2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are now participants, of whom about eiglity are past apprentices. A 

 much larger portion are depositors in the caisse cVepargne, or savings 

 bank, established by the firm, or are " insured " in its books. Even 

 the youngest apprentices put by a portion of savings out of their small 

 earnino-s. The principals of the house fear no strike now, as there are 

 enough participants in the wealth of the house to carry on its business 

 throu<i-h a crisis. "La maison pour chacun, tous 2^our la maison^'' is 

 inscribed in gold on one of the beams that cross the great atelier. 

 The sum thus divided among the employees in 1878 exceeded ten thou- 

 sand dollars. The financial results of these arrangements, at once 

 educational and prudential in their nature, are most encouraging. 

 M. Berger, the accomplished inspector of this department of the enter- 

 prise, attributes the substantial growth and prosperity of the business, 

 now one of the largest and wealthiest in France, as much to one influ- 

 ence as to the other. He prides himself on the superior intelligence 

 of his pupils and their technical knowledge, gained while they are in 

 the very midst of a great business, and thus forced even to realize and 

 keep au couranty^SXh commercial exigencies. The few who have gone 

 out to take places elsewhere are also doing well. 



The fourth and last of our typical schools is the Ecole Municipale 

 d'Apprentis, which since 1872 has been at work in the Boulevard de 

 la Villette. No school has produced more striking results as yet, and 

 none merits more careful attention. Beginning with seventeen pupils 

 in 1872, it now numbers a following of two hundred and twenty-one. 

 The course lasts three, or in some cases four, years. It speaks volumes 

 for the efiiciency of the school that, out of seventy-two who, up to the 

 end of 1877, had completed the course and gone out into situations, 

 sixty-nine are at the present moment pursuing the trade they have 

 learned in the school, and are earning on the average four francs a day 

 some of them even as much as six and a half francs a day. A school 

 which can receive young lads of thirteen or fourteen, and after a three 

 years' course can turn out workmen at the age of sixteen or seventeen 

 able at once to command wages of twenty, or, in some cases, thirty-three 

 shillings a week, is something so wholly new that its organization mer- 

 its the most profound study. Founded on the suggestion of M. Greard 

 by the then Prefect of the Seine, M. Leon Say, at the expense of the 

 city of Paris, it began its work in premises previously used as a fac- 

 tory of aneroid barometers, additional schoolroom accommodation being 

 obtained in the adjacent dwelling-house. The object of the school is 

 simply to make good workmen. The education it offers is absolutely 

 gratuitous, and even remunerative to the pupils, for they receive every 

 week a " gratification " varying from a franc and a half to three francs. 

 None of the pupils are boarders. None are admitted until their pri- 

 mary education is completed, and then only after an easy examination. 

 Five hours a day are given to studies, six hours to the work of the 

 shops. The teaching of the schoolroom is both general and technical 



