June I, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NE^VS. 



521 



Essex coast, and pouring it into the North Sea, is inde- 

 fensible from any point of view. Worse, if possible, is 

 the scheme of precipitating the sewage and conveying the 

 sludge out to sea in lighters. 



As regards sewage irrigation, the author admits that — 

 leaving other difficulties on one side^ — there is not in this 

 country sufficient suitable land available for disposing 

 of sewage in this manner. 



We cannot, however, agree with Mr. Kingzett when 

 he asserts that precipitation processes require the use of 

 " expensive chemicals in large quantities." If such 

 materials as peat, clay, carbon — one form of which the 

 author has patented in combination with clay — are made 

 to take part in the work of purification, very little remains 

 to be done with even cheap chemicals. 



A few typographical errors have escaped correction. 

 Thus in one place Mr. Bailey Denton figures as " Mr. 

 Barley Donton." 



" Nature's Hygiene " is not merely a readable book, 

 but contains much that is worthy of serious consideration, 

 •even by official sanitarians. 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 



IN the lowest classes of the elementary schools, children 

 who may be only six years old receive three lessons a 

 week, of one hour each, in handicraft. From ten years 

 of age until graduation the children pass eighteen hours 

 a week in the shop. In the ordinary primary schools the 

 authorities of the city of Paris teach advanced drawing 

 from models, not from the flat, and the use of ordinary 

 tools for working wood and iron, without attempting to 

 teach special trades. In nearly fifty schools this experi- 

 ment is in progress. There are also the municipal 

 apprenticeship schools, the most famous being in the 

 Boulevard de la Villette, founded in 1872. That is a 

 school for teaching boys to use machines and tools. The 

 boys enter at fourteen. During the first two years they 

 work four hours in the school and six in the shops ; 

 afterwards two hours in the school and eight in the 

 shops. This school is thus a veritable trade one, and a 

 substitute for the apprenticeship system, which is fast 

 disappearing throughout the industrial world. Then in 

 France, as elsewhere, there are the semi-trade schools, 

 which have been established by the great manufacturers. 

 In such schools generally attention is given to proficiency 

 in drawing, modelling, elementary mathematics, and the 

 elements of physical science, and at evening classes an 

 attempt is made to remedy day-school deficiencies and 

 neglected education. 



Since 1882, in France, manual labour and technical 

 training are included in the compulsory subjects of 

 primary education. As yet the general organisation is 

 incomplete, but for the most part it is at work in the large 

 towns and in the training schools for teachers. Then a 

 number of towns, notably Rouen and Havre, have estab- 

 lished apprenticeship and professional schools, where 

 pupils remain until sixteen or seventeen years of age. 

 This training qualifies them for readily obtaining trade 

 employment at two-thirds of skilled wages. On this 

 last-named point of trade employment some interesting 

 facts are available from the experience of the city of 

 Paris apprentice school, L'Ecole des Apprentis. Taking 

 a pupil from entrance to termination, there is, to begin 

 with, no admission under thirteen years of age, and then 

 •only with an elementary knowledge certificate. Next, 



for three years the course of instruction for half the day 

 is in schooling, and for half the day at practical work in 

 one or other of the shops. So trained, boys at sixteen 

 are able to take rank at once as skilled workmen, and to 

 earn the usual wage of the ordinary untrained workman, 

 and not unfrequently of the average workman of full age. 

 The promoters of the school have regarded the subject in 

 a scientific spirit, collecting much instructive data. The 

 school was founded in 1873. Of seventy-four apprentices 

 who had gone out up to August, 1887, sixty-nine re- 

 mained faithful to the industry taught them in the school, 

 their average earnings on leaving being i8s. a week of 

 fifty-six hours ; while their average age was seventeen 

 and a half years. Among them the young smiths and 

 metal-turners earned more, getting from 20s. to 32s. 

 a week at the outset. The school has a graduated series 

 of manual exercises, designed to develop skill, without 

 reference to industrial profitableness. No work is 

 attempted under such exercises until the how and why 

 have been explained, nor until such work has been made 

 the subject of a proper working drawing. Meanwhile 

 regular technical and scientific principles are taught and 

 insisted on in the shops. This broad instruction is given 

 under the direction of competent teachers, the head ot 

 the shop being himself a former pupil of the Arts et 

 Metiers, known to be imbued with science enthusiasm, 

 and the teacher of physics comes from the Paris Observa- 

 tory. M. Muller (the Director) conducts classes in 

 descriptive geometry and other subjects. M. Bocquet 

 (Superintendent of Workshops) gives a course of tech- 

 nology, beginning with tools and bits of machinery up 

 to a complete knowledge of machines and machine tools. 

 Drawing, applied physics, applied chemistry, algebra, 

 arithmetic, geometry, and even industrial jurisprudence 

 form parts of the general study. In the Paris school of 

 the Rue Tournelort the children are taught as if they 

 had been apprenticed. They number nearly 400. Trade 

 instruction lasts from ten years of age up to thirteen. In 

 the first two years the instruction is in generalities, in 

 the third year work is specialised, when, the child's bent 

 having been discovered, he is put to modelling and car- 

 ving, or to joinery and cabinet-making, or to smith's work 

 in forging and fitting. Then the pupils work in shops, 

 where they receive instruction in drawing, geometry, and 

 natural science. In the school of the Christian brothers. 

 Rue Vaugirard, there are workshops, wherein are taught 

 gilding, wood and stone carving, trunk-making, shoe- 

 making, tailoring, weaving, bookbinding, mathematical in- 

 strument making, etc., so that when the school is left a 

 useful calling may be followed, presumably not at the 

 highest current wages, but as leading up thereto. 



Photography under Water. — M. Forel finds {Sikh), 

 by a series of interesting experiments made in the Lake 

 of Geneva, that photographic action extends to a depth 

 of 45 metres in summer, and of 100 metres in winter. 

 The reason of this unexpected difference is that the 

 water in summer is much more contaminated by sus- 

 pended matter than in winter. According to the same 

 authority, white discs can be seen in winter to the depth 

 of 20 metres, whilst they cease to be visible at 5 or 6 

 metres in summer. 



Honours to Descartes. — M. Janssen (Cow/fes Rendus), 

 referring to the recent celebration at Cambridge of the 

 bi-centenary of the publication of Newton's " Principia," 

 suggested a similar demonstration in honour of Descartes. 



