Retrospect and Prospect

I CAME INTO technical education in 1924. At that time technical colleges were just beginning to emerge from a long period of being little more than ‘night‐schools’. World War I had given a severe jolt to our industrial and scientific complacency, and one result was an upsurge of interest in technical education. Day release was just beginning on a small scale; technical colleges were staffed by devoted but not always well qualified teachers; full‐time staffs were small, and there was an altogether disproportionate number of visiting teachers. Buildings and equipment were woefully inadequate; any building firmly rejected as being not good enough for primary or secondary purposes was allocated to technical; it was undoubtedly the Cinderella of the branches.