to blue books to which few had access, and whose contradictory hieroglyphics still fewer could understand. If there was one nation in the civilized world, for which an opposite course might have been expected, that nation was England. Her naval preeminence; her lines of steamers connecting her shores with the remotest regions of the earth; her Saxon tongue the vehicle of liberty and truth over half the globe;-her colonies swelled, and swelling into gigantic kingdoms;-her commercial greatness, and the enormous extent of her manufacturing establishments, all concurred in demanding from England a willing patronage of the arts and sciences-a generous treatment of the men who advanced them, and a munificent endowment of the establishments which they required.

In support of these views, let us take a rapid glance at the progress of industrial institutions in France. The illustrious Descartes had at an early period recommended the establishment of public lectures for artificers and workmen. He proposed that each group of trades should have a lecture-room, with its hall of tools and models, and a practical lecturer to explain the manipulations of their art to the students, and solve the difficulties which might embarrass them. At that time, even, there was a large collection of machines under the charge of the Academy of Sciences, which had been transferred to the Louvre, where it had remained for nearly a century, till the intellectual energies of a new era brought it into use. The celebrated mechanist M. Vaucanson, to whom we owe the remarkable automata of the flute player the pipe and tabor player-and the masticating and digesting duck, had experienced the want of this species of ocular instruction, and even at an advanced age began to make a collection of machines, models, and philosophical instruments, which he placed in the Hôtel de Mortagne. At his death in 1782 he bequeathed the whole of his machines to the Government, and this valuable collection became the nucleus of the present " Conservatory of Arts and Trades." But although a love of the marvellous more than a love of science had induced Louis XVI. to take an interest in Vaucanson's caoutchouc automaton -of a man with the whole of his physiological apparatus, yet it does not appear that either he or the nation placed a sufficient value on the extraordinary pieces of mechanism which Vaucanson had constructed. The two musical automata which we have mentioned, as might have been expected, were not acquired by the State and placed in the collection which it had received from their inventor; they were purchased by Professor Bayreuss of Helmstadt, to adorn the museum of another land, or perhaps to disappear, as they seem to have done, in the possession of their ignorant owner. The Government, however, set a proper value on the legacy of Vaucanson. They placed it under the

History of Industrial Institutions in France.

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charge of a Comptroller-General, and issued an ordonnance, requiring that all machines and models which received national reward, should be deposited in the collection. The Hôtel de Mortagne was subsequently purchased by the Government, and an annual sum voted for the maintenance of the collection. Before the commencement of the Revolution, above 300 new machines for cotton and carding, and for the manufacture of hosiery, ribbons, and lace, were added to the museum ; but amid the destruction of monuments and works of art which characterized that barbarous event, the machinery for abridging labour was peculiarly exposed to the fury of the people. The Legislative Assembly, indeed, and the National Convention appointed commissioners to collect the scattered relics of science and of art which the Vandals had spared; but it was not till 1794 that a Commission of Arts, in which the Abbé Gregoire and M. Charles were the most active, contrived to save, often at the peril of their lives, upwards of 800 objects which were lodged in the Hôtel D'Aguillen, and which led to the present establishment of the "Conservatoire des Arts et des Metiers," founded by a decree drawn up by the Abbé Gregoire, and issued on the 19th Vendemiaire 1795. In 1799 the collection was transferred to the Abbey of St. Martin, where it received great additions, and was classified for the instruction of artificers and workmen. In 1806 M. de Champagny, the Minister of the Interior, founded a school for the industrial education of the children of workmen to be recommended by the mayors of towns and the prefects of departments. From 1810 to 1811 this school counted 300 students. "It furnished," as Colonel Lloyd observes, "sub-officers to the sappers and engineers,young men for the offices of the Bureau of Fortifications and of St. Cyr, as well as a great number of overseers of works, and superintendents of workshops and manufactories." About this time Napoleon had offered a million of francs for prizes in the manufacture of cotton and carding machinery, and in furtherance of these views there was established in 1810 a school for instruction in the spinning of cotton and wool. Under such influences the march of industrial instruction was rapid and regular. The lectures, however, became too scientific, but this retrograde step, as soon as it was recognised, led in 1842 to the establishment of a commission under Baron Thenard, which not only remedied the evil, but raised the institution to its present improved and flourishing state. In 1846, the sum of 1,000,000 francs was voted for additions to the collection, and in 1850 it possessed 4500 articles representing 7000 machines, together with a great number of machines themselves, chemical apparatus, philosophical instruments, and tools.

In 1850 the sum of £6250 was voted for the service of the Conservatoire, and the following was the system of instruction given in two theatres on different days of the week:

Sunday.

Monday.

Charles Dupin. Geometry applied to the Arts

and Statics.

Descriptive Geometry-applied
and theoretical.

Practical Mechanics, Steam
Engine.

Chemistry applied to the Arts.
Physics applied to the Arts and

Machines.

Descriptive Geometry.

Chemistry applied to the Arts.

Agriculture.

In the excellent institution which we have now described, industrial education was given gratis to mechanics, and to the poorer classes of students; and zealous and intelligent workmen thus educated were intrusted with the direction of many manufacturing establishments. The progress of the arts in England and other countries, rendered necessary a more extensive system of industrial education for the middle classes in France; and with this view the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures was established in 1829, under the most eminent and experienced professors, for the purpose of educating the pupils as engineers, directors of manufactories, managers of public works of all descriptions, and professors of the applied sciences. Though at first a private establishment, it was placed under the surveillance of the Minister of Public Instruction, and in 1838 under the Account of the "Ecole Centrale des Arts," &c., in Paris. 525

Minister of Commerce and Agriculture, who received a public grant to defray the expense of sending up students to it from the State. In 1842 nineteen of the "Conseils Généraux," in different departments of France, voted funds to send up twentythree young men from their towns, and the Minister had made provision for forty students whose families were entitled to the gratitude of the nation.

We have now before us the pamphlet, No. 9 of our list, containing ample and interesting details respecting the constitution of this important establishment, and as it must, to a very considerable extent, be a pattern for all similar institutions, we shall endeavour to give an abstract of its contents. The Central School of Arts and Manufactures occupies the "Hôtel de Juigné, Rue de Thorigny, au Marais." The authority of the school is vested in a Director, and there is also a director of studies, assisted by a council of nine professors. Besides these professors there are other six who are not members of council, together with five assistant professors. In addition to these functionaries two teachers give instruction on Special Technology, (textile manufactures, carding, sawing, pottery, &c.,) other two superintend the mechanical works, and other three the department of design. There are also twelve répétiteurs or tutors of high character, three préparateurs for the experimental courses of chemistry and physics, three officers for the "Service d'Administration," two librarians, and four inspectors, who have the surveillance of the pupils, and are charged with the maintenance of discipline. The following are the general statutes :

1. The object of the School. --The central school is destined specially to form civil engineers, directors of workshops, superintendents of manufactories, -to foster the industry of men capable of bringing into the direction of these establishments and of great public works, the lights furnished by the physical and mathematical sciences, not only when studied in their more important and general doctrines, but above all when considered in reference to their practical application.

2. The Institution of the School. -The council of studies chooses the professors and officers, and admits or rejects candidates according to the result of their examination. The director who lives in the college has the charge of the correspondence and the general administration, and in the interval between the monthly sittings of the council, there is a " council of order," consisting of the director and at least one professor. The Government candidates must be between the age of 18 and 21, while private students, who may be foreigners acquainted with the French language, are admitted at any age above 16. The students live in private lodging-houses, and wear no uniform; they breakfast, however, in the establishment. The fee for each student is 775 francs, (£32,) or £36, including the materials used at the school.

3. Instruction. - The course of instruction is limited to three years. It includes lectures, daily examinations, drawing and graphic exercises, chemical manipulations, working in stone and wood, physics or natural philosophy, mechanics, details in the construction of buildings and other works, problems for solution, plans for industrial constructions, and partial and general examinations. All the courses are obligatory for three years; but at the middle of the second year, the graphic studies, and the manipulations, and plans (projects) are divided into two series, the one of a general nature, and the other relative to the special profession for which the student is to be prepared. These specialties are four in number, viz., the specialty of Mechanicians, including, 1. The construction and establishment of machines and the mechanical arts; 2. The specialty of Constructors, including the erection of buildings, public works, and the physical arts, bridges, canals, roads, railways, civil and industrial architecture, heating, lighting, and the salubrity of towns and great establishments; 3. The specialty of Metallurgists, including the working of mines and metallurgy; and 4thly, The specialty of Chemists, including mineral chemistry, with pottery, porcelain and glass making, chemical products in general, and the arts of assaying and refining the precious metals, organic and agricultural chemistry, dyeing, distilling, bleaching, brewing, tanning, sugar making, &c., &c.

At the end of the first six months of the second year, the student is obliged to decide to which of these special studies his future education is to be directed.

The annual course commences on the 10th of November for the first year, and on the 2d of March for the second and third years, and it terminates during the month of July. The general examination takes place at the end of each course, and they all terminate from the 10th to the 20th of August, when the vacation begins.

4. The Diplomas and Certificates of Merit. The diploma of civil engineer is given only to those who have passed the prescribed trials during the three years of the school; and certificates of capacity are granted to those who have passed only a certain number of the prescribed trials. The trials are written and oral. The students are allowed thirty-five days for executing their designs in the interior of the school, and drawing the memoir in reference to them; and they are afterwards examined orally on their designs, which they are obliged publicly to explain and defend in presence of a jury of at least five professors. Those only who hold diplomas, or certificates of capacity, are recognised as having been students of the school,