The Origin or Basis of Wireless Communication

Abstract

FINSBURY Technical College has done splendid work throughout its short history. It fills a distinct niche, it supplies a felt want in the education of the Central metropolis, and I hope that any idea of closing it has now subsided. It has had, moreover, a brilliant array of teachers, men who appeared specially adapted to serve the needs of its special kind of students. I will here only mention three contemporaries who worked together after 1885, when the initial start had been made, and the early traditions settled, by Ayrton and Perry. Silvanus Thompson became principal in 1885, and had as his colleagues John Perry and Raphael Meldola. John Perry was remarkable as a teacher, and did his best to cultivate a wider interest in the rather narrow technically trained students who came under his paternal supervision, encouraging them to read novels, to take an interest in literature, and-even in mathematics- to take a broader outlook than most teachers thought it worth while to cultivate. As for Silvanus Thompson, the breadth of his outlook and width of his interests are almost proverbial. He represented a rare combination of scientific aptitude and high artistic faculty, together with a fondness for literary study among archives, and he became in the eyes of all his contemporaries-including Lord Kelvin and Lord Rayleigh -a recognised historian of science. He had a keen love of the past and of discoveries in their nascent stages. Old documents and records were of real interest to him: and he used to do his best to dig out of obscurity some of the pioneers and early workers towards developments which afterwards became famous.