TECHNOLOGICAL INSTRUCTION. 
OPENING ADDRESS OF THE CHAIRMAN. 
GENERAL FRANCIS A. WALKER, PRESIDENT OF MASSACHUSETTS INSTI- 
TUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, BOSTON. 
THIS, so far as I am aware, is the first general conference ever called 
;0 discuss the whole subject of technological education. Delegates from 
she “Colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts” established in the 
United States under the act of 1862, have for some years met in annual 
convention to consider matters of common interest ; but in these con- 
ventions agriculture has been so far the predominant topic as to throw 
>ther departments of instruction into the shade. 
It was well that this present conference should be called. It was high 
sime that the friends of technological education should assemble, to com- 
sare their experiences, to inquire what is lacking or what has been ill-done 
im the remarkable development that has taken place during the last twenty- 
five years, and to take counsel together regarding the means for completing, 
for perfecting, for strengthening this system of public instruction. The 
representatives of the classical culture long ago recognized the importance 
of mutual conference, and many and earnest have been the deliberations 
and debates in which delegates from colleges and universities have sought 
to find out the way by which they might do greater good to the commu- 
aity and the world, in their devoted and self-sacrificing exertions on behalf 
of education. Technological instruction, from its newness, from the spo- 
radic character of the enterprises with which it has been connected, from 
she inherent gravity and complexity of its problems, has even greater need 
of consultation and conference among its teachers and its friends. 
It is said that nearly or quite one hundred institutions, in America alone, 
are now offering instruction in the applications of the sciences to the useful 
arts. In Great Britain, if my information is correct, the number of science 
schools and technical colleges is not much smaller. With but a few excep- 
tions, this vast body of educational agencies represents the developments 
of only a quarter of a century. Some of these schools have been founded 
ander the protection and patronage of great universities ; others have been 
the outcome of independent effort. Some have sought to cover the whole 
ground of technological instruction ; others have confined themselves to 
comparatively limited fields. Some have from the first achieved a decided 
success : others are still struggling with poverty of means. with embar-