At the luncheon similar sentiments were uttered by the Dean of Durham, the Marquess of Ripon, Canon Robinson, Sir Edward Baines, and Mr. W. E. Forster. It was, however, at the evening meeting that the real success of the day was achieved. The Victoria Hall was filled with a typical Yorkshire crowd—alert, receptive, keenly interested, alternately critical and tolerant, yet ready to be swayed by those who knew how to reach their intelligence and rouse their enthusiasm. The Duke of Devonshire opened the proceedings with a dignified and impressive address, worthy of his high position as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and as President of the College in the neighbouring city of Manchester. He gave a broad and comprehensive account of the general state of educational activity in the country and indicated the directions in which it was tending. He pointed to the creation of institutions for secondary and higher education in our large centres of industry as a sign that the country was awakening to the fact that all our great branches of industry were founded on a scientific basis. Although the education—however indispensable it might be—of the eye and the hand could only be acquired by actual practice, it could be nothing short of prejudice to deny that the education of the intellect was also a matter of primary importance. The Duke affected no flights of eloquence. His diction was simple and unaffected, and a vein of strong, practical common sense ran through the whole of his remarks. His presence was not unfamiliar to a Leeds audience, but they never heard him to greater effect, or, it may be added, at greater length. His speech was said to be the longest he had ever made.
The late Lord Playfair, who as Dr. Lyon Playfair then represented a Leeds constituency, followed on the same theme. He recalled the fact that more than a generation had passed since standing on a Leeds platform he had acted as interpreter to his friend Liebig in warning his audience not to pride itself too much upon its industrial achievements, explaining how impossible it was for England permanently to preserve her manufacturing supremacy among nations, unless she bestowed more attention upon the sciences which formed the groundwork of her industries. Then, in one of those hortatory discourses with which he occasionally astonished and delighted an ill-informed House of Commons, he poured forth a wealth of facts in illustration of the movement in the industrial world which had rendered these modern colleges an imperative necessity.
Foreign nations had seen that their only chance of compensating themselves for our advantages in the materials of power and strength was to excel us in the intelligence and intellect applied to their use in production. They saw clearly that as new forces and their application were brought to aid industrial production, human labour was relieved from much of its drudgery, and that the conceptions of the brain became more important than the sweat of the brow. Look to Switzerland, as an example in point. She has no coal, and no seaboard by which she can introduce it. Separated from other countries by ice-clad mountains, and hemmed in by hostile tariffs, she still becomes an industrial nation. What has led to her great industrial industry? Not her water-power, for that she is only beginning to use effectively, but simply the educated intelligence of her whole population. Valleys in which a few years ago you only heard the tinkling of the bells of cattle as they strayed through the pastures are now busy with turkey-red works and calico print works. Our manufacturers shake their heads sagaciously, and say, “This is because the air and water of Switzerland are so well adapted for colours.” But the true explanation is contained in the answer of Opie, the celebrated painter, who being asked by an ambitious youth how he mixed his colours, replied “I mix them with my brains, sir.”
Every part of public education in Switzerland is well co-ordinated and organized. At Zurich, in addition to a university for general culture, there is a technical college larger than Buckingham Palace. And so Switzerland laughs at countries which look to raw materials as the source of their wealth, and imports cotton from the United States, tobacco from Havana, silk from Italy, and sends back to these very markets her finished products. Again, look at Holland, which is a reclaimed swamp, containing no mineral materials for industry, except in a small patch at Limburg. She also compensates for their absence by increasing the intellectual factor in labour. Every town of 10,000 inhabitants has its technical school, supported by the municipalities. Look at Germany, which, though it does possess valuable raw materials, cultivates with assiduity the intellectual factor of production. In war and in peace her population is able to be used to the greatest advantage. Europe has scarcely yet recovered from its amazement at the sudden development of that empire, though it had been laying the foundation for its prosperity in the educational organization which she gave herself when the wars of Napoleon taught her the sources of her weakness. Now, surely we should not close our eyes, in insular pride, to the means taken by other countries to increase their productive resources. France fully admits that her recent calamities were largely due to a want of enlightenment of her people. She is still far ahead of us in technical institutions, but her general and university education are very deficient. If you desire an example of a country which cannot progress because of the ignorance of her people, look at Spain. When the Duke St. Simon, once French Minister there, said, “Science in Spain is a crime and ignorance a virtue,” he explained in one sentence the cause of her misfortunes. A fertile country, washed by two great oceans, abounding in coal, iron, copper, and quicksilver, is unable to thrive because her people are ignorant.
The speaker then turned to the case of the institution whose formal inauguration had been the occasion of his address, and he proceeded, as a practical educationist, to give it and its projectors some advice.
Such colleges are likely to receive little support until the middle-class schools understand their duty to Society by making Science part of the effective instruction of youth. A port constructed for the reception of ships, before the ships themselves are built, has a dreary time to wait for their arrival, and so the managers of the new College must not be discouraged because it does not grow quickly.
Nor did he think it would be wise, at least in its infancy, to give to the College too much of a technical character.
Teach science well to the scholars, and they will make the applications for themselves. Good food becomes assimilated to its several purposes by digestion. Epictetus used to say that though you feed sheep on grass, it is not grass, but wool which grows upon their backs. What the College should aim at is to increase the science and intelligence of the community, and not to teach industries which they know a great deal better than the professors. The new College is only the local expression of a general movement for higher education. That movement has no doubt received its primary impulse from the conviction that our industrial population ought to be educated in the principles which underlie their occupations. But the object is higher than this. There is a desire to spread culture throughout the country, and not to concentrate it in one or two favoured localities. The older Universities are beginning to recognize this fact. Cambridge had made the bold experiment of trying whether, if the youth of the provinces would not go to her, they would receive educational missionaries sent to them. The older Universities could do much from their wealth and educational resources. They could easily spread enlightenment over England if they were earnest in the work.
No doubt our manufacturing and commercial classes require to be mellowed by culture, but our Universities must adapt that culture to the wants and spare time of busy communities. They cannot get hold of our great industrial centres in any permanent way unless they raise them in self-respect and dignity by giving them an intellectual understanding of their vocations, and upon that understanding they may engraft as much polite literature as they can. A college of science, such as we are inaugurating to-day, is admirable in itself, but it is not complete. Perhaps it even focuses the light too strongly on a particular spot, and for this reason it intensifies the darkness around. Its directors are too enlightened men not to see this, and I am sure they will aid in the co-ordination of your other educational resources. The ultimate effect of this may be that you may evolve a wider and more comprehensive college for higher education. I look to that time with hope, for differentiation of our colleges will be the best thing for learning and for vigour of intellect. Each great provincial town should have a college as a centre of intelligence, each a sun capable of warming and illuminating a region around it, not merely a moon to cast pale and cold beams as a reflection from a distant luminary.