354 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 88. 



view there (several of which will, at its closing, 

 be despatched to the New Orleans exhibition) ; 

 as well as of the international conference on 

 education, — the first ever held, — which was 

 opened on Monda} T , Aug. 4. 



The present exhibition (called the ' Health- 

 eries ') is on the site of the w Fisheries ' of last 

 year ; but more than two acres of additional 

 buildings have had to be constructed for it, 

 and portions of the Royal Albert hall, as well 

 as of the newly erected City and guilds of 

 London institute, have been pressed into the 

 service also, mainly to afford room for some 

 of the educational exhibits. It is probably 

 not too much to say, that no such elaborate and 

 extensive collection of educational appliances, 

 methods, and results has ever been brought 

 together before ; notwithstanding the fact, that, 

 the primary object of the whole exhibition 

 being to elucidate the conditions of health, it 

 was considered expedient to attach to the prin- 

 cipal display, mainly such objects and appli- 

 ances as had a special relation to healthful 

 school life. This limitation, however, has been 

 interpreted somewhat liberally ; and the result 

 is a collection in which can be studied and 

 compared the educational systems in primary, 

 general, and technical education as practised 

 in the British Islands, France, and Belgium, 

 and to a less extent in Germany, Sweden, 

 Switzerland, the United States, and Canada. 

 At a meeting of the jurors held early in June, 

 at which the Prince of Wales presided, the 

 eminent surgeon Sir James Paget delivered an 

 admirable address on ' National health and 

 work,' in the course of which he estimated (as 

 the result of carefully compiled statistics) 

 that the annual loss to the English nation from 

 sickness, four-fifths of which was preventable, 

 amounted to the work that twenty million men 

 would do in a week. He also pointed out the 

 close relations between education and health, 

 and closed with a ver}' eloquent aspiration for 

 the creation of a sound public opinion that 

 physical health, just as intellectual superiority 

 and martial prowess, was a thing to be striven 

 after. 



The exhibition itself has been a very great 

 success ; the attendance having been about one- 

 third more than at the Fisheries, and aver- 

 aging about one hundred and forty thousand 

 visitors per week. The musical attractions 

 have been great, as well as those of the illumina- 

 tions of the grounds and buildings. The elec- 

 tric-lighting display is on a much larger scale 

 than on any previous occasion, many thousands 

 of incandescent and hundreds of arc lamps 

 being employed ; and the perfect steadiness of 



the latter exceeds any thing that has yet been 

 seen. At the weekly Wednesda} T -evening 

 f6tes the effects obtained by the illumination 

 of fountains by electric lights in various ways 

 (a prominent one being the total reflection of 

 a beam of light within a jet of water, on 

 the principle of the well-known lecture exper- 

 iment) are exceptionally beautiful, and per- 

 haps can best be compared to showers of 

 various-colored gems. 



The educational portion of the exhibition 

 was opened by the Prince of Wales, about the 

 middle of June ; and its contents form the sub- 

 ject of a closely printed catalogue of several 

 hundred pages, some of which are filled with 

 admirable summaries and digests of the work 

 accomplished by various educational organi- 

 zations, — such, for example, as those of the 

 ministers of public instruction in France and 

 Belgium, both of which governments have or- 

 ganized elaborate collective exhibitions show- 

 ing the methods and results of their primary 

 and secondaiy education. Education in France 

 has lately made most rapid advances ; for the 

 mone}' which no previous government could 

 obtain for popular education, the parliament 

 of the third republic, definitely consolidated, 

 in 1877, has not feared to demand of the state, 

 notwithstanding the pressure of taxes from the 

 foreign and civil wars of 1870. In 1882-83 

 there were 5,432,151 pupils, and 129,657 

 teachers (of whom only 21,781 were uncertifi- 

 cated) , in primary schools in France ; and the 

 general outlay* of the state for primary educa- 

 tion in that year amounted to very nearly $20, ~ 

 000,000. In March, 1882, laws were passed 

 which rendered obligatory, 1°. the teaching of 

 the elementary physical sciences in primary 

 schools, 2°. the performance therein of a cer- 

 tain amount of manual work. Accordingly 

 we find exhibited by the French minister of 

 public instruction the authorized collections 

 of objects and apparatus used in this teaching, 

 as well as models of simple and cheap appara- 

 tus such as could be fabricated by the pupils 

 themselves. The second law has called into 

 existence the w ficole normale de travail ma- 

 nuel,' a school probably unique, in which the 

 whole instruction is gratuitous, admission be- 

 ing by competitive examination ; and its course 

 comprises the systematic teaching of carpen- 

 try, the use of the lathe, the chemical and 

 physical laboratory, the smith's forge, and the 

 engineer's shop. The handicraft work of pu- 

 pils in many of the French primary schools, 

 as well as in several technical schools, is very 

 remarkable; while in the department of agri- 

 cultural industry, the work of schools at Lille,, 



