MANUAL WORK. 371 



any serious reform from being accomplished in 

 our miserably organised society. 



The experiment has been made at the Moscow 

 Technical School for twenty consecutive years 

 with many hundreds of boys ; and, according 

 to the testimonies of the most competent judges 

 at the exhibitions of Brussels, Philadelphia, 

 Vienna, and Paris, the experiment has been a 

 success. The Moscow school admitted boys not 

 older than fifteen,* and it required from boys of 

 that age nothing but a substantial knowledge of 

 geometry and algebra, together with the usual 

 knowledge of their mother tongue ; younger 

 pupils were received in the preparatory classes. 

 The school was divided into two sections the 

 mechanical and the chemical ; but as I personally 

 know better the former, and as it is also the 

 more important with reference to the question 

 before us, so I shall limit my remarks to the 

 education given in the mechanical section. 



After a five or six years' stay at the school, the 

 students left it with a thorough knowledge of 

 higher mathematics, physics, mechanics, and con- 

 nected sciences so thorough, indeed, that it was 

 not second to that acquired in the best mathe- 



* Unfortunately, I must already say " admitted " instead of 

 " admits." With the reaction which began after 1881, under the 

 reign of Alexander III., this school was " reformed " ; that 

 means that all the spirit and the system of the school were 

 destroyed. 



