The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-31 00:00:00

TECHNICAL EDUCATION

. .
Profeiaor Leone Levi nas just reported to the Com-
toittee of Council on Education on the state of technical,
industrial, and professional instruction in Italy and other
countries. This report compares in fullness Mid suggestive-
ness of treatment with that of Mr. Samuelson, M.P.
Professor Levi shews by statistics that the progress of
some other countries has been more rapid than ours, but
he is not prep&red apparently to admit that the Paris
Exhibition was a sufficient index of this progress. He
*serves :
" The United Kingdom has certainly the advantage of
s. large working population, a popul accustomed to
work in manufactures, and who give themselves to it, not
grudgingly, but heartily, and with love for the work.
Here the military system is greatly circumscribed. The
:onscription, which in other countries takes the flower
,f the population away from productive pursuits, is here
altogether unknown. As a matter of fact, if we take
space and population into account, nowhere is harder
work gone through, and more work annually pro-
duced, than in this country. We have no means of
calculating the value of production in this or any other
country ; but the amount of exports gives the value
Df the produce and manufacture of the country in excess
of what is required for the wants of the nation. And
what do we find? In 1861, whilst the United Kingdom
exported at the rate of £5 Gs. per head of the population,
Belgium exported at the rate of £5, and France at the
rate of £4 35., the United States at the rate of £1 lls.,
Italy of £1 55., and Russia of Bs. In proportion to area,
the United Kingdom exported at the rate of £1,322 per
square mile, France at the rate of £754, Italy of £286, the
United States of £l7, and Russia, in Europe of £l2.
" Hitherto the progress of Britain in industry and mann-

facture has been achieved by a few leading minds ope-
rating with an army of labourers wonderfully endowed
with physical and moral power to overcome the greatest
resistance, yet singularly deficient in intellectual power.
Incomparably greater would be her progress were science
and art more diffused amongst the entire community.
What is required, therefore, is, first, a more extended and
comprehensive system of primary and secondary instruc•
Lion, well arranged and adapted to the requirements of
society ; and, secondly, the diffusion of technical Instruc-
tion, or instruction in those sciences and arts which enter
in the different occupations and professions of life, alto•
;ether direct and practical in its teaching, and everywhere
associated with the realities of life.
" Since, then, a higher and special instruction is required
in relation to every industry, an important element in the
adaptation of such instruction is the general distribution
of the occupations of the people. According to the census
of 1861, the people of the United Kingdom were divided
;nto six distinct classes, as follows :

Per cent.

631,085 ... 2
16,236,3:39 ... 57
828,624 ... 3
3.317,992 ... 12
6,189,615 ... 2
1,130,749 ... 4

Professional ...
Domestic ... ... •..
Comm ercial
Agricultural
Industrial
Indefinite

28,394,434 ... 100

"A complete system of technical instruction should pro-
vide for the wants of all these branches of occupation, in
proportion to the number of persons respectively employed
and in relation to the localities where they are respec-
tively pursued."
To supply this want, Professor Levi makes a series of
suggestions of the measures which have been most gene-
rally approved. The most important arc as follows :

" The establishment of an industrial university or a
superior technical institute for the direction and promotion
of technical, industrial, and professional instruction in
the United Kingdom, as well as a normal school for
teachers on science on the foundation of the existing Royal
School of Mines.

"The formation of technical schools, with workshops,
collections of tools and instruments, museums, and libra-
ries, and of agricultural schools with farms and gardens
In the principal towns of the kingdom, for diffusing in-
struction, theoretic and practical, on the sciences and arts
proper to the branches of industry special to each locality,
with evening classes for apprentices and others daily at
work, at moderate fees. There should be schools in rela-
tion to weaving, dyeing, and mechanics in places such as
Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, and Belfast ; mining schools
in Truro, Newcastle, and Glasgow ; navigation schools in
London, Liverpool, and Greenwich ; agricultural schools
in Bedford and Warwick ; schools of metallurgy in Bir-
mingham, Sheffield, &c.
" The extension of the factory laws to agricultural
.abour, in order that children so employed may have three
clear days a week for their education.
" The greater use of museums and galleries for the
education of the masses, open in the evening for tho
thousands who could, not visit them during the day.
" The increase of the educational value of such museums
by the appointment of professors to deliver public lectures
on the sciences thereby illustrated.
" The diminution of the evil of a profusion of patents,
oy giving to inventors the option of taking out a patent,
or accepting a parliamentary grant fur a limit..Al period,
proportioned to the estimated value of the in)prJvemcnt
on the recommendation of a committee of experts acting
under the Patent Law Commissioners, and greater reci-
procity on the part of foreign countries w:th regard to the
tarly publication of specifications of patents in full."