Suppose that
your institution should have educated those who are now its
teachers. That would be a very remarkable fact. Supposing,
besides, it should, so to speak, have educated education all around
it, by sending forth numerous and efficient teachers into many and
divers schools. Suppose the young student, reared exclusively in
its laboratory, should be presently snapped up for the laboratory
of the great and famous hospitals. Suppose that in nine years its
industrial students should have carried off a round dozen of the
much competed for prizes awarded by the Society of Arts and the
Government department, besides two local prizes originating in the
generosity of a Birmingham man. Suppose that the Town Council,
having it in trust to find an artisan well fit to receive the
Whitworth prizes, should find him here. Suppose that one of the
industrial students should turn his chemical studies to the
practical account of extracting gold from waste colour water, and
of taking it into custody, in the very act of running away with
hundreds of pounds down the town drains. Suppose another should
perceive in his books, in his studious evenings, what was amiss
with his master's until then inscrutably defective furnace, and
should go straight--to the great annual saving of that master--and
put it right. Supposing another should puzzle out the means, until
then quite unknown in England, of making a certain description of
coloured glass.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215