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Scope of the Review.

On the 25th of August, 1881, a commission was appointed by Queen Victoria "to inquire into the instruction of the industrial classes of certain foreign countries in technical and other subjects, and into the influence of such instruction on manufacturing and other industries at home and abroad." The persons named as members of the commission were Bernhard Samuelson, F. R. S., Prof. Henry E. Roscoe, Philip Magnus, director and secretary of the City and Guilds of London Institute, John Slagg, esq., Swire Smith, esq., and William Woodall, esq. Mr. Gilbert R. Redgrave was made secretary.

Their first or preliminary report appeared early in 1882 and was in substance republished in Circular No. 6, 1882, of the Bureau of Education. This report was confined to instruction in France.

The second report is now issuing in five thick octavos.¹ Two of these, containing the observations and the judgment of the commission, have already been published; the remaining three volumes, soon to appear, will consist for the most part of evidence and statistical tables, for which British reports are so justly celebrated.

The second volume contains (1) the report of Mr. H. M. Jenkins, F. G. s., secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, who acted as subcommissioner for the express purpose of investigating the condition of education in agriculture in North Germany, France, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, and the United Kingdom. (2) A report on technical education in the United States and Canada, by Mr. William Mather, mechanical engineer of Salford, Manchester, a volunteer commissioner. (3) Notes on technical instruction in the United States, by the commissioners. This volume, with the exception of the notes, being devoted to agriculture, is to be reviewed apart.

The first volume presents the observations of the commissioners upon the technical schools of Europe, with their conclusions, and is the important book of the five. These most industrious gentlemen visited and examined schools and educational institutions in sixty-three cities and towns of France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, and Italy, and by a subcommittee investigated the teaching of home industries in the Black Forest, Thüringen, and the Tyrol. In Great Britain and Ireland they inspected the state of technical instruction in some twenty-five cities.

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Their attention was naturally concentrated upon three forms of tech neology: (1) the training of engineers and mechanics; (2) art education with reference to the industrial arts; (3) the training of workmen for textile manufactures.

The conclusions and recommendations of the commissioners, which are of the greatest value, have been published in the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1882-'83, page cclxviii, and may be found in the appendix (F) of this circular.

It is proposed in this paper to extract from the mass of evidence presented by the commissioners the information it furnishes about the training of mechanical engineers and mechanics; i.e., to endeavor to smelt this mass of ore and extract the metal.

On the important topic of workshop instruction the author will add his own notes, made in 1882, on the organization of the Imperial Institutes of Technology at St. Petersburg and at Moscow, Russia, because the British commissioners, for very good reasons, failed to visit these important institutions. He will also add such other notes as may be useful in amplifying the information drawn from the report.