The Government of this country was made at last to recognize the great factors of a peaceful nation's prosperity, and to reverse a policy which has been as disastrous to us as if they had insisted upon our naval needs being supplied by local effort as they were in Queen Elizabeth's time. England has practically lost a century; one need not be a prophet to foresee that in another century's time our education and our scientific establishments will be as strongly organized by the British Government as the navy itself. As a part of the comprehensive scheme referred to by her Majesty, the Department of Science and Art was organized in 1853, and in the amalgamation of the College of Chemistry and the School of Mines we have the germ of our present institution. But this was not the only science school founded by the Government. The Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering was established by the department at the request of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, "with a view of providing especially for the education of shipbuilding officers for her Majesty's service, and promoting the general study of the science of shipbuilding and naval engineering." It was not limited to persons in the Queen's service, and it was opened on November 1, 1864. The present Royal College of Science was built for it and the College of Chemistry. In 1873 the school was transferred to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and this accident enabled the teaching from Jermyn Street to be transferred and proper practical instruction to be given at South Kensington. The Lords of the Admiralty expressed their entire satisfaction with the manner in which the instruction had been carried on at South Kensington; and well they might, for in a memorandum submitted to the Lord President in 1887, the president and council of the Institute of Naval Architects state: "When the department dealt with the highest class of education in naval architecture by assisting in founding and by carrying on the School of Naval Architecture at South Kensington, the success which attended their efforts was phenomenal, the great majority of the rising men in the profession having been educated at that institution." Here I again point out, both with regard to the School of Mines, the School of Naval Architecture, and the later Normal School, that it was stern need that was in question, as in Egypt in old times. Of the early history of the college I need say nothing after the addresses of my colleagues, Professors Judd and Roberts-Austen, but I am anxious to refer to some parts of its present organization and their effect on our national educational growth in some directions.