210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and actively industrious the lads toil at their work, and three fore- 

 men suffice for the efficient superintendence of the hundred ! Above 

 is the carpenter's shop, where an equally numerous clientUe are equally 

 hard at work. Here, too, we find originality of design and thorough- 

 ness of execution. Several of the machines for example, a ribbon-saw 



were made in the establishment, and were among exhibits of the 



school which attracted so much notice in the central pavilion of the 

 Exposition Universelle of 1878. The first exercises in carpentry and 

 in turnino- are literally exercises ; useful to the last degree to their con- 

 structor, but of no marketable value. Here one realizes one advantage 

 possessed by this municipal school over those in which the atelier is 

 simply the workshop of a great business. In the early stages, when 

 workmanship is very imperfect, it is not always well to strive to pro- 

 duce a salable article. Better waste wood, says the superintendent of 

 the shops, than spoil the making of a good apprentice. Better to let 

 the young workman see something of all the different corners of his 

 trade, than by too fine a division of labor to keep him all his years 

 learning only to shape chair-legs. And he is right, if the general look 

 of intelligence and workmanlike style of his young charges afford any 

 indication of their capability of well fulfilling the career they have 

 chosen. From seven in the morning to seven in the evening are the 

 hours of school, with an hour's intermission for dinner, and two shorter 

 recesses. Work over, they disperse to their separate homes, for there 

 is no boarding. M. Miiller points out that the cost of setting up these 

 shops, with all their tools and appliances, has been at the average rate 

 of $55.75 for each of the one hundred and seventy-five places nomi- 

 nally provided in the accommodation of the school ; while each of the 

 present two hundred and twenty-one pupils, as he passes through the 

 school, costs the municipality on the average an annual sum which is, 

 as it happens, almost equal, namely, 155.50, instruction included. 

 When the extensions of the buildings now in progress are completed, a 

 very slight increase of total cost will suffice to extend the benefits of 

 the school to a much greater number of pupils. The school property 

 and furniture have already cost the city of Paris 750,000 francs 

 ($150,000), including the lands and buildings, and the school is costing 

 it 60,000 francs ($12,000) a year for working expenses. To set against 

 this are the sums received for work sold, and the value of the instru- 

 ments, models, and appliances fabricated in the school, and employed 

 either in the school itself or handed over to one or other of the muni- 

 cipal schools, and which must amount to many hundred dollars yearly. 

 We have dwelt at some length upon this school, inasmuch as, re- 

 garded from the point of view of practical results, it appears to pre- 

 sent by far the nearest approach to the ideal of an apprenticeship 

 school. Not ignoring what is so valuable in consideration of the cir- 

 cumstance that the training is to be a preparation for after-life the 

 commercial value of the time and labor it differs from the Institution 



