technical education in it became essential for the safety of the public. Industrial occupations are acquiring the dignity of a profession, because they are now based on a knowledge of science. Science has, in recent times, produced so many applications, that the modern manufacturer stands at a great disadvantage when he is ignorant. The association of masters and apprentices, in regard to crafts, is a matter of history; for competition has converted it into that of capitalist and workman. The capitalist, with his large factories worked by machinery, has neither the time nor the inclination to bring up young men with a trained knowledge of his industry like the apprentices of olden times. Technical schools now intervene, and offer to teach the workmen, the foremen, and the managers the scientific principles lying at the base of their industries. The capitalist does not always encourage this intervention; he is inclined. to rest content, when the workman confines his labour and attention to one minute division of the industry, because constant application at that renders the labourer more economical to the employer. It is only when he sees the labour-market, changing from places which neglect to those which promote efficient technical education, that he awakes to the new conditions under which industries are carried on. While Coventry and Spitalfields were losing their silk industries, the town of Crefeld, in Germany, was spending 215,000l. on its lower schools, and 42,500l. on a special weaving school. It has doubled its population and quadrupled its trade, and now sends to us as imports the silks which we have lost by a failure of our own industries. Lord Armstrong has not told us in his article why it was entitled 'A Vague Cry for Technical Education.' I have stated that his own recommendations are not new, but are actually the measures which have been employed for many years throughout the country. If he mean that we have no Procrustean system of uniformity in our methods, we at once admit it and uphold the differentiation as best suited to the English character. We have not adopted the type of apprentice-schools in France, because we think that trades are better learned in the workshop than in the school. We have not taken the type of the foremen-schools' of France and Germany, partly because we have not the means for supporting such a system, and partly as we think it is best to let technical education grow naturally out of the colleges for general education. We have not even tried to force upon our Government great polytechnics for training managers, although we have seen Munich erecting one at a cost of 200,000l., and Berlin another at 450,000l. The promoters of technical education in this country prefer to see schools for industrial training taking root in the manufacturing towns, and growing according to their specific wants, without any uniform system of planting. We are mindful of Pope's maxim that it is wise to Consult the genius of the place in all. We would rather see Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow, and Dundee working out their salvation in their own way, even if that be 'vague,' and not specific. They may make mistakes which in time they will rectify by experience, but they will certainly make fewer mistakes than they would do if their schools were all moulded on a uniform plan emanating from the Central Association for the Promotion of Technical Education. When it is seen that all the nations of Europe, as well as the United States, are vying with each other to promote technical training, and that they are spending vast sums from national resources, in order to get ahead of each other in the race, perhaps Lord Armstrong may regret that he has tried to check our modest efforts to effect, by private energy, results which elsewhere have been accomplished by strong Governments. I am sure that he is the last man in England who would desire that the working men in England should continue to remain in reality what they are in name-the mere 'hands' of workshops, without having their heads full of trained intelligence to guide their work. They should have an intelligent knowledge of the industries in which they are engaged and not only of the fragment allotted to them in the division of labour. A workman should not be like a single wheel in a large machine, useful in one place only but useless in every other place. The mere accident of local advantages, such as the possession of coal and iron, cotton and wool, is now a small factor in the industrial competition of nations; for trained intelligence, required to convert them into utilities, has become the great and growing factor of production. The competition of the industrial world has no doubt resolved itself into making commodities of superior quality in the cheapest way. Luckily for humanity, that is not to be attained by the cheapest labour. On the contrary, labourers with low wages produce dear things, and those with high wages cheap things. It is only the skilled workmen who, in the present keen competition of the world, can obtain high wages: they are cheap at the price, because they bring a trained intelligence to bear upon their powers of production. The great industrial machine of this country is good enough in itself, but it needs proper oiling to make it work smoothly; the lubricant, which it so much requires, is the technical education of the productive classes. LYON PLAYFAIR. VOL. XXIV.-No. 139. A A AN ARMADA RELIC SCOTLAND got her share of the wrecks that strewed the coast of When that great fleet invincible against her bore in vain, Little mention is made of any alarm on the West coast of the North, and perhaps many in the Highlands would have been glad enough if the 'descent' had succeeded. But in general throughout the Lowlands the coming of the Armada was looked upon with the same dread and anxiety with which it was regarded in England. Although the Popish Lords Huntly and Errol in the North, and Bothwell and Maxwell in the South, were prepared to assist the Spaniard, the King of Scotland, contrary to the expectations of those who thought he might embrace the opportunity to punish Elizabeth for the execution of his mother at Fotheringhay, eagerly collected means of defence. He was not ignorant 'how great a tempest and destruction hung over his head, and was of his own accord forward and careful, and, according to his continual good affection to religion and the Queen, had already refused to give audience to the Bishop of Dumblane, who was sent by the Pope, and had procured a confederacy to be entered into by the Protestants of Scotland for assisting the Spaniards; and he himself, marching with an army into Annandale, forced Maxwell's camp, who, contrary to his faith given, was returned out of Spain into Scotland, and favoured the Spaniards' designs; took him and threw him into prison, declared the Spaniards enemies, and made preparations against them.' Then when the Spaniards had taken a large compass round Britain, several of their ships perished, being cast away, and 700 soldiers were cast on shore in Scotland, who, by the Prince of Parma's mediation with the King of Scots, and with Queen Elizabeth's permission, were sent over about a year afterwards to the Low Countries.' Any relic of these vessels would be worth recovering, and there was some reason for believing that traces of a wreck might be seen near Tobermory. An old map had been found giving the exact position of the Spanish wreck. A few years ago a Norwegian vessel had brought up a gold doubloon on a fluke of her anchor. So lately it was resolved that it would amuse a yachting party to take divers and have another look at the place where a great galleon had certainly foundered. Efforts we know had been made at different times to weigh up her guns. The papers from which we had derived information had been found at Edinburgh. Ordnance had been recovered in a comparatively uninjured condition. The evidence as to the name of the ship left doubt as to her identity. Tradition says much about her, but although the main fact of an event may thus be faithfully preserved, such a tangle of legend soon arises, that the whole story is cast aside as fiction. It is said that from the horses brought by this vessel, much of the blood of the Mull ponies is derived. The other animals said to have been on board take a prominent place in oral tradition. The parrot that talked the Spanish tongue so well, and heard nothing for many years after his shipwreck but the Gaelic of the islanders, and yet managed to exist until in its old age a Spaniard again happened to visit Mull, and unfortunately addressed the too susceptible bird in Castilian, when its emotions became too much for its failing health, and it could only screech its reply, flap round its cage, and die :—this bird, and the dog, cast ashore and nearly killed by the explosion which sent the ship to the bottom, but recovered by the care of a native, and ever after resorting to the spot nearest to where its friends lay dead to howl most piteously, and to be alone removed by force :-these have been embalmed in memory. It is difficult to ascertain the name of the ship and of its commander. She was said to have been the Florida,' of 56 or 60 guns, commanded by Don Antonio Fereija. Provisions were wanted, and the Don demanded them of the Chief of McLaine at Duart Castle, or, said he, he would help himself. The reply sent back was that the wants of the distressed strangers would be attended to after they had been taught a lesson for more courteous behaviour,' and that they might come and take what they wanted. More negotiations followed, until at last, in compliance with McLaine's request, and as part payment for victuals supplied, the Spaniard promised to land a detachment of men to help Duart in his quarrel with McIan of Ardnamurchan and Clanronald. Whilst pursuing his enemies with his new allies, McLaine received a message from Don Fereija, who had remained on his vessel, that the Spanish soldiers must be sent back on board, as an immediate departure had been resolved upon. Meantime McLaine thought that as the promised aid was withdrawn, he should get more for the 'grub' supplied, and he kept three Spaniards as hostages when the rest returned, while he sent Donald Glas of Morvern on board the Florida' to receive payment. Don Antonio forthwith disarmed Donald and prepared for immediate departure, carrying off the islander and leaving his hostages to their fate. Donald Glas determined on revenge, found his way to the powder magazine, and blew up the ship. The three officers McLaine had kept were released and went to Edinburgh, where they made a complaint to the king. Duart seems to have been accounted responsible for the destruction of the Spaniards, as in a pardon granted him by James the Sixth for the destruction made by him. during a feud with McIan on the Islands of Rum, Canna, and Eigg, and for various cruel murders, special exception is made of his 'treasonable practices against the person of our Sovereign Lord the King, and art and part plotting of felonious burning and blowing up by sulphureous gunpowder of a Spanish ship, and of the men and provisions in the same near to the Island of Mull.' So far tradition, mingled with the evidence of State documents, and the name of the vessel is always The Florida.' But Sir H. Layard, when ambassador at Madrid, kindly undertook to make inquiry, and wrote that he had at last been able to find mention of the Florida,' but only in a list of vessels for which provisions, &c., were required in 1593, five years after the Mull traditions represent her as destroyed. She is described as an old gallera, the crew of which were drafted into other vessels, and, according to the information in the archives, she was not in the Armada, nor is there any record of such a vessel having been lost at sea. But it was not only from Spain that the great armament was sent. The lists show that the various provinces of Spain sent together 43 galleons and tenders; Portugal sent 10 galleons and 2 tenders; Italy, including Naples, 10 galleons, 4 galleys, 4 galleasses, and 32 tenders; and a paper which has recently come to light at Edinburgh would tend to show that this vessel may have come from Italy. There was a vessel in the Italian contingent called the Galleon of the Duke of Tuscany, or the Florentine Galleon, and the Earl of Argyll in 1677 calls her 'The Admiral of Florence.' Here may be a clue; but in a list kindly furnished by Admiral Beranger, we find this entry, that the Florentine galleon joined the fleet at Lisbon with the rest of the Levantine squadron, and that in September, 1588, it was at Santander, where it was being refitted for the want of masts, these having been broken. Still more recently it has appeared that a vessel called the Florencia' was commanded, not by Fereija, but by Pereija. She does not seem to have survived the expedition, and it is therefore probable that the Florencia' was 'The Admiral of Florence' spoken of by the Earl. The puzzle is not yet solved, but the sea may yet yield up its secret. There was sufficient temptation to set on foot several attempts at a search. In 1641 a grant was made through the Duke of Lennox, the Admiral of the Realm, to Archibald, Marquis of Argyll, of divers ships of the Armada, with the ornaments, munition, food, and gear therein, near Tobermory, which were thought to be of great worth and the Marquis, near whose grounds these ships were cast away, having heard some Doukers and other expert men, thinks it possible to recover some of the ships, and has given to him the whole |
