REPORT OF MR. IIIXTON.
147
indicating, as the result aimed at, a much higher and wider system of training in the future.
As the Commissioners whom we have quoted write in their Report;—
“ The ground thus prepared may hereafter be occupied, step by step, with Elementary Science Schools in well constructed buildings, supplied with proper apparatus and a sufficient staff of trained teachers. These schools may train assistant teachers, ma} r group around them humbler classes, and aid them with apparatus and superintendence or instruction.
“The first steps have been taken with such vigor, and the result has been to such an extent successful, that we confidently expect that, with needful guidance and encouragement, a thoroughly efficient system of elementary scientific instruction for the working classes, may, ere long, be founded on this basis.”
The " working classes ” themselves begin to move in this fitter. Last summer was very prolific of meetings among them, called for the purpose of considering this subject, besides a deputation of members of their body, who waited upon the head of the Board of Education, Mr. Forster, M. P. for Bradford, and the authorities of South Kensington, to urge various questions they wanted noticed, upon the powers that be.
The facilities already afforded them for special instruction, tbe museums, the independent institutions existing having a like object in view, the flood of literature prepared for their e nlightenment during the last four years, and the utterances of the trained leaders among them, gradually bring to the front this need of the present time.
In considering what can be done to help the present generation of grown-up artisans, as well as the rising generation, they themselves see that it is not possible for them to go back to the primary or elementary schools, but that something s hould be done for them, or by them, to supply what is lackino 1 .
It is generally admitted all along the line, that Museums uf Art and Science are of the first importance, as places of ^struction and reference. The fault found by the artisans is fhat there are not enough of them; that those existing are