Joshua Girling Fitch and William Garnett

“ To provide in each polytechnic a permanent staff of teachers, who should be heads of their respective departments and give their whole time to the work of the institution, and thus to establish a corporate or collegiate life in the polytechnic.
4. To ensure that all branches of experimental science are taught experimentally, and that the students have the opportunity of carrying out practical laboratory work, at an inclusive fee not exceeding ten shillings for any one subject.
5. To provide efficient workshop instruction in all practical trade subjects. ”

“ As new and well-devised opportunities for mental culture are placed within reach, they will be more and more appreciated, new and healthier appetites will be stimulated, the art of employing leisure wisely and happily will be more systematically studied, and the polytechnics will become still more important centres of civilizing and educating influence than they have hitherto been.
In particular, the reconstituted university of London has been placed in new and most helpful relation to the best of the polytechnics. ”

“ It is a noteworthy fact that, whereas in the population statistics for the whole of England and Wales the number at each year of age is regularly diminished by death from eight years onwards, there is a steady increase in London, year by year, from fourteen up to the age of thirty. ”

“ Act at the disposal of the county and county borough councils for the general purposes of technical education, and in 1893 the London County Council determined to devote a considerable portion of this revenue to the further development and sustentation of polytechnics. While the funds granted by the Central Governing Body may be employed in aid of the social and recreative as well as the educational purposes of the various institutes, it is a statutory obligation that the sums contributed by the London County Council should be applied to educational work only. ”

“ The immigration into London of youths and young men means to a great extent the substitution of the provincially trained improver or artisan for the less fit London boy, who consequently falls into the ranks of the unskilled, then of the unemployed and ultimately of the unemployable. ”

“ In all there are laboratories and lecture rooms, trade classes, art studios, gymnasia, provision for manual training and domestic economy and applied science. In nearly all, at first, mechanical and manual instruction were the prominent objects in view, partly owing to the conditions under which grants were made by the science and art department. ”

“ To the English public the word polytechnic has only recently become familiar, in connexion with some London institutions of The First Polytechnics in England. an exceptional character. In the reign of William IV. there was an institution in London called after the name of his consort—“The Adelaide Gallery”—and devoted rather to the display of new scientific inventions and curiosities than to research or to the teaching of science. ”

“ In short, the schemes of the several institutions are so elastic that the governing bodies are at liberty to open any classes or to try any educational or recreative experiment for which they can find a genuine local demand. ”

“ In Germany there are nine technical colleges which, in like manner, have a special and industrial rather than a general educational purpose. In Switzerland, the principal educational institution, which is not maintained or administered by the communal authorities, but is non-local and provided by the Federal government, is the Polytechnikum at Zurich. ”

“ Although the workshops and the classes for artisans are used chiefly in the evenings, there is an increasing number of day students: e.g. at the Northampton Polytechnic Institute in Clerkenwell there is a very important day school of engineering conducted on the “sandwich system,” the students entering engineering works for the summer months and returning to the polytechnic for the winter session; at the Battersea Polytechnic there is a very important training college for teachers of domestic economy ”

“ It is a college designed to give instruction and practical training in those sciences which stand in the closest relation to manufactures and commerce and to skilled industry in general and its work is of university rank. ”

“ Within the limits prescribed, the governing body may from time to time, out of the funds at their disposal, provide and maintain buildings and grounds, including workshops and laboratories suitable for all the purposes herein specified, and the necessary furniture, fittings, apparatus, models and books, and may provide or receive by gift or on loan works of art or scientific construction, or objects of interest and curiosity, for the purpose of the institute, and for the purpose of temporary exhibition. ”

“ To exclude from classes students who, for want of preliminary training, are incapable of profiting by the instruction provided; and to this end to restrict the attendance at workshop classes to those who are actually engaged in the trades concerned, and have thus opportunities of acquiring the necessary manual dexterity in the performance of their daily duties.
8. To furnish an adequate fixed stipend for all teachers, in place of a contingent interest in fees and grants. ”

“ The provision in evening schools, institutes, classes and polytechnics is still in some respects far inferior to that which is to be found in most German and Swiss towns, and needs to be greatly increased. In matters relating to the higher life, demand does not always precede supply ”

“ The total number of scholars in the polytechnics and their branch institutions is variously estimated at from 40,000 to 50,000, and the total number of regular scholars in the evening schools of the council does not exceed 100,000. ”

“ As subsidiary to their main work, some of them have established junior continuation schools, with a view to provide suitable instruction for scholars who have left the public elementary schools and are not yet prepared to enter the technical and trade classes. ”

“ The average daily attendance is 4000; six hundred classes in different grades and subjects are held weekly; and upwards of forty clubs and societies have been formed in connexion with the recreative and social departments. ”