Until comparatively recent years the technical colleges were the principal centres of research work in engineering and the chief sources of engineering data. The growth of commercial research laboratories has changed this situation but there is still an im mense amount of research conducted in college laboratories. There is a growing tendency for industrial enterprises to co operate with college laboratories in the prosecution of special problems. If properly conducted such joint efforts are most fruitful since the commercial concern can supply the practical data for the problem and the funds for its prosetution while the college can supply the necessary apparatus and knowledge.
The growing tendency of the engineer to take a leading place in industrial administration has given rise to a need for a broaden ing of the curriculum by the introduction of economics, account ing and subjects of a more liberalizing character such as history, etc. While a certain amount of such topics have been introduced into the standard four-year courses any great addition neces sitates a lengthening of the curriculum and five-year courses are coming into use. Whether this tendency will result in extend ing the curriculum to five or six years in length or in eventually making the engineering colleges graduate institutions as some even now advocate remains to be seen.
No outline of American technical education would be complete without mention of the co-operative methods now in operation in many colleges whereby the student spends part of his time in practical work and part in study thus obtaining his practical training and theoretical work at the same time. Students in such courses may "earn as they learn" and contact with industry stimulates interest in theory. There is also an important group of polytechnical institutes offering instruction in technology some what below the level of the higher schools but of great importance. Pratt Institute in Brooklyn may be cited as an excellent illustra tion. It is possible that this type of school may be increased by certain tendencies in the state educational plans. The high schools tend more and more to prepare boys and girls specifically for life and to lay less accent on college preparation. Many state educa tional departments are even now offering technical training in the high school grades. If the tendency to create junior colleges, by adding two or more years to the high school curriculum, continues we may look for the introduction of technical training in such colleges equivalent in value at least to the first two years of the present college courses.
Technical education in the United States, it will be noted, is still growing and is still somewhat in a state of flux though its principal characteristics seem to be fairly well evaluated. In any case it is an entity that has grown up as an independent educa tional function and which in all probability must be developed along its present lines rather than through any radical readjust ments. (D. S. K.) In Great Britain, technical education (including commercial education [q.v.]) and adult education are the two main divisions of the system of continued education. Adult education (q.v.) differs from technical education in that it has no specific relation to vocational demands. Both technical and adult education had their origins in the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, although it was not until the twentieth century that technical education began rapidly to take the place of the system of apprenticeship which dated back to the mediaeval craft guilds. The first "mechanics' institute" in England and Wales was set up in London at the Birkbeck College in 1824. Similar institutes were rapidly established in other parts of the country; by 1841 there were over 200, and by 186o there were 75o, of which the majority were in the industrial towns of the Midlands and of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The mechanics' institutes were mainly designed to give, at evening classes, scientific and technological instruction to workmen. (See COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.) Legislation.—The Great Exhibition of 1851 led to the forma tion of the Science and Art Department, and until 1879 the main income of the mechanics' institutes and "science and art" schools, some of which had been built under the Public Libraries Act, was derived from grants made by that department in respect of students successful at its annual examinations. The arrangements were criticised before the Royal Commission on Technical Edu cation which heard evidence in 1882 and 1883. In 1879 the City and Guilds of London Institute began its support of technological instruction from funds placed at its disposal by the City Livery Companies. During the last forty years the Companies have given about £2,000,000 for secondary and technical educational purposes.