190 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS 



more knowledge of a general character (for instance, 

 in mathematical astronomy), they, the students of the 

 Technical School, were much more advanced in higher 

 geometry, and especially in the applications of higher 

 mathematics to the most intricate problems of dyna- 

 mics, the theories of heat and elasticity. But while we, 

 the students of the University, hardly knew the use of 

 our hands, the students of the Technical School fabri- 

 cated with their own hands, and without the help of 

 professional workmen, fine steam-engines, from the 

 heavy boiler to the last finely turned screw, agricultural 

 machinery, and scientific apparatus all for the trade 

 and they received the highest awards for the work 

 of their hands at the international exhibitions. They 

 were scientifically educated skilled workers workers 

 with university education highly appreciated even by 

 the Russian manufacturers who so much distrust 

 science. 



Now, the methods by which these wonderful results 

 were achieved were these : In science, learning from 

 memory was not in honour, while independent research 

 was favoured by all means. Science was taught hand 

 in hand with its applications, and what was learned in 

 the schoolroom was applied in the workshop. Great 

 attention was paid to the highest abstractions of 

 geometry as a means for developing imagination and 

 research. As to the teaching of handicraft, the methods 

 were quite different from those which proved a failure 

 at the Cornell University, and differed, in fact, from 

 those used in most technical schools. T*he student was 

 not sent to a workshop to learn some special handicraft 

 and to earn his existence as soon as possible, but the 

 teaching of technical skill was prosecuted according to 

 a scheme elaborated by the founder of the school, M. 

 Dellavos, and now applied also at Chicago and Boston 

 in the same systematical way as laboratory work is 

 taught in the universities. It is evident that drawing 



