AND THE MODE OF TEACHING THEM. 451 



tifio strength which the capital of France can wield ; and the in- 

 stitution has been followed by the establishment of preparatory 

 schools having the same objects. I would gladly, did time permit, 

 have dwelt upon the arrangements of this important school, which 

 I had the opportunity of visiting within the last few months. 

 There is one part, however, of the system pursued there, which I 

 cannot forbear noticing, not only on account of its intrinsic ex- 

 cellence, but because there is nothing in it of a local character, 

 nothing which will not bear transportation to another soil. In 

 the concluding examination, in which is tested the fitness of the 

 student to enter on his professional career, he is, furnished by his 

 examiners with a projet. An engine is to be constructed for some 

 special work ; a suspension-bridge is to be thrown across a certain 

 river ; an embankment, or a harbour, is to be constructed under 

 given conditions ; or a manufactory of some kind is to be esta- 

 blished on a given piece of ground, and with a given capital. Such 

 are the comprehensive queries put to the candidate, queries ad- 

 dressed, not to an insulated point, but to a large circle of his 

 acquired knowledge. He is called upon to put himself, for the 

 time, in the place of the professional engineer, to whom such an 

 inquiry is addressed by the capitalist; and he is expected, not 

 only to furnish complete working drawings of all the parts of his 

 design, but also to accompany them by an explanatory memoir, in 

 which the calculations of the dimensions and strength of every 

 part, of the quantity of materials requisite, and of the cost, are 

 all given in full. The best of these plans and memoirs are pre- 

 served in the archives of the school ; and, when corrected by the 

 professors, they furnish the materials for future teaching. 



It remains now that I should say a few words of the arrange- 

 ments which the Heads of this University have made, bearing upon 

 the same objects. I have already stated what seem to be the faults 

 in the existing systems of engineer education ; and have shown, I 

 think, the importance of a systematic instruction, in which theory 

 and practice are attempered in just proportion. Such is the prin- 

 ciple which has been steadily kept in view, in the course of educa- 

 tion which the University now offers to the engineer student. It 

 is intended to communicate just so much of theoretical knowledge 

 as is indispensable, in on ICY to enable the student to understand 

 fully its applications. The applications themselves will next be 



