The following are abstracts from an address, entitled "Commerce and Culture," delivered by Sir Swire Smith, a leading English authority on industrial art and technical education, on the occasion of the distribution of prizes Dec. 19, 1904, at the Central Municipal Technical School of Liverpool, England. The report was transmitted by United States Consul Boyle, of Liverpool:

The best spent money is that which is spent in cultivating the brains of future rate payers. You seem to have shown a determination in your educational agencies to give equality of opportunity to rich and poor alike, so that talent, wherever it may be found, may be available for the enrichment of the community. The object of education has been defined as the fitting of the people for their work in life and for their duties as citizens.

All realize that in the future the greatest success in the world's commerce will be achieved by that nation which can make the most effective use of education, science, machinery and available advantages, and thus can place upon the shop counters of the world the commodities that the world wants. I have had, in my experience, exceptional opportunities of comparing, face to face with the facts, the resources and the aids which count for success in manufacturing industries in the leading countries of the world. I am fully acquainted with the many difficulties with which British manufacturers have had to contend in their competition with foreign rivals. I know something of the effect of the lower wages and longer hours of competing operatives in other countries, and of other factors that have influenced the competition.

In the world's race for commerce we are meeting competitors equally armed with weapons of precision. Our position will depend on our national supply of "brains and brawn, " and how we can best utilize them for the public service. The more I see of the progre-s of other countries the more do I realize that education is the main factor in the competition that lies before us; in proportion as we can raise the individual efficiency of our people, in that proportion shall we hold our own. Some of our industries may be harassed by what we call unfair competition, but we must take consolation from the fact that those nations do not permanently hurt us that compel us to put forth our best. New markets are ever opening up, new wants are arising.

We can no more compel our customers to buy what we wish to sell than the angler can compel the trout in the stream to take the fly he casts. More than ever our manufacturers will have to cater for two important classes of customers - the million who must have cheapness, and the tasteful and wealthy who demand excellence - you find the characteristic productions of our industries represented by the labor of quantity and the labor of quality, in both of which we are destined to stand or fall against the world. In the labor of quantity, in supplying the goods for the millions, in which we have so long been supreme, we must be first in the adoption of all machinery and methods that will insure economy of production. Young men will have to enter the world with open minds, ready to learn all that can from all sources, and to apply what they learn. In spite of all obstacles there is still, especially in the neutral markets, an immense field open for the trade in common goods for the million, which offers success and fortune to those who enter it with knowledge and with a determination to suit the convenience and taste of the buyers. As for the labor of quality, represented by excellence in the manufacture of superior goods and luxuries, every market in the world is open. It can only be secured by the greatest taste in designing, by the finest knowledge in applying science to industry, and by the most highly trained skill and workmanship. Success in this field means the capture of many prizes now held by our rivals, and the development of industries of enormous value to our home market, as well as to all the wealthy markets of the world.

For more than thirty years I have been intimately associated with the education of my own town, and more particularly with its technical school, through which several thousands of students have passed. Living among them, I have watched the career of many, andean testify to the soundness of their education; yet I confess that some of the most brilliant students and prize winners have not fulfilled the promise of their youth. They have been lacking in grit and energy, some of them looking upon education not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. I have also known others who, by perseverance and character have turned a little learning to good account in many ways and have become leaders of men. I have seen youths and maidens come to the evening classes in science and other subjects, with a slender equipment of scholastic knowledge, who have soon learned how to learn, and have had implanted in their minds a genuine love of knowledge. And I wish to say in defense of this so-called "bread and butter education," that whatever may be the ultimate object in view of the student, all true education leads to culture. I have known scores of students from the humblest ranks who passed from the half-time factory schools to evening classes who obtained scholarships to the highest colleges and universities, and are now worthily recognized as men of culture.

I have found among the apprentices from machine shops and factories many whose first idea in attending an evening class was to obtain knowledge that they could turn to practical account in the daytime, but who, after receiving advanced instruction in science were lured to the Elysian fields of literature beyond. Many a student whose habits of study have been formed under the stimulus of bettering his material condition, has been led to seek the solace and pleasure that he could get from books that elevated his moral character and contributed to the refinement of his nature. And when we consider the influence of such young men among their associates in the workshops and in mellowing their hearts while they are strengthening their faculties as men of affairs. Thus it is that in considering the broad question of education to the millions who start out in life with no inherited capital but that in their brains and sinews, I am strongly of opinion that the education imparted in such a school as this is not only most fitting in itself for their industrial training, but in most instances it forms the best foundation for the extension of culture, and often acts as a stimulus toward its attainment. My advice, therefore, to the students who are before me is this: "Seek ye first the necessaries of education, and the luxuries will be added unto you."

You will have noted that a controversy has been going on for some time as to the importance of the teaching of Greek in our old universities of Oxford and Cambridge. I do not think that you and I need to be seriously concerned about this question. I am reminded of the mischievous schoolboy at Eton who wrote on the door of the classical professor, "This road leads to nowhere." When the professor saw the inscription, he wrote underneath it, "Nevertheless, a good road on which to take exercise " - surely a terse and witty answer. But the answer reminds me of another story of a wealthy manufacturer, and one of the pioneers of the wool industry of Bradford. He had contracted some ailment, and he called in his medical man, who prescribed that he should get some dumb-bells and take vigorous gymnastic exercises. "But, " asked the patient, " would not exercise in my factory do as well for me ? " "Quite as well, " replied the doctor. And this rich manufacturer could be seen perspiring among his workmen, packing the bales of pieces and loading them on to the wagons. He said he "didn't believe in doing work that didn't bring something in." Your technical instruction, like Greek, will give you good exercise, and yet, unlike Greek, will bring something in.

I have no fears that this country will suffer in its higher interests from too much attention being paid to the utilities of life. It is not so much what a young man learns as the spirit in which he enters upon his studies that determines the formation of his tastes, and culture is the bourn toward which the searcher for knowledge is ever tending, no matter in what field that knowledge may lie. I heartily accept Mr. Rus-kin's definition as upholding the line which I have pi'esumed to take on this question. He says, " Education briefly is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them ; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes men the happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others. I believe that what is most honorable to know it is also most profitable to learn, and that the science which it is the highest power to possess it is also the best exercise to acquire." Emerson taught that the acquisition of some manual skill, and the practice of some form of manual labor, were essential elements of culture, and this idea has been more and more accepted in the systematic education of youth."