The most noteworthy fact of the nineteenth century is that it is the century of progress in science. No century has had so great an effort in ameliorating the material condition of the human being. In every industry men are keenly looking out for new applications of scientific principals and it is being more and more recognized that with every new achievement in scientific research some industry ministering to man's needs may be profoundly affected.  As a result, old time traditional methods of production have been displaced by new ones, and a new factor has come into industrial life, scientific technical education.

Now, it cannot be too clearly pointed out that the technical education is a very big and very complex subject. The technical education of a workman of the rank and file is one thing, and that of an employer or director of industry is another. A scheme of national technical education should account for these differences. It will include an intelligent training for its workman, that is of its brain power and not merely an attempt to convey the tricks of the trade, and it will culminate in a liberally endowed system of science teaching in which there is room for men whose lives are devoted to scientific research. For these men are the leaders of the nation in the war of industry. For when Mr. Carnegie gave his millions recently to endow research, he avowed his object, "to secure, if possible, for the United States of America, leadership in the domain of discovery, and the utilization of new forces for the benefit of man."

To quote Norman Lockyer: Each nation depends for life upon its industry. Industry depends upon science. The basis of all science is the power of thinking, observing and experimenting correctly, the best use of mind, eyes, and hands. Then this is the natural basis of the earliest education. The moral: if a nation wishes to go under in the struggle, the best plan is to waste the time of the young at the primary level  by, say ,teaching them a trade. Then waste the other students' time with so called technical work without applications, without any practical work at all or research into one of the pure sciences. Next turn these men out into factories where they will slavishly follow their predecessors by using rule of thumb processes. Such a course will effectively prevent any development, no new products. If a nation is to succeed she must see to it that the earliest of the school years is spent providing such a fully coordinated education as I have indicated and the after years, many of them, utilized in building a knowledge of pure science.  Men thus educated, when they find their way into industry, are not satisfied with the old methods of work. They do improve them and discover new ones.
Frank Tate, Director of Education Australia