Abstract
THE report of the results of the Technological Examinations, held this year under the direction of the City and Guilds of London Institute, has a special interest, seeing that after this year the system of payment on results in connection with all classes outside the Metropolis will be discontinued. There is no doubt that the offer of payment to teachers helped very greatly in 1879 to stimulate the formation of technical, as distinct from science, classes, and the great extension of this work of the Institute is largely due to the offer then wisely made of contributing towards the cost of instruction. The tables furnished in the report, and the diagram of results, are very interesting as showing the great development of these trade classes. Since 1880 the number of candidates for examination has increased more than tenfold, the numbers being 816 in 1880 and 8,534 in 1892. In 1885 there were 263 technological classes in different parts of the country, and in the session 1891–2 this number had increased to 610. There is, of course, a corresponding increase in the number of students in attendance at these classes. In 1881 the number of students was 2,500, this year it was 16,565. This record of progress is certainly satisfactory, and particularly so, seeing that prior to 1891 there was no sort of organization to carry on the work of directing and assisting technical classes for artisans in different parts of the country. As a pioneer movement, the work of the City Guilds Institute has been eminently successful, and many of the Technical Schools which have now been brought under the control of County Councils undoubtedly owe their origin to the technological classes promoted by the City Guilds. The question now demanding attention is the future of these classes. Much is to be said in favour of associating them more closely with the science classes, which are held in the same schools; but what is wanted for the permanent improvement of such classes is a system of efficient inspection by persons competent to advise County Councils with respect to the important work now under their control.
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Technological Examinations. Nature 47, 35–36 (1892). https://doi.org/10.1038/047035a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/047035a0