclear: papers], 140 attend at classes; while of 10,000 in tanneries, only attend at any class for technical instruction in their art. This emphasises the fact I have already mentioned, that the demand for technical education has not come from artisans, but from educational reformers, who realise the national and individual gain that must accrue from an extension of the system.

The great success of technology, as well as all other educational stems in Germany, is largely due to the compulsory attendance of some teaching institution enforced by the State. All children page 14 up to the age of 16 must attend for instruction at some recog-nised school, while after that age a form of compulsion obtains, the rule very largely taken advantage of, that attendance at the higher schools exempts from corresponding periods of military training.

Special schools and continuation classes have thus been the media by which technology has spread to all classes of the people but especially to the industrial workers, on whose energy and ski so much of national prosperity depends, and no one who have marked the progress of what is now so frequently termed the "new education," will deny that a powerful impetus has been given to industrial pursuits.

But by far the most potent power in the rise, and progress and spread of technical education has been the University, by and through our Universities has that advance in science been made, which has made technology possible and necessary, the University has taught the agriculturalist the chemistry of the soil and all that pertains thereto; she has taught the nature and prevention of diseases in plants and farm stock—the nature of parasitism and its remedy; she has saved the vine industry from destruction, the silk-worm culture from annihilation, and vouchsafed her protection to cereals and bees. The sciences of agriculture, of mining, and of engineering, and of all that pertains to the arts and manufactures, have had their origin in the Universities, and depend for their further development and universal spread upon these noble and time-honoured institutions No sooner were the once simple arts raised to the dignity of sciences by research and discovery than the University spontaneously taught her truths and lessons to the world, in the truest noblest, most beneficent, and democratic spirit. Her gates were open to all, the rich and poor alike; and all her treasures of knowledge were public property, it is not surprising, then, they when arts became sciences under her constant and [unclear: assid] labours, and she had lessons to each and blessings to confer upon page 15 industry and industrial workers, that, in that generous spirit that has always characterised her, she should spontaneously shower these blessings upon mankind, by initiating and spreading this "new education."

"In Germany," Sir Philip Magnus tells us, "technical instruction commenced with the highest, and not with the lowest, grade of education. Its influence has spread downward. The first persons technically educated were the masters, and not the men and the first efforts of the State were directed towards the establishment (as separate institutions, or in connection with the universities) of special schools for teaching the higher branches of sciences, and the application of science to industry. The Germans believed that the best way of improving the technical knowledge and skill of the intelligent workman was to commence by educating those who had to guide and direct him. There is probably no country in the world in which national prosperity has been so clearly indebted to education as in Germany. Generally, education follows, and at a great distance, social changes; but the Germans owe it to the wisdom of their rulers that this was not the case in their own country. The great expansion of the empire, and the growth and development of native industries, are largely due to the excellent system of education which they have gradually established"

Besides supplying the knowledge of material nature and her laws the University supplies, and must continue to supply, the teachers, in all properly-equipped technical colleges. There is no profession in which high attainments in literature, science, and art, are so necessary as in teaching; and the introduction of technology in to our systems accentuates this necessity : for technological [unclear: ments] with practical experience must not be permitted to replace and represent, but only to supplement, the present high [unclear: ther] of literary ability in our teaching profession. A teacher can either be too highly educated nor too highly paid; and the best in a nation can produce should be attracted to this noble profession.

It cannot be too strongly urged that the so-called education is a highly technical education, a scientific education, education in the theory of things and the laws pertaining to thing and their application to art, and commerce, and industry; and only highly-educated men can do justice to the teaching of such subjects. If the exponents of technical education, in its highest and truest sense, are not men of the highest attainments, the bed hopes of educational reformers will not be realised, and industries progress will not be furthered one iota. The teaching with degenerate into mere instruction in handy ways of doing knotty jobs, if manual training takes first place in the hands of [unclear: artin] teachers, who subordinate the scientific education to [unclear: mann] adroitness.

I repeat, the University is the mother of technical education and her offspring is to-day in the bloom of healthy youth, and promising a robust maturity, under her constant nourishment and care. In England, and even in Germany, the association of the Technical Colleges and Universities is not so noticeable, [unclear: par] because many of the former were started with endowment, established from private beneficence; and the same need has existed for the older Universities extending their scope, so as include the work of technical schools. It must be admitted however, that some of the University Colleges in England are the conservative, and too fond of what they are pleased to call they ancient traditions, to include in their curricula the preparation of youths for the trades and industries of the country. But in America and New Zealand, where less is heard of technology under its new name, the association of University and technical education is very intimate and well-marked, to the immeasureable advantage of the latter

Let us examine the New Zealand University system, and what it has done and is still doing in the advance of technology The New Zealand University grants a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture. It has under it a well-equipped Agriculture page 17 College, where every aspect of agricultural science and art is represented and taught. Every youth has access to the technical training which this school affords. It has a complete system of lectures in the general principle of agriculture, in botany, in physiography, in entomology, in agricultural mechanics, in practical agriculture, in agricultural chemistry, in book-keeping, in surveying and levelling, and in veterinary surgery and hygiene. The laboratory of an Agricultural College is, of course, the farm, and practical farm experience in illustration of the lectures is here provided for. So much for technical education in agriculture

The New Zealand University has also a School of Mines, and grants a Bachelor of Science degree in mining. It provides a laboratory with all necessary appliances, and a system of instruction, in mineralogy, geology, chemical analysis, metallurgy (including are dressing and extraction of gold), practical mining (including boring, excavation, opening and exploiting), mineral deposits, transport, descent and ascent, support of mines, ventilation, lighting and drainage of mines, fires in mines, mine and land surveying and assaying.

So successful has this University technical school been, that its graduates have been able to diffuse the scientific aspects of mining throughout the country, by the establishment of local Schools of Mines, one of which is now flourishing at the Thames. Incalculable good has been done to the miners and the mining industry by this diffusion. Not only this, but New Zealand has been enabled to supply mining experts, straight from the University, to Australia and South Africa; and one graduate whom I knew received an appointment, at £400 a year, in Ballarat, immediately on finishing his course and receiving his degree from his University. Here again we have technical education in mining.

Under the New Zealand University, there is also a technical school of mechanical engineering, with a complete course in physical science, mechanical drawing, electricity, applied page 18 mechanics and mechanics of machinery, the steam engine, materials in construction, designing, theory of workshop practice, laboratory practice and experiments, naval architecture and marine engineering, locomotive and railway engineering, engineering applied to arts and manufactures, and electric engineering. A degree of Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering is granted by the University.

There is also a school of Civil Engineering, with a corresponding degree; and a school of metallurgical engineering.

And all this technical education is being imparted to New Zealand youths to-day, under our University system; and we can boast that this most democratic of all democratic institutions has silently and unostentatiously kept itself in touch with the advancing educational reforms of the day. We might almost fancy, in reviewing the subjects taught under our University, that we were surveying the syllabus of one of the most modern Polytechnics of Germany. Here is a list of the subjects of instruction in a modem German technical school, mentioned by Sir Philip Magnus as a typical and pattern polytechnic:—(1) General, (2) Engineering, (3) Architecture, (4) Mechanics, (5) Chemistry, (6) Agriculture, (7) Commerce. Only two of these divisions of technical training are unrepresented in the New Zealand University system,—Architecture and Commerce.

Those who cry out for technical education as if it were something new and as yet unheard of in New Zealand, and something antagonistic to University life and training, know very little of the true nature of technology, and less of the function and scope of our University system. A modern University is the most practical, up-to-date, uplevelling, democratic institution I know of, and should be jealously fostered and safe-guarded as the bright and radiant hope, the pride and glory of all true democracies.

Advanced technology is in its right and proper place within the four walls of an University. It has a right to be considered as page 19 [unclear: uch] of academic training: for we in New Zealand, at least, [unclear: not] enslaved by the old traditions that associate Universities [unclear: at] the culture and training of the gentry, and the manufacture [unclear: bers] the so-called learned professions.

In the close and intimate association between University and [unclear: Leal] education that should obtain, the dignity of labour and [unclear: ry] is enhanced; and if classical pride and tradition have to [unclear: Ld] a little, the levelling up in the general appreciation of the [unclear: ty] work that must result from the harmonious contact, [unclear: at] to make for human progress.

From an economic point of view, if the State supplies primary, [unclear: ary], and University education, with an organising and [unclear: rative] body governing each department, it has reached the [unclear: Im] of economic complexity; and, if the educational system must [unclear: ified] or extended, the change should be effected through the [unclear: ing] institutions. If the State in its wisdom is of [unclear: ion] that technology should be further extended, the most [unclear: tory] and efficient way of accomplishing that reform is to [unclear: raise] the scope of the existing departments—primary, secondary, university—with every precaution against overlapping. The [unclear: fttion] is complete, and the administration is able and [unclear: tent]—and there is no reason why the introduction of [unclear: ced] technology into our University should not be imitated by [unclear: ondary] schools; so that, as students are there prepared for advanced studies in classics, etc., of the University, those who it may be prepared by the more elementary technical training the advanced technology of the higher school.

I have said that we in New Zealand cannot be guided by the establishment of isolated technical schools in other parts of the [unclear: hd] because so many are founded by private endowment and the effort; and, as every school has its own governing body, must of necessity be much wasteful overlapping. But our conditions are different, and our democratic spirit more [unclear: peed]

In England, for instance, schools are established for classes, and they describe them: lower-middle-class school higher-middle-class schools, schools for workmen and artizans; and so on. We have established schools for one only : a class wide enough, and democratic enough to include We recognise no social distinction and no caste in our educational systems. May it never be otherwise.

It must be admitted, then, that it is sound economic [unclear: pre] to keep our advanced technology under the wing of our [unclear: Unive] and encourage its development and extension there; for, [unclear: bec] the obvious economy in having but one governing body, then the economy in the teaching staff—for the primary instruction all technology is the same as in the academic classes, mathematics physics, chemistry, etc.—and the same teachers and [unclear: pro] instruct all classes of students, no matter what their ultimate or profession is intended to be. This is, of course, greatly to advantage of the technological students; they have the [unclear: tut] of highly-trained and learned teachers, the educative [unclear: compan] of the youths who are destined to occupy the learned profession and that levelling-up of the mechanic and his industries, which have already hinted at, is the very desirable result.

There is another important advantage which should not be [unclear: ooked:] people have to be compelled, or encouraged, to educate [unclear: selves.] The State, for its own protection and progress, must [unclear: ce] primary education in the early years of life, when children is not know, and so many parents do not care, about its value. [unclear: Iter] in life, the need of some occupation, trade or profession, had the stress of competition, to some extent supply the [unclear: pulsion]; while the hope and chance of reward, in the form of [unclear: trial] or professional success, supply the encouragement. But [unclear: even] these are not sufficient to make education, technical or [unclear: erwise], general. Germany has found it so, and has enforced [unclear: dance] at some recognised continuation school, when a child must [unclear: crt] industrial work before the age of sixteen. Even under the [unclear: npulsory] system in Germany, the attendance at many of the Polytechnics has considerably fallen off, and it is now said that the acommodation for technical students is in excess of the demand but in the Universities, the prospect of a degree in technical [unclear: fence], which can be carried through life as a stamp of special [unclear: ning] and skill, is a powerful stimulus to perseverance in study there is little difficulty in getting youths to Universities, if the [unclear: ties] are reasonable; and as little difficulty in keeping them [unclear: ere] till the end of their course, which is, as a rule, the course of their own election.

I think it can fairly be claimed that, under State control at [unclear: kt], the proper place for advanced technical education is in the university, that highest, and truest, and most efficient of all technical schools. If this be so, then the proper place for [unclear: atry] technical education is in the secondary schools, while [unclear: nology], both elementary and advanced, should have its [unclear: ation] in kindergarten teaching in our primary schools.

Our New Zealand University system is up-to-date [unclear: of] funds and the state of our more elementary schools will and the needs of the Colony so far demand. But our schools have not kept pace with it, and there is abundant an infusion of the " new education" into our high school colleges. The same arguments used in favour of a [unclear: chool] union of academic and technical education under our [unclear: Ui] apply to a similar unity in our secondary schools: the [unclear: eco] management, the economy in teachers, the educative [unclear: comme] ship, the stimulus of choice or election in any course of while the powerful influence of a University degree could should be, represented in our Colleges, by diplomas grant those attending and passing examination in the special department of technology.

In our primary schools the foundation of technical [unclear: edu] should be laid by an extension of kindergarten method present this excellent system of brain, eye, and hand has found its way into the lower standards only in some [unclear: the] while in very many it is never heard of. But it should be the whole primary school course.

It must be noted that this system is not designed to [unclear: the] specially for the after-study of technology. It is [unclear: desi] taught (as all primary systems should be), to prepare for every course or line in life it is possible for a pupil to take.

The primary school education should not have reference particular trade, or course of after-study. It should be in the fullest sense, and the whole period of primary school will be fully enough occupied if the " whole boy " be [unclear: edu]

In a pamphlet on " Physical Education in our State [unclear: some] which I published in 1894, I emphasised this principle in words :—" These powers (mental, moral, and physical) [unclear: my] developed to the full, and every known method of trained faculties of the mind and body should be intelligently [unclear: and] order that a pupil who has finished his primary school [unclear: college] page 23 should be equipped with the fullest advantages, and prepared to follow any calling in life he may choose. He should be able to stand upon the threshold of a life of usefulness to the State, with every faculty so drawn out and developed by his school training that, whatever calling or study he may elect to follow, the powers or faculties to be exercised should be in a state of preparedness,"

It is not possible, nor advisable, to give children under the age of thirteen years the election of a trade, or profession, or calling in life; and therefore it is not possible, nor advisable, to drive a child along any particular line of preparatory study or practice. It is only an incidental fact that the kindergarten is the foundation of technology. For the matter of that, proficiency in the three R's is as much the foundation of technology; but there is a special and intimate relationship between the hand and eye methods of these two practical systems of education which makes the one the natural outcome of the other.

Just one word in conclusion. Our city has a bitter grievance and a pressing need. While other towns and other nations are proudly boasting of the existence and expansion of their higher education, we sleep contentedly and lag behind. In this beautiful and prosperous city, which Nature has endowed with such a lavish hand, we should be unfaithful to our trust and privileges if we failed to supplement her blessings with the highest and noblest of elevating and civilising institutions. An University is one of these; and I appeal to the members of this new Institute, I appeal to the whole body of citizens whose sons and daughters are being deprived of their just rights to a higher education—and who, by all the laws of human progress, must be eclipsed by others with more favourable advantages and privileges; I appeal to all who have the honour, and prosperity, and development of this fair city at heart, to combine to wipe away this reproach from our midst, and support, with all their influence and enthusiasm, the establishment of a local University College.