Introduction. 3 



A similar school for electrical engineers has been founded some years ago in 

 Francfort-on-the-Main. Naturally, in all these cases the theoretical education 

 is adapted to the practical requirements of the learners. 



Apart of this form of self-help German mechanical industry received a 

 great impetus through the encouragement of art and science afforded hy the 

 government during the last 25 years. The erection of numerous large chemical 

 .and physical laboratories, the exigencies of ordnance survey and geodesy with 

 respect to astronomical and surveying instruments, the influence of the adopt- 

 ion ^of the metric system upon the .manufacture of exact rules, weights and 

 sensitive balances and hydrometers, the reaction of the requirements of mete- 

 orology upon thermometry and barometry, the beneficial influence which the 

 development of the German navy exercised upon the nautical instrument trade 

 and many other influences have created important problems and thus given the 

 impulse to the development of the scientific instrument trade in Germany." 

 Their strongest support, however, the mechanical arts received when the fact 

 became recogniced that to permanently maintain the standard of their deve- 

 lopment it was necessary that there should exist a governmental institution 

 upon which devolved all those investigations and technical processes which 

 exceed the limits of individual means. This led to the foundation of the 

 ^Physikalisch-Technische Keichsanstalt in Berlin-Charlottenburg" (the Im- 

 perial Physical and Technical Institute in Charlottenburg nr. Berlin). The work 

 of the first or physical department of this institution consists in theoretical 

 investigations and the most intricate physical measurements, whilst the second 

 or technical department deals with all questions affecting the practical deve- 

 lopment of technical industry, such as the examination of substances respecting 

 their chemical and physical properties, the examination of new constructions, 

 the testing of optical or thermal glasses and determination of their constants, 

 photometric tests, the production and examination of standard screws for fixing 

 and adjusting (micrometer), very finely divided rules and circles, the examina- 

 tion and attestation of measuring appliances and so forth. It is evident that 

 such direct influence upon manufacture, relieving as it does, the individual, 

 must be of the greatest importance to industry. Indeed, during the 5 years 

 of its existence the Imperial Physical and Technical Institute has done very 

 great service to the mechanical arts, so much so that abroad it has become an 

 object of imitation, and in England and the United States the question of the 

 advisability of founding similar institutions is already being dealt with. 



The outcome of these general and energetic efforts which were mainly 

 stimulated by the zeal and activity of the Director of Institute Dr. L. Loewen- 

 herz, who died but a few months hence in the prime of his life is the high 

 standard which the German manufacture of philosophical instruments has reached. 

 It can self-assuredly enter into competition with the industry of any other country, 

 in many respects it probably even occupies the foremost position. In its cha- 

 racter we distinctly recognize the product of the combined efforts of theory 

 and practice. This character becomes also externally apparent in the geogra- 

 phical distribution of the manufacturing centers of optical and mechanical in- 

 dustry. Owing to its great number of polytechnical colleges and scientific 

 institutions and also to its prominent political and commercial position the 

 capital of the empire has naturally become the center of mechanical industry. 



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