450 THE APPLIED SCIENCES 



acqiures, in the most complete manner, that practical skill which 

 is only to be attained by seeing and handling; but is it not 

 evident that such a mode of teaching alone must be defective in 

 forming the counterpart of his knowledge ? His master is too 

 actively engaged in the duties of professional life to attend to the 

 task of oral instruction : the utmost that he can do is to direct his 

 reading, and to superintend his work ; and he is almost left to- 

 himself, to acquire, or not, the knowledge of those principles 

 which he is afterwards to apply. 



The consequences of these widely different modes of instruc- 

 tion are very evident in the opposite character of the professions 

 in the two countries. The French engineer possesses a confidence- 

 in his own resources, which he often displays in meeting and mas- 

 tering a difficulty ; while perhaps he fails in the execution of an 

 ordinary task. The English engineer, on the other hand, guided 

 by rule in place of theory, is more successful in the daily walk of 

 his profession, while (unless a man of natural genius) he is often 

 unprepared to cope with new emergencies. The Englishman, 

 from the practical character of his education, and of his mind, 

 goes straightforward to the end proposed ; the Frenchman devi- 

 ates from the road to seek some opportunity of putting forth his 

 skill. The Englishman sometimes commits mistakes, in new and 

 untried cases ; the Frenchman is often in error, because he is as 

 likely to err in cases of daily occurrence, as in those which are 

 infrequent and uncommon. 



But happily the men of science in both countries now see, 

 and have begun to remedy, the extremes into which this branch of 

 education has fallen, those of England, by the infusion of theo- 

 retical knowledge, the French, by the addition of practical ac- 

 quirement. It is strange, that in a country which has been long 

 forward in raising the intellectual character of the artisan, in a 

 country where schools and mechanics' institutes have sprung up 

 without number, for the benefit of the working classes, no regu- 

 lar education should have been provided (until within the last few 

 years) for the master artist, the engineer, or the manufacturer. 

 The University of Durham has been the first to wipe away this 

 reproach, and her example has been ably and successfully followed 

 in King's College, London. 



In France, on the other hand, and about the same time, the 

 Central School of Arts was founded, with that profusion of scien- 



