Technical Education

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,

According to the last report available, I find that Canada imported from the United States last year $166,000,000 worth of goods, to say nothing of what she imported from other countries. Of these imports about 40 percent were manufactured goods, and 20 percent partly manufactured. How many millions of dollars worth of these imported goods could have been made in Canada had we trained artisans to manufacture them?

Nature has equipped us for a great manufacturing country. She has provided us with magnificent water powers, great timber areas, rich mines of coal and precious metals. We have the raw materials, and these should be converted into manufactured products by trained workmen in Canadian factories. In this way we could keep our money at home, build up our own towns--and industries and furnish a stable and profitable home market for our agriculturists. Later, through our skilled labour, we could enter the world's market with our surplus manufactured goods and compete successfully as we have already done with our dairy products and farm implements.

Nature has also dowered us richly as an agricultural country. Lying west of the Great Lakes are 171,000,000 acres of arable land, and only about four per cent. is yet under cultivation. Professor Saunders, of the Dominion Experimental Farm at Ottawa, has estimated that were one-fourth of the land suitable for cultivation in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta under crop with whew, and the annual production equal to that of Manitoba for the past ten years, the total crop would be ample to sup

ply a home demand for thirty millions of Canadians and meet the present requirements of Great Britain three times over. This does not include the wheat crop in Ontario and the other Provinces. Professor Macoun has made a similar estimate. But new markets are opening in the far East. The Japs are beginning to substitute flour for rice as an article of food, and this example will affect the Oriental nations. Japan with a population of forty millions, China with four hundred millions, and India with three hundred millions, seem to offer to us an illimitable market for our grains in the coming years.

There has been entrusted to us a land rich beyond the conceptions of most in those natural resources out of which a great manufacturing and agricultural country is to be built up. What have we done, what are we doing, to give our Canadian youth that technical training which is absolutely necessary for the improvement of our industries and the development of our potential wealth in the fields, forests, mines and streams of Canada?

A Canadian who essays an answer to this question will have little reason to be pleased with what he will discover. He will find that largely through the generosity of that public-spirited citizen, Sir William Macdonald, of Montreal-may his tribe increase-and the energy of his very capable agent, Dr. James Robertson, manual training has been introduced into some public schools and Normal Schools in every Province of this Dominion. But it is for educative rather than trade ends that this has been done. He will, so far as I can learn, find but one technical High School in Canada, that is the Toronto School, which is seriously hampered in its work through unsuitable quarters and a somewhat niggardly support. The College at Woodstock has courses in carpentry, wood-turning, wood-carving, pattern-making, blacksmithy forging and mechanical work. There are manual training departments in about twenty cities and towns in Ontario, but the work done in them has had, and can have, under present conditions, no appreciable effect upon our manufacturing industries.

In connection with our Universities at Toronto, Kingston, Montreal and Halifax he will find schools 0f engineering, mining, etc., to fit men for positions as captains 0f industry, yet but a small fraction 0f one percent of our youth attend these schools. For the technical instruction of the great body 0f youth who desire to enter the various trades, n0 formal or adequate provision has been made either by the Provinces or the Dominion. When he turns t0 agriculture he will find conditions better, but by no means satisfactory. In each Province provision has been made for the instruction of public school pupils in the principles of agriculture, but the practical results are confessedly poor. There has not been a sufficiently close connection between theory and practice. T0 remedy this Sir William Macdonald has encouraged the making of school gardens in the Maritime Provinces, Quebec and Ontario, and has made liberal grants of money t0 trustees who have established them. At the end of 1904 Nova Scotia had 79 school gardens.

In New Brunswick the Government gives an extra grant of $30.0o a year t0 each public school teacher qualified to give instruction in school gardening, and an extra grant of $20.00 to the trustee 0f each public school having a satisfactory garden. It also awards a scholarship of $60.00 for females, and $75.00 for males who take a special three months' course in gardening at the Macdonald Institute at Guelph. The number is limited to eight each term. Out 0f the Macdonald fund these students are allowed five cents a mile for travelling expenses and a bonus of $25.00 at the end of the course. Nova Scotia grants $50.00 t0 each woman and $75.00 to each man in attendance. It gives a grant 0f from $10.00 t0 $25.00 for each garden from 1/8 to over 1/4 acre in size. These two Provinces lead the way in the matter of instruction in agriculture for public schools.

In our High Schools there is practically no provision made for courses 0f instruction in agriculture, so that pupils of high school age, say, fourteen t0 eighteen, receive no training in this very important branch. Our High Schools are admittedly cultural, and do not pretend to give technical education. Our Agricultural Colleges, notably that at Guelph, are doing very effective work, but the numbers in attendance are very small when compared with the total number of pupils in our schools. The influence of these colleges, through their Farmers' Institutes, Women's Institutes, experimental stations, stock-judging at fairs, etc., is of incalculable value to Agriculture. If the Departments of Education and Agriculture in each Province had long ago joined forces and worked together with a common aim, agricultural education would have been much more advanced than it is today. Nova Scotia has recently affiliated its College of Agriculture with its Normal School. Both are situated at Truro, and will henceforth work together in training teachers, making experiments and conducting institutes.

Sir William Macdonald has purchased a large farm just outside Montreal, and is erecting buildings in which to house an Agricultural College for Quebec, and, it is expected, the new McGill Normal School. There is to be close connection between the Colleges of Agriculture and Pedagogy, so that the schools may be furnished with teachers prepared to give practical, as well as theoretical instruction in agriculture. I look for excellent results from the work of this institution in which Sir William is so deeply interested. Of the results of the agricultural instruction given in the Consolidated Schools recently established in Ontario and the Eastern Provinces it is too early to speak with confidence. The practical character of the instruction certainly makes for success. Notwithstanding this lack of provision for the technical training of our youth we stand surprisingly high among the nations in the scale of trade, actually ranking third. Belgium had (December 31st, 1904), counting imports and exports, a total trade proportion per head of $144.41; the United Kingdom, $99.63; and Canada, June 30th, 1905, $84.30 per head.

The natural resources of a country, the character of its people, and the nature of its government have each a distinct influence in determining its political, industrial and commercial efficiency. Less than fifty years ago we were almost wholly an agricultural community. Now our manufacturing interests sustain over one-seventh of the entire population of the Dominion, and yield an annual income greater than that derived from dairy products, field crops, fruits and vegetables. Then we were a rural people, now we are becoming an urban one. Our agricultural processes, our manufacturing methods, our commercial, professional, and social life have greatly changed during this period, and these changes necessitate changes in our curricula, methods and attitude to meet the new conditions.

With the individual as with the nation our age is essentially one of industrialism. In the seventeenth century the struggles between nations were mainly religious; in the eighteenth century political, now they are industrial. Today the struggle is for commercial and industrial, rather than territorial supremacy, and is being fought out with tools rather than guns.

In judging of the efficiency of nations, the scope and tendency of their industrial systems is of the greatest importance. The causes of success or failure are not hidden. Without men's earnest, thoughtful co-operation the greatest wealth of natural resources 'may co-exist with the greatest stagnation in development. In every industry, to directive power in the leaders must be added general intelligence and mechanical skill in the operatives, if efficient service is to be obtained, progress made and success achieved. Formerly it was the function of the school to make the operative intelligent, and the work of the system of apprenticeship to give him technical skill. The school remains, performing its function, but the system of apprenticeship has practically ceased to exist in our country, and no efficient substitute for it has been provided.

The educationist desiring an all-round development of his pupil, the agriculturist interested in the preparation of his children for effective service on the farm and in the home, the manufacturer and the merchant increasingly dependent upon expert help, the country concerned with the growth of its industries and the development of its trade--all have an interest in the technical training of our youth as well as in that general training of the intelligence which the schools now give.

The Canadian Manufacturers' Association has given evidence of its interest in this matter by passing a Resolution at its meeting in Quebec, September, 1905, requesting the Dominion Government to appoint a Commission to report on the best method of establishing a comprehensive, rational system of Technical Education to provide Canadian industry and commerce with trained assistants from among the Canadian people and thereby aid in developing Canadian industry. The Census of 1901 shows that the manufacturing interests supply direct employment to about 350,000 persons, sustain nearly a million souls, spend annually four hundred millions, and produce annually about five hundred million dollars worth of goods. As Ontario produces over half the manufactured goods in the Dominion her interest in the movement may be understood and her duty to do something in her own behalf properly estimated. The problem of Technical Education is not a new one. Germany, France, England and the United States have each made contributions towards its solution. A study of what they have accomplished will help us to deal more intelligently with our own problems.

GERMANY.--The fundamental principle of the German educational system is, broadly, to train youths to be efficient economic units. Government in Germany is centralized and, to a large extent, dominated' by the Kaiser, who takes the keenest interest in education. Germany has no free lands within her borders on which to settle her sons, no great colonies to receive her surplus population, no wealth of raw material such as the United States and ourselves have, no vast domestic market to encourage home manufactures. Her people are not specially gifted with inventive ability or artistic temperament, yet within the memory of men now living she has attained to the front rank among the great industrial nations. By her skill she has not only kept her own markets, but she has won a pre-eminent place in the markets of the world. "Made in Germany" is a label, the significance of which is appreciated by statesman and workmen alike.

It is through her system of education that this has been accomplished. The schoolmaster is the basis of Germany's commercial and industrial success. There is a compulsory education course in the Primary and Secondary schools planned to produce intelligent citizens through thorough training in a comparatively limited number of subjects. This cultured training is supplemented by industrial training given in elementary and higher trade schools supported by the State, by local guilds, and by industrial corporations. In these trade schools instruction of practical value in every commercial and industrial calling is given. Above these trade schools are nine Technical High Schools similar in standing to our School of Practical Science or Guelph Agricultural College. These train men as engineers, chemists, physicists, architects, etc.--captains of industry--and the Imperial Government makes an annual grant of $90.00 a student.

Crowning the Technical Educational system of Germany are the scientific departments of twenty-one Universities towards which the Imperial Government makes an annual grant of $155.00 a student. Germany has also a system of evening schools to supply either general education or instruction in trades, so that a workman may, after his day's work is over, improve himself and fit himself for higher positions. The aim is to develop intellectually each individual--and raise him to the point of highest industrial and commercial efficiency; and distinct provision is made for the training of the director, the foreman, and the operative. So the efficient units are organized into effective corps of workers under skilled captains of industry. Is it a matter of surprise that Germany is industrially efficient? Twenty years ago an English Trade journal said:

That State which possesses the best industrial schools will be master of the world's market. . . It is Technical Education which has enabled France to supply us with a considerable portion of printed cretonnes, calicoes, and other textile fabrics, together with bronzes and articles in which art is envolved; it is technical education which enables Savoy to send us yarns, which enables Belgium to supplant our spinners to a great extent in both woollen and worsted yarns; it is technical education which has taught thy chemists of Germany to supply this country with four-fifths of all the aniline dye-stuffs used by our dyers and printers. Thee obtain nearly all their supplies of raw materials from London, Hull and Leith, whence they are shipped via Rotterdam up the Rhine, only to be returned to this country in the shape of dyes ready for use. Two of these establishments employ between them about 25,000 hands, and have about 6o laboratories for investigation, research, and for testing colours, dyes, etc.

The success of these and similar works abroad is due to the superior scientific skill employed in them, both as regards principals and assistants, and not to a cheaper system of labour than that which exists in England. A thorough study of the subject one is working in is the true way to success.

To one feature of the German system I wish to draw special attention. Trade teaching is not permitted to encroach upon the elementary school course in which the pupils are, from 6 to 14 years of age. Technical Education, whether for commerce, agriculture, industries or trade, is reserved for pupils who have passed through the "elementary school; that is, for children of from 14 to 18 years of age, or for those who have completed a secondary school course and are 16 years of age or over. A trained intelligence is the best basis on which to build technical skill. Let me supplement this general statement by a sketch of the technical instruction given in one city in Germany. Munich is a city in Bavaria of about half a million inhabitants. It has a remarkably efficient system of elementary technical trade schools for apprentices in the trade and in business. I quote from a description given by Prof. Hanus in the Boston Transcript, in October, 1905:

The city now maintains thirty-eight different kinds of these schools, as follows: In 1900 were opened schools for butchers, bakers, shoemakers, chimney-sweeps, and barbers; in 1901 for wood-turners, glaziers, gardeners, confectioners, waggon-makers, and blacksmiths, tailors, photographers, interior decorators, painters' materials; in 1902, for hotel and restaurant waiters, coachmen, painters, and paper-hangers, bookbinders, potters, and stove-setters, watchmakers and clockmakers, and jewellers, goldsmiths and silversmiths; in 1903, for foundrymen, pewterers, coppersmiths, tinsmiths, plumbers, stucco workers and marble cutters, woodcarvers, saddlers and leather workers; and in 1905, for business apprentices, printers and typesetters, lithographers and engravers, building iron and ornamental-iron workers, machine makers, mechanics, cabinet makers, masons and stonecutters, carpenters. The industries represented by these schools are the chief industries of the City of Munich, with one exception -beer-for the manufacture of which, only, higher instruction is given under other auspices.

In addition to these schools which are for boys, there is a large technical school for girls, in which is given training for household or domestic science, or for business. The subjects of study are selected with a view to furnishing a good education, a good technical education, and a good education in the rights and duties of citizenship. It is interesting to note that each school is in charge of a committee responsible to the general school authorities. On this committee are representatives from the trade or business for which the school stands; and always representatives from the teaching force. In this way the school is kept in close touch with the trade or business which it serves.

It is universally recognized in Germany that efficiency in any calling, from chimney-sweeping to watch-making, requires special training for that particular calling. In the small State of Saxony, with a population little over 4,000,000, there are 287 industrial schools giving instruction in 28 different trades or industries, and providing for pupils in each of the five grades from the elementary to the advanced. In Hesse there is not a single village, no matter how small, which has not an industrial school. They are under the direction of the Minister of the Interior. What an immense advantage it would be to Canada, with its wealth of raw material, if we had such technical schools in which to train into efficient industrial units that body of our youth between the ages of fourteen and eighteen that does not attend any school! In 1881 the total German emigration was over 220,000 a year. There has been a steady decrease till in 1905 it was not quite 28,000. Yet Germany's population has during recent years increased at the rate of 800,000 annually. Germans stay at home doubtless because of the extraordinary economic developments of the country during the past ten years and because 0f the "improved social status of the day labourers.

FRANCE.--With the time at my disposal I can but glance at the system of technical education obtained in France. The programme put in force by the law of 1886 showed a desire to provide schools for general instruction that would meet also industrial demands. Some of the cities established another class of schools distinctly industrial or commercial in character. The law of 1892 differentiated general and technical training still further by the establishment of a new class of High Schools, by Schools of Commerce and Industry. The State also maintains four national schools intended as models for the complete education of the industrial classes. "These four state schools and the schools of commerce and industry form, with the numerous trade schools, schools of agriculture, and the higher technical schools for which France is justly celebrated, a complete system of special training adapted to every form of industrial demand." These schools of commerce and industry are supported by the combined efforts of the State and the Communes. They are under dual control of the Minister of Commerce and the Minister of Public Instruction.

ENGLAND.--In England there is no system of state schools such as we find in Germany and France. It is a mixed system embracing church schools and board schools. There has not been an adequate recognition of the relations of a national system 0f education to industrial and commercial development. Schools of the type of Eton, Harrow and Rugby have bred, as no other schools ever have, leaders of nations, governors of subject races, but they have not been successful in producing organizers of industry-men who can open out new markets and hold their own in the fierce struggle for commercial existence. The great public schools in England have hardly begun to realize the demands 0f modern science and industry. In the elementary Board Schools manual training, sewing, cooking, etc., have their place alongside of reading, writing, etc., but they have not been continued in the higher schools in any effective way. There has been no national organized effort.

Competition, with Germany has aroused the nation to the necessity of providing technical instruction for its artisans and, largely through local initiative, night schools, trade schools and technical schools have been established to produce skilled artisans. During the fiscal year 1902-1903 over one million pounds were expended in England and Wales on technical schools. The comprehensive and suggestive reports of Mr. Michael E. Sadler upon the Secondary and Higher Education given in Liverpool and Sheffield, and the detailed report of Mr. Sidney Webb, chairman of the Technical Education Board of London Polytechnics, reveal the nature and extent of the efforts made by the citizens of these three great cities to furnish efficient technical education. These reports are also valuable as illustrating the character of a movement which is rapidly becoming national in its scope.

UNITED STATES.--In the United States there are many public schools where Manual Training has been introduced. Children from 10 to 14 years of age take it as a physical and mental gymnastic--never for its trade uses. In nearly every large city there are one or more Manual Training High Schools, where manual training is required of every boy. There are also many High Schools where it is available as an optional study. These schools provide a general course in manual training for purely educative purposes. They serve as fitting schools for higher technical schools. They also give technical instruction to those aiming at becoming foremen-men ranking between the mechanic and the engineer.

The manual training schools do not aim to teach a boy a trade, but the training he receives there will enable him to earn a living when he leaves school. The English High and Manual Training School, Chicago; the Mechanic Arts High School, Boston; the Yeatman High School, St. Louis, and the Manual Training High School in Springfield, Massachusetts, are representative schools of this class. In Springfield the Manual Training High School is also used as an evening trade school, for the broader training of youths or men already at work at their trades; but even in this school a part of each evening is devoted to academic instruction. It is important to train the man as well as the mechanic.

Many pupils of these schools proceed to higher courses in such technical schools as the Armour Institute, Chicago; the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia; and the Pratt Institute, New York. If the shop practice in these Institutes were made more nearly equal to the instruction given in theory and principles they would be of greater service to their students. There are then four types of educational institutions in the United States which help to educate youths and men for mechanical industries

(1) The manual training departments in public and high schools.
(2) Technical Schools, of which the Pratt Institute, the Drexel Institute and the Armour Institute are representatives.
(3) The practice departments in Engineering Colleges and Universities, of which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute are types.
(4) Trade schools which aim primarily at teaching trades. The New York Trade School, the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades in Pennsylvania, the Textile, Schools at Philadelphia and Lowell, and the Manhattan Trade School for Girls are types. Practically all these have been founded by private munificence.

The present trend of opinion in the United States appears to favour the establishment of a Manual Training or Technical High School in each of the larger cities, with a course three or four years in length--each pupil being allowed t0 specialize in some line of shop work, s0 that when he leaves school he shall be able t0 support himself. In the shops 0f the technical high schools provision is made for evening classes in which instruction in trades is given t0 apprentices and workmen. There is also a growing recognition of the need for a trade school for the instruction of the youths who are fourteen years or over, and who cannot attend a high school. Academic and trade instruction should be combined in such a school.

If we next turn to agricultural education we find in almost every state in Europe gardens attached to schools. The German school gardens furnish a direct means of teaching school children how to raise vegetables, cultivate flowers, and learn the flora 0f their own province. These gardens enable pupils to study the life history of vegetables and flowers and furnish materials for botanical studies in the higher classes.

Bohemia has 4,500 such gardens; Sweden, 5,000; Austro-Hungary, 20,000; France, 30,000, and no school established in a rural district since 1887 can receive government aid unless it has a school garden. Since 1873 every school in Holland must have its school garden. In Southern Russia almost every form of economic gardening is carried on. In Ontario there are but six regularly established and conducted school gardens!

In the United States the school garden idea is developing in the cities. The George Putnam School in Boston has carried on garden work for years, and the Boston Normal School trains its teachers in practical garden work. In Illinois the rural school garden as a mode 0f industrial training is considered a marked success. Wisconsin is the leader in agricultural instruction for pupils of high school grade. This State has established County High Schools 0f Agriculture and Domestic Economy t0 give instruction in these subjects and in the ordinary High School branches. It has provided that all such schools recommended by the State Inspector may receive a sum equal to two-thirds of the amount actually expended for maintaining the school, but the total amount shall not exceed $4,000 to any one school in any one year. The county provides the school and pays one-third of its yearly expenses. With properly equipped teachers of agriculture, manual training, and domestic economy, each school becomes a potent centre of interest in the county. There are short winter courses for the older boys and girls who are busy on the farms during the summer, and special work adapted to their needs is provided for them. Similar work is done in Minnesota and Dakota.

In our brief survey of the Educational Courses of these countries we have seen that while the emphasis is differently placed, there is a recognition of a twofold need in education--to prepare the youth to live a life, and to make a living--and no education that fails to provide for both can be called an efficient education. In Ontario schools 77 percent of the pupils leave when they have completed the work of the third class, that is, at thirteen years of age; and 96 percent do not pass beyond the fourth book stage. Any course of study that we may plan for our public schools must take into account what can be accomplished within the life of a child from six to thirteen years of age, or at most, fifteen years of age. We know what in the main will be the occupations of this 77 or 96 percent of our children. The boys will find their life work on the farm, or in mercantile or manufacturing establishments.

A farmer has, I think, the right to expect that in the rural schools the pupils should be taught in an effective way those studies which make for general intelligence, and also those things which tend to retain the boy's interest in farm life, and help to make' him a skilled agriculturist; and if he asks that something shall be done to prepare girls for that domestic life which the great majority of them are to live, shall we say that he is asking too much? Are we not in some respects now preparing these girls for the office rather than the home? The manufacturer asks that in addition to a knowledge of the traditional subjects, reading, writing etc., the boy shall be reasonably proficient in the use of the common tools and have the manual skill that the ordinary course in Manual Training gives.

It seems to me that in the interests of both classes, as well as in the interests of the pupils, it is time to give greater prominence to the economic motive in education. I would be the last to characterize a literary education as unpractical-for the living of a worthy life it is intensely practical-but some other things are needed for the making of a man. It ought to be made as easy 'in our educational system for a pupil who wishes to enter a technical school or technological institute in order to become a skilled craftsman--a machinist, carpenter, or mason--as it now is to enter upon the study of law, medicine, or theology. By eradicating industrial incapacity and substituting skill therefore we shall be increasing the wages of all classes, developing wealth in many forms, and enlarging the well-being, of the whole country.

I think we need in every rural school a course of instruction in elementary agriculture. We need a school garden with its common plot, its individual plot, and its experimental plot. We need at least the single work bench to increase the manual dexterity of the pupils, to teach them the effective use of the common tools, and to enable them to make the articles needed in industrial work. We need in each township one larger school, where, under the guidance of an agricultural expert, a room can be set apart for a short course in agriculture during the winter months, for students who have left school; and during the year for students who wish to take a fuller course. We need in every county one Industrial High School, and in every city large enough to maintain two or more High Schools, one should be organized as a Technical High School with sessions during the evening for apprentices and workers in trades who may wish to add either to their technical skill or t0 their general intelligence.

We have never made that use of night schools in rural communities that we should make in the interests of young people between fourteen and eighteen years of age. Correspondence schools are flourishing because 0f our failure in this respect. Many thousands of dollars go annually from Canadian pockets to American Correspondence Classes for instruction that could be better given in evening classes in each county town or village. Funds for the support of Polytechnic Institutes and practical science departments of our Universities should be supplied by grants from the Dominion Government which is primarily interested in Trade and Commerce, and by grants from the Local' Government. Funds for the support of technical or industrial High Schools should be supplied by grants from the Local Government, and from the towns or cities in which they are situated and the counties which they serve. By the Morrell Act of 1862 and Acts amendatory of it, about 10,000,000 acres of land were allotted for the endowment of agricultural and mechanical colleges in the United States. There are now 65 Colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts (land-grant colleges) receiving aid directly from the United States National Government. The annual grant of $25,000 each is restricted to maintenance, and each State in which such college is situated, makes provision for sites, buildings, apparatus, etc.

In Germany, in England, and in France the general government works with the local government in building up these technical schools and colleges which have so much to do with the remarkable industrial development of the last fifty years. The question of expense is secondary to that of our children's needs and our own needs--agricultural, industrial and commercial. We now pay large sums to support our penal and reformatory institutions. We would have to pay less if we had done as much for the training of the hands as we have for the training of the heads. It is the man without a trade or profession who is most susceptible to evil influences.

Municipalities have bonded themselves to bonus factories and railways; Provincial Governments and the Dominion Government have not hesitated to mortgage the future in order to secure development and progress in the present. If we bonded ourselves to provide one good agricultural public school in each township, one good industrial high school in each county, and technical schools where they are needed, the beneficial results to our youth, and the financial results to our Province through improved agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, would, in the lifetime of one or two generations, more than pay the cost, and succeeding generations would bless our foresight, and emulate our example. When we pay $13,000,000 a year in Canada for education and $14,000,000 a year as revenue on the liquor we drink and the tobacco we smoke, dare we say we are over-taxed for education, or that we cannot afford to provide for technical instruction for our children? Let us get into close quarters with these problems. Let our educational and business leaders get into as close touch with the people as the men of the Agricultural College at Guelph have with the farmers, and the money problem will be easy of solution.

The future commercial greatness of our country, our ability to make the most of our immense natural resources, our power to obtain and hold a place in the markets of the world, are conditioned by the character and variety of the provisions we make for the technical training of our youth. Local effort must be supplemented by liberal Provincial and Dominion assistance. Our need is great; our opportunity, now.