METHODS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 209 



in character, mechanics, physics, chemistry, and technology being added 

 to the usual programme of literary routine, while drawing and model- 

 ing occupy a prominent place. The system of solid geometry taught 

 in the schools is excellently conceived and admirably followed. M. 

 Muller, the director, himself conducts this and some of the scientific 

 branches of study. All the apprentices learn also to sketch bits of 

 machinery or even entire machines, figure the sketch from actual mea- 

 surement, and then with rule and compass draw them carefully to scale. 

 There are two principal workshops, one devoted to the workers in iron, 

 the other to workers in wood. The trades actually taught are forging, 

 metal-turning, fitting, carpentry, wood-turning, and pattern-making. 

 A small workshop for teaching the manufacture of philosophical instru- 

 ments has also just been organized. During his first or preparatory 

 year the api:)rentice, so called there is, in reality, no formal contract 

 is making the I'ound of the various shops, taking a fortnight in each 

 in rotation. There is therefore no haste to specialize his work, and he 

 has the opportunity of discovering the pursuit for which he is best fit- 

 ted, while gaining information and intelligence. His first year over, 

 he settles down to serious work in one of the six categories of labor : 

 henceforth all the articles he makes are salable, and indeed of some 

 value. Still, although the commercial element, eschewed in the Rue 

 Tournefort, here steps in to the profit of the municipality, be it said, 

 rather than of the school the apprentice does not sacrifice theory for 

 practice. No single object must be attempted before the working 

 drawing of it has been made out in plan and elevation ; and the nice- 

 ties of true surfaces and exact angles are scrupulously insisted on. En- 

 ter the forging and fitting shop, where over a hundred embryo work- 

 men are busily, not to say noisily, employed, each on his all-absorbing 

 task : they hardly look up as the stranger passes along. Here are three 

 novices being taught to forge a hammer-head, learning to " strike," 

 under the direction of a young foreman ; and he does teach them, too, 

 with a will. Here an older group are working out a piece by them- 

 selves at another foi'ge. All down the long room are benches with 

 vises, and in the middle the heavier machines, lathes, slotting-machines, 

 and planing-raachines the latter designed and consti'ucted only last 

 year by the pupils themselves, and containing a valuable improvement 

 first conceived in the brain of the able foreman of the workshops. 

 Here, a large pinion is being turned ; there, the parts of a vise, are be- 

 ing filed into shape, while in the corner an apprentice of one week's 

 standing is trying to file up into perfect form a simple square bar of 

 iron fresh from the forge. After that he will pass to a task a little 

 more difficult, following the course prescribed by experience. Almost 

 all the tools are made by the apprentices themselves. The steam- 

 engine which moves the heavy machines is under the charge of two 

 pupils, of the second and third year respectively, their services being 

 devoted for a fortnight to officiating as stoker and engineer. Healthy 



VOL. XTIII. 14 ' 



