Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/191

 indispensable basis of technical education. Most remarkable in the history of technical education on the Continent is the great part taken in its support by communes and municipalities. We also must use these agencies. I venture to think that an institution in memory of the man who stirred in so many million hearts the ambition to share in the duties and responsibilities of Local Government should be content with nothing less than a wide-reaching endeavour to guide those impulses to this practical end, stimulating into action the authorities who now control commercial and municipal expenditure, and imparting knowledge and assistance to all centres of population in Western India, by subsidies, by opening artisans' evening classes and model technical schools, by distributing mechanical appliances and objects of art, by promoting museums and art collections. In 1869 when I was Director of Public Instruction, when the law left it quite optional with municipal bodies to support schools or not, and in fact 1 3/4 millions of towns people was contributing less than Rs. 14,000 yearly for school purposes from municipal funds, I made a proposal to Government for imposing by law a school-rate on municipal towns, and one of my suggestions was that by aid of this rate each town of higher class should support an industrial college or school of instruction in science and art. I said:—"The object would be twofold: first, to teach practically the common trades and turn out skilled masons, carpenters, and smiths; and, secondly, to teach theoretically and practically, the application of science to the work of the builder and mechanician, and to the higher industries with a view to the production of articles of luxury and export; skill being here expended on products special to the country, or for manufacturing which there are special local facilities." I proposed that there should be workshops and schools of science and art teaching, and continued:—"For teachers in these schools, I look to the Poona College for graduates in Civil Engineering and to the Central School of Art in Bombay for certificated teachers of art. I am afraid some of this may appear Utopian. But a beginning must be made in the restoration of Indian industries. In 1862 Mr. Laing said:— With cheap raw material, cheap labour and many classes of the native population, patient, ingenious, and endowed with a fine touch and delicate organization, I see no reason why the interchange between India and Europe should be confined to agricultural produce against manufactures, and why in course of time manufactures of certain descriptions where India has a natural advantage, should not enter largely into her staple exports." I am afraid my scheme did appear Utopian, for nothing was done at that