EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 319 



start the support and sympathy of an intelligent watchmaker, 

 Louis Faizan, who has been held by some to share with him the 

 credit of the Society's foundation. The project was, no doubt, 

 fully discussed in the hall or on the terrace of de Saussure's town- 

 house overlooking the Corraterie, before, in April 1776, a solemn 

 assembly of three hundred persons was held in the ' Salle du 

 Magnifique Conseil des Deux Cents,' by the permission of Messieurs 

 les Syndics, in order to found the new ' Societe des Arts.' The next 

 step was to form committees. One was charged with the crafts 

 of the watchmakers and jewellers and silversmiths and the like, 

 another with rural and domestic economy and their branches, 

 including machinery. Three lecturers were appointed, with the 

 title of demonstrators. A number of prizes, medals of the sub- 

 stantial value of twenty louis, were offered for essays on subjects, 

 all practical but very diverse for instance, ' How to Improve the 

 Fertility of the Genevese Territory ' ; ' How best to Employ 

 Paupers, should a Workhouse be established ' ; ' How to Improve 

 the Manufacture of Steel ' ; ' For an Elementary Work on Watch- 

 making.' ' Virtue,' in the Roman sense of the word, bravery 

 resulting in the saving of human life, was also rewarded in the 

 case of rescues from fire or drowning. 



De Saussure, who from the start threw himself with all his 

 energy into the undertaking, was the first President of the Society. 

 He looked forward to the practical results to be obtained in many 

 directions by applying scientific knowledge to industry and the 

 daily affairs of life. But it was also his particular desire to pro- 

 mote an artistic and imaginative sense among his neighbours in 

 Geneva. The fine arts had too long, he thought, lain under the ban 

 of Calvinism ; the town record was rich in theologians and men 

 of science, but poor in painters and poets. 



The Society had some years of moderately successful existence 

 before it fell under the blight of the political reaction of 1781-2. 

 Under the restrictions enforced by the victorious patricians, its 

 meetings were for a time forbidden, but after an interval, and 

 when political passions had to some extent subsided, de Saussure, 

 naturally unwilling to see his efforts brought to nothing, approached 

 the Government, and in 1786 the Society was reconstituted under 

 its protection on a new basis, and granted an official home, where 

 it could extend its schools of design. De Saussure did not content 



