10 



near neighbor of everybody else. Contemplate one or two simple 

 facts. At the middle of the last century it was still the regular 

 method of conveying freight in England between London and the 

 interior to put it into crooks thrown across the backs of mules, and 

 send it along the narrow pathways that crossed the country. But 

 what a miracle was soon wrought. When Emerson visited England 

 about the middle of the present century he recorded in his " Notes " 

 that the working power of steam in Great Britain alone, was equal 

 to the strength of six hundred millions of men : and that thirty-six 

 thousand ships were employed in carrying British products lo distant 

 parts of the world. What a mighty revolution was that? 



It is interesting to note that these two revolutions, the political 

 and philosophical on the one hand, and the social and economic' on 

 the other, were strictly contemporaneous. As we said that the date 

 of the Novum Organum was the date of the Pilgrims ; so we may 

 note that the date of the "Wealth of Nations" and of the patents 

 of Watt and Bolton were all within the years of our revolutionary 

 war. 



Now it is a curious fact, that although it was in England that 

 these two revolutions had their origin, it was also in England that 

 the educational results of these revolutions were slowest and latest 

 in making themselves felt. The reason, however, is not far to seek. 

 England was the first to take advantage of the new inventions. 

 Factories had sprung into existence on every hill side and on every 

 stream, and British goods had taken possession of every market in 

 the world. The statesmen in France and Germany saw that nothing 

 but a systematic establishment of technical schools would regain for 

 the nations of the continent the industrial importance which they 

 had lost. And so industrial and technical schools were rapidly es- 

 tablished. The Ecole Poly technique came into existence in 1795. 

 A school of similar purpose was established at Chalons in 1802 ; an- 

 other at Angers in 1811, and another at Aix in 1843. The still more 

 famous Ecole Centrale at Paris came into existence in 1829 with its 

 array of schools for the education of mechanical engineers, civil en- 

 gineers, chemists and architects. Besides these there were estab- 

 lished a vast number of trade schools of every kind, with shops for 

 the teaching of methods of working in wood and iron and brass and 

 other metals. In Paris alone there are more than a hundred such 

 schools open alike to natives and to foreigners. 



In Germany the activity in this direction has been even more 



