50 



INDUSTEIAL SCHOOLS. 



No feature of the Educational Systems of Grermany, Switzer- 

 land, Austria, Belgium, France and other European countries 

 is more striking to an American observer, than the large 

 number of Industrial Schools, specially designed to train ap- 

 prentices and make skilled workmen and competent foremen. 

 These schools are very numerous, and as various as the kinds of 

 industry pursued in each country or province. There has been 

 the greatest progress in manufactures in those countries where 

 these schools have been maintained longest and most liberally.- 

 Geneva has for many years maintained a Horological School, 

 and the Swiss watches have long been celebrated throughout 

 the world. Last summer I visited the new Horological Institute 

 then building in Geneva, a magnificent edifice to cost over 

 $200,000, and also witnessed the work of the school then in its old 

 quarters. The course of study and practice covers three years. 

 There were seven instructors, who are experts both in the 

 theory and practice. No one can graduate till he has proved 

 his skill, again and again, by making an entire watch of stand- 

 ard excellence. The patient training of these classes, or rather 

 of each individual member, in the minutest particulars, both in 

 theory and practice, and the criticism of defects in the work 

 done, illustrate the attention given to details in all Indu.strial 

 Schools. 



The same attention to minute details is seen in the Industrial 

 School at Lyons, France, to which the preeminence of that city 

 in the manufacture of silk is largely due. It has twelve pro- 

 fessors, and the course of study occupies three years. Here, 

 as in all Industrial Schools, a prominent study is drawing, 

 drawing ornaments, tinted drawings, and sketching plans of 

 machines from memory. Thorough instruction is given in 

 every detail relating to the manufacture of textile fabrics, espe- 

 cially of silks, the natural history of silk, treatment of the 

 silk worm and cocoons, spinning, throwing, weaving and testing 

 of silks ; sorting and cleaning ; winding, warping and beam- 

 ing ; changing of looms for weaving different styles; defects 

 in operations and their remedies ; decomposition of tissues ; 



