Technical education differs widely from an ordinary academic education. The aim of ordinary or liberal education as it is called is to train the mind and develop the intellect for its own sake. Technical education, on the contrary, aims at teaching to the students some trade or handicraft and giving them training in a particular branch of industry. Technical education has, therefore, a practical, useful end. A literary education may develop the mind, refine the emotions, discipline the heart and nourish the artistic side of man but it suits a particular type of temperament and not the masses. Technical education has a utilitarian motive behind it as its object is to enable us to develop manual or mechanical skill and thus not only earn our own livelihood but also become useful members of society from the economic point of view.

A rough, crude form of technical education has always excited in the past. A carpenter, a blacksmith, an architect, etc. would take apprentices who tried to learn their work by constant observation and practice but with the introduction of machinery into industry and other changes in the life of people, technical education had to be given along more scientific lines. The result is that technical institutions exist in every country of the world and give training to thousands of young men every year. Electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, training in public works, and scores of allied branches of human industry fall within the scope of technical education. A high degree of skill has to be developed by the students. Accuracy, precision, neatness, quickness, manual dexterity, powers of endurance- -these are the qualities that the technical expert must acquire while taking his course of technical education. To a man having no technical knowledge, a modern factory would present a most perplexing sight because of the elaborate, complicated machinery that is employed for the purpose of manufacture of all our requirements. But a skilled and trained worker finds himself perfectly at home in such a factory and understands his duties well as the result of his technical training.

We live in a scientific, industrial age. Technical education is a necessity of our times. Without it, the whole industrial system would come to a standstill. It is, therefore, the very foundation of industrial progress and development. It is the paramount duty of every country to see that a sufficient number of its people undergo the necessary technical training for coping with the essential work that awaits them in the factories. A purely literary education should be reserved for the minority who have a natural aptitude for it and who show some promise in that direction. But in an era of science and industry, the majority of people should be given technical training. We no longer think it undignified to do manual labor. Technical education has given to manual labor a high status in the present-day world