n6 Notices of Books. [January, 
almost forced to conclude that an efficient patent-law goes very 
far to countervail the effects of a deficient system of secondary 
education ? And, if this is the facft, should not our own patent- 
laws be amended in a totally different direction from that repeat- 
edly proposed by the present Lord Chancellor ? 
The accounts given in this pamphlet of the various industrial 
schools — using the term in its natural sense — on the European 
continent are exceedingly significant. We find that the Zurich 
Polytechnicum consists of about a hundred professors and as- 
sistants, and numbers nearly a thousand students. It has an 
astronomical observatory, a large chemical laboratory, labora- 
tories of research and special investigation, colledlions of models 
of engineering constructions, museums of natural history, ar- 
chitecture, &c., all extensive and rapidly growing. This 
important establishment is supported by a population of only 
three millions of people, and possessing probably less wealth 
than that of some single counties in England ! Its revenues 
consist of £12,500, paid by the Swiss nation and the canton of 
Zurich, and not much more than £2000 from students’ fees. If, 
therefore, the number of students is near a thousand, the average 
cost to each must be between £2 and £3 yearly ! The Commis- 
sioners remark that “ in this Institution a young man may 
acquire an education such as can be given him nowhere in this 
country (America).” Do we not now see some at least of the 
reasons why, in spite of great natural disadvantages, such as 
dear fuel and distance from the sea, Switzerland figures so 
honourably at the Paris Exhibition ? 
The manner in which the Commissioners sum up their remarks 
on the German system of education is profoundly significant : — 
“ It is sufficiently evident that in Germany, even more than in 
France, the governing and the educated classes, instead of 
standing aloof from each other, and instead of forgetting — as is 
too generally the case in our own country — those great fadts and 
those imperative duties which every statesman (?) does and every 
citizen should recognise, have worked together for the common 
good, and have given Germany a vantage-ground in the universal 
struggle for existence and wealth which is likely in the future to 
enable that country for many years steadily to gain upon all 
competitors. It is now generally admitted that Germany is the 
best educated nation of the civilised world : there is danger that 
the United States may, with reason, be reckoned the worst.” 
We certainly should be the last to deny or doubt the value of the 
German educational system, which in many respedls we consider 
a model for the world ; but its industrial position is, nevertheless, 
not quite so assured. Did not an American paper, in summing 
up the results of the Philadelphia Exhibition, use the memorable 
words — “From all other nations we have learnt something; 
from Germany nothing”? Did not, on the same occasion, an 
eminent German professor preach to his countrymen a sermon 
