[BY SPECIAL PERMISSION] TO THE RIGHT HON. ROBERT LOWE CHANCELLOR OF HER MAJESTY'S EXCHEQUER AND THE ELOQUENT REPRESENTATIVE OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON PREFACE. THE educational systems of the United Kingdom are on the eve of a great social revolution. The refinements of classic lore, and the time-consuming studies of the learned languages, are rapidly yielding to the practical utilities of science and art. The Govern. ment of the country has at length directed its attention to the promotion of those branches of knowledge which are so essential to the well-being and prosperity of a great manufacturing and commercial nation, but which, in our general system of education, have been sadly neglected. Dr. Playfair and many competent observers have, indeed, attributed the decline in the superiority of certain branches of English manufacture, as compared with those of other nations, to a want of scientific and technical education in our schools and public institutions. Fortunately, the warning thus given has produced its results. The department of Science and Art, which owes its origin to the great Exhibition of 1851, is now connected with the Privy Council on Education. In the speech from the throne, on the opening of Parliament in 1852-3, the intention of the Government to form some comprehensive scheme for the promotion of Science and Art was fully declared; and in March, 1853, the Lords of the Treasury acceded to the proposal of the Privy Council to unite in one department "the kindred and analogous institutions of the Government School of Mines and Science, the Museum of Practical Geology, the Geological Survey, the Museum of Irish Industry, and the Royal Dublin Society, all of which are supported by Parliamentary grants." In February, 1856, the whole department of Science and Art, by an order in Council, was transferred to the Committee of Privy Council for Education; and in 1857 the sum of £73,855 was voted for this department. In 1858 the question of grants in aid of education was referred to a royal commission. After three years' investigation that commission made a Report, which had the effect of producing a crisis in the system of education. After the fullest consideration, the Committee of Privy Council framed the scheme known as the Revised Code, which was designed to raise the character and efficiency of education, and now regulates the distribution of the large sums yearly expended among the aid-receiving schools. On Mr. Lowe, as Vice-President of the Committee of Council for Education, and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, chiefly devolved the labour and responsibility of framing the new Code, and carrying it through Parliament. b A select committee, consisting of nineteen members of the House of Commons, was some time ago appointed to inquire into the provision for giving instruction in theoretical and applied sciences; and in July of last year they published their Report. The witnesses examined by them included teachers of science, schoolmasters, engineers, architects, gun-makers, and several skilful manufacturers. In this Report the committee, after suggesting the importance of a reorganization of secondary instruction, so as to provide for a larger amount of scientific knowledge, arrive at the following conclusion :-"That certain endowed schools should be selected in favourable situations for the purpose of being reconstituted as science schools, having in view the special requirements of the district. That superior colleges and schools for special scientific instruction would require extraneous aid for their support, in addition to fees." The committee expressed an opinion "that some slight addition to the emoluments of science teachers would probably tend most materially to promote the establishment and permanence of elementary science classes, and that the provisions of the Public Libraries and Museums Act should be altered so as to enable public bodies to levy a slightly-increased rate for scientific purposes, and that the education of higher science teachers should be encouraged by the granting of degrees in science at Oxford and Cambridge, as at other universities, and by the opening of a greater number of fellowships to distinction in natural science as well as in literature." When we consider (writes a learned contemporary) that "many of our grammar schools are now quite out of date, it will be a great boon to empower some authority to reconstruct them according to more approved models, and more especially to convert some of them, at least, into schools of science. It is gratifying, therefore, to find that the committee of the House of Commons have come to precisely the same conclusions respecting these endowed schools. Having recommended that elementary instruction in physical geography, and in the phenomena of nature, should be given in elementary schools, and that all whose necessities do not oblige them to leave school before the age of fourteen should receive instruction in the elements of science as part of their general education, the committee of the House of Commons resolved that the reorganization of secondary instruction, and the introduction of a larger amount of scientific teaching into secondary schools, are urgently required, and ought to receive the immediate consideration of Parliament and of the country." The desire to promote scientific education is not confined to the metropolis alone, but is daily extending itself to the provinces, and especially to the manufacturing districts of the country. In York |