114 Sir Frederick Ahel [April 22, 



Eevolution, and the University of Paris had been constituted by the 

 first Napoleon the sole seat of high education in the country. Before 

 the late war, matters educational were in a condition very detrimental 

 to the position of the country among Nations. There was no lack 

 of educational establishments, but the systems and sequence of 

 instruction lacked organisation. 



Since the war, France has made great efforts to replace her 

 educational resources upon a proper footing. The provincial colleges 

 have been re-established at a cost of 3,280,000/., and the annual 

 budget for their support reaches half-a-million. The organisation 

 of industrial education has now been greatly developed, though still 

 not on a footing of equality with that of Germany. The practical 

 teaching of science commences already in the elementary schools, 

 and the groundwork of technical instruction is afterwards securely 

 laid by the higher elementary schools, of which so many excellent 

 examples are now to be found in different parts of France. Every 

 large manufacturing centre has its educational establishment where 

 technical instruction is provided, with special reference to local 

 requirements ; the Institute Industriel, at Lisle, and the Ecole 

 Centrale of Lyons, are examples of these. In order to render 

 these colleges accessible to the best talent of France, more than 500 

 scholarships have been founded, at an annual cost of 30,000Z. The 

 Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, of Paris, still maintains 

 the reputation as the great technical university of the country, 

 which it earned many years ago, and receives students from the 

 provincial colleges, where they have passed through the essential 

 training preliminary to the high technical education which that 

 great institution provides. 



Switzerland has often been quoted as a remarkable illustration 

 of the benefits secured to a Nation by the thoroughly organised 

 education of its people. Far removed from the ocean, girt by 

 mountains, poor in the mineral resources of industry, she yet has 

 taken one of the highest positions among essentially industrial 

 Nations, and has gained victories over countries rich in the possession 

 of the greatest natural advantages. Importing cotton from the 

 United States, she has sent it back in manufactured forms, so as to 

 undersell the products of the American mills. The trade of watch- 

 making, once most important in this metropolis, passed almost 

 entirely to Switzerland years ago ; the old established ribbon trade 

 of Coventry has had practically to succumb before the skilled com- 

 petition of Switzerland, and although she has no coal of her own, 

 Switzerland is at least as successful as France in her approj)riation 

 of the coal-tar colour industry and her rivalry in rate of production 

 with England, the place of its birth and development. Comparative 

 cheapness of labour will not go very far to account for these great 

 successes ; they undoubtedly spring mainly from the thoroughly 

 organised combination of scientific with practical education of which 

 the entire people enjoys the inestimable benefit. 



