After the Exhibition, the Society of Arts organised a series of lectures to draw attention to the lessons which should be learned from the Exhibition. Playfair's two lectures were devoted to technical education, which he considered in Britain to be unfit for an increasingly competitive world. In preparation for his lectures, Playfair toured France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Scandinavia to study their education systems. His first lecture was delivered to the School of Mines, under the title "Industrial Instruction on the Continent", and was published in the "Records of the School of Mines". It aroused great public interest and Playfair later claimed that it gave a considerable impulse to technical education in Britain, with the government establishing the Department of Science and Art soon afterwards.