I have endeavoured to point out to you that a great deal of such an organisation already exists; and I am glad to be able to add that there is a good prospect that what is wanting will, before long, be supplemented. Those powerful and wealthy societies, the livery companies of the City of London, remembering that they are the heirs and representatives of the trade guilds of the Middle Ages, are interesting themselves in the question. So far back as 1872 the Society of Arts organised a system of instruction in the technology of arts and manufactures, for persons actually employed in factories and workshops, who desired to extend and improve their knowledge of the theory and practice of their particular avocations; [1] and a considerable subsidy, in aid of the efforts of the Society, was liberally granted by the Clothworkers' Company. We have here the hopeful commencement of a rational organisation for the promotion of excellence among handicraftsmen. Quite recently, other of the livery companies have determined upon giving their powerful, and, indeed, almost boundless, aid to the improvement of the teaching of handicrafts. They have already gone so far as to appoint a committee to act for them; and I betray no confidence in adding that, some time since, the committee sought the advice and assistance of several persons, myself among the number. Of course I cannot tell you what may be the result of the deliberations of the committee; but we may all fairly hope that, before long, steps which will have a weighty and a lasting influence on the growth and spread of sound and thorough teaching among the handicraftsmen [2] of this country will be taken by the livery companies of London. [This hope has been fully justified by the establishment of the Cowper Street Schools, and that of the Central Institution of the City and Guilds of London Institute, September, 1881.] * * * * * Footnotes: [1] See the _Programme_ for 1878, issued by the Society of Arts, p. 14. [2] It is perhaps advisable to remark that the important question of the professional education of managers of industrial works is not touched in the foregoing remarks. XVII ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION [1887.]