The normal school has rendered immense service to the country: it has given us our best instructors; it has raised, to a considerable extent, the love of popular instruction; thanks to it, above all, should M. Charles Dupin trace out again the intellectual map of France, we shall behold the black spot disappear by which the illustrious statistician had stigmatized the department of Tarn. Since 1833 the normal school has produced 174 instructors; of these 120 are communal teachers, and 9 are about to become so; I is assistant master in the normal school; 3 are private instructors; 27 have left the profession; 14 have died in the exercise of their duties; total 174 who have obtained their brevet on leaving the school. The teachers who have come from the normal school are infinitely superior to their colleagues. They are superior by their capacity-by their faithful observances of rules-and, almost always, by their zeal, and by their conduct towards the local authorities and the heads of families. In the course of my inspections, I have been constantly struck with the marked difference which exists between the teachers who have been educated at a normal school and those who have not been in any special way prepared for the duties of instruction. People partake of my convictions, in this respect; and normal students are always chosen, in preference to other candidates, by local committees and municipal councils. Normal School for Females.-The opinion which I have formerly expressed of the importance which I attach to the good education of girls, will, I trust, be sufficient to make you appreciate the strong desire which I have for the continuance of exhibitions for female candidates. The normal school is in excellent condition, and the results obtained are satisfactory. At the last examination, out of 13 who presented themselves, 3 were breveted with the numbers 2, 4, and 6. Such is a faithful and impartial account of the state of primary instruction in the department of Tarn. I have endeavored to give, by figures obtained from authentic sources, the results due to the law of 28th June, 1833, and at the same time to establish the starting-point of the law of 15th March, 1850; so that it may be easy, at a later period, to estimate the benefits which the department may have derived from it. SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTIONS OF SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. In addition to the regular institutions for primary, secondary, and superior instruction, which belong to the supervision of the Minister of Public Instruction, there are a number of schools of the class preparatory for the pursuits of life, which are assigned by law to other departments of the government. The Polytechnic School, the Military School of St. Cyr, and the Military College of Fleche, are assigned to the Minister of War; the School of Roads and Bridges, the two Schools of Mines, one at Paris and the other at St. Etienne, to the Minister of Public Works; the Model Farm Schools, the District Schools of Agriculture, and the National Agronomic Institute at Versailles, the School of Arts and Manufactures at Paris, Châlons, Angers, and Aix, to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce; the Naval Schools at Brest and L'Orient, to the Minister of the Marine; the Conservatory of Arts and Manufactures, and of Music, to the Minister of the Interior. These schools properly belong to the division of superior instruction, which is not embraced, except in a general view, in the plan of this Report, but as they are intended to complete the course of studies begun in the higher schools and academies of our systems of public instruction, and as they furnish useful hints, both as to studies and their applications, for similar institutions in this country, whether public or private, an account of several of the most important of this class, will be given. France is better supplied with schools of special instruction and voluntary and incorporated societies for the promotion of literature, science, and the arts, as well as with various forms of active philanthrophy, than any other country in Europe. The stimulus given to the universal mind of France, by the political revolutions which have changed the whole face of modern society, while it has made elementary education more general and active, has also given progress to higher studies, and great scientific undertakings. In addition to 36 learned societies in Paris, recognized and aided by governmental grants-besides a multitude of others unchartered and but little known either to one another, or the public--there were in 1851, in the departments of France 189 learned societies, besides twelve archeological commissions, seventy-eight agricultural associations, and seven hundred commercial societies, to promote the application of science to industry. These associations generally feel the impulse described by Lamartine in his address to his colleagues of the Academy of Literature and Science at Maçon: "You have felt, gentlemen, that knowledge is yours only on the condition that you diffuse it; and to raise the low, is to elevate the high. Around you all is progressing. Will you stand alone? Will you suffer yourselves to be overtaken? No; men of leisure or rather workmen-workmen of thought and science, it is for us to be the first to participate in the movement. In a state of civilization where intelligence gives power, rank is maintained only by the maintenance of moral superiority; when the intellectual order is deranged, disorder is not far off." There were in 1850, one hundred and sixty-six towns in France, in which there were public libraries, containing 5,510,295 volumes; of these libraries, one hundred and nine contained over 10,000 volumes each. The following summary of the grants comprised in the French Budget of 1847, as voted by the chambers, exhibits the comprehensive character of the aid extended by the government to educational, literary, scientific, and artistic purposes. A.--In the Department of Public Instruction. I. Central Administration and to aid institutions of special instruction, such as schools for idiots, the blind deaf mutes, &c.,. . $112,000 II. University of France-including schools of primary, sec- 2,800,000 600,000 450,000 100.000 B.--In the Department of the Interior. Schools of design, and the fine arts, C.—In the Department of Public Works. $4,062,000 The above sum is exclusive of special grants in aid of schools of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, or of charitable institutions in which agricultural and mechanical instruction was given, or of expenditures for the galleries of the Louvre, Luxembourg, and Versailles; amounting to at least another million. The following survey of the Industrial Instruction of France is abridged from an article in the Revue des deux mondes, for 1851, by A. Amphori, entitled, "The intellectual movement among the working classes." In the scheme of institutions devoted to this special instruction, the first rank belong to the conservatory of arts and trades at Paris. This great establishment performs a twofold duty; it collects models, designs or descriptions of machines, instruments, apparatus, and mechanical tools, and gives public lessons upon the mathematical and physical sciences as applied in the arts. The first idea of the conservatory was conceived in the reign of Louis XVI., by a famous mechanic, who seemed to have even drawn from the very sources of life, wherewith to gift his marvellous mechanisms. The idea of Vaucanson, legislated upon in the year III. of (1794,) the revolutionary era, was not realized until the year VI. (1796.) Since that time, the conservatory has followed the developments of the national industry; and its methods of action have been increased in number, with reference to its double purpose. It now includes four departments; the collections of machines, &c., a technological library, a department for higher instruction, and a small practical elementary school.* The galleries filled with precious material treasures, form what may be called the archives of the industrial arts. These collections are annually increased, and now fill thirteen galleries. The department of higher instruction was established about the commencement of the restoration. Up to 1817, there had been at the conservatory only a designer and three demonstrators, who gave advice and explanations to those who come to ask for them. These accommodations, however, remained nearly useless to the public. The regular courses were of more value, as also were those commenced in 1819, upon geometry applied to the arts, industrial chemistry, and industrial economy. Besides these three chairs, others were erected, under the government of July, of industrial mechanics, descriptive geometry, chemistry applied to the arts, industrial legislation, agriculture, and the ceramic arts. The situation of the institution in the midst of a populous neighborhood, furnishes to its lectures an auditory composed chiefly of working men. It is the merit of these lectures, that they are clear, simple, intelligible to all. and susceptible of immediate practical application. Theory is explained in close contact with practice. The workmen, eager to learn, crowd to these lessons; they hasten thither from the workshops every evening. A most favorable indication is given by the admirable order which reigns throughout this audience in blouses, bestowed in an immense amphitheater, and often overcrowded. Every one is silent and attentive. There is no instance there of the indecorums so frequent in institutions giving a higher order of instruction. The library of the conservatory of arts and trades is appropriated to the members of the institution. It is distinguished by a fine collection of French and foreign scientific works; and contains much which may afford valuable information to practical men in the various branches of industrial art. The lower school, founded under the empire, may be regarded as a primary school of explained labor, (industrie raisonnée.) Its three courses, of descriptive and elementary geometry, of mechanical and architectural design, and of industrial design, are attended by from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pupils. The conservatory of arts and trades, as at present constituted, contains very valuable elements of industrial instruction. Workmen, foremen, chiefs of establishments, children of mechanics and laborers, come thither to obtain an instruction which shall enlighten their career of labor. The three schools of arts and trades, at Châlons, Angers, and Aix, dependent, like the conservatory, directly upon the State, are devoted more especially to practical instruction. The eldest, that at Châlons, established for a little while at Compiègne, was erected by a decree of the consular government of the year XI. The second, created in 1811, was placed by the imperial government at Beaupréau, in the middle of La Vendée, to become a new center of activity for that ignorant neighborhood. The third dates only from 1843. The schools of arts and trades are intended to train skillful workmen. Each of them is divided into four workshops; the blacksmiths', the foundry, the finishers', and the carpenters'. To the three establishments of Châlons, Angers, and Aix, are appropriated for 1851, $200,200; but deduct from this the sums received by paying scholars, and from the sale of articles manufactured, and the net expense to the treasury amounts only to about $120,000. Official estimates show that more than half the pupils leaving go into business, as finishers, founders, blacksmiths, machinists, or carpenters. And numbers of the others are employed in the department of roads and bridges, as overseers or conductors; draftsmen in machine shops, or as architects. The schools of arts and bridges also contribute a remarkably large proportion of the machinists, &c., for the public steamers. Thus, within the last seven years, have been employed more than a hundred graduates of these schools, as foremen or firemen. As to the proportions of theory and practice in the instruction, it is enough to say that *The appropriation to the conservatory in 1861, was 830,000; $18,168 for salaries, and the remainder for other purposes. the pupils pass seven hours and a half daily in the workshops, and only five hours and a half daily in classes and in the apartments for design. The professors are rigorously obliged, in their lessons, to take the most usual point of view; that from which the pupil can best see how to use the knowledge he acquires. Since the vote was substituted for ministerial selection of professors, two years since, the courses of instruction have been so arranged as to drop out those theoretical gentlemen who are unable to do what they teach. The principal advantage of these schools is not, in our opinion, the direct influence which they exert upon the national industry. The two hundred and fifty pupils or thereabout who leave them every year, are scarcely the thousandth part of the workmen who grow up in France during the same time; but the schools show a style of instruction which serves as a model for comparison. The pupils carry into private workshops theoretical knowledge which they could not acquire there, and which is most useful in the explanation of practical labor. Although yet imperfect workmen, they improve more rapidly than the others, and sooner become excellent foremen. Although we know that among some foreign nations, habits supply the place of institutions, among us, these schools will stimulate a little our untoward habits. They have another destination, of higher importance; they may become seminaries of professors for the industrial instruction which the country waits to see organized, and for which we are now endeavoring to prepare a way. Once improved by the practical training of the private workshops and manufactories, the best pupils of these schools will become most useful in the dovelopment of this special instruction; which needs a body of instructors adapted to its peculiar needs. An institution established at Paris, the central school of arts and manufactures, also helps the accomplishment of this same work. The similar nature of its instructions alone justifies the assistance granted it by government, which confers upon it a sort of public character. During an existence of twenty years, the central school has fully justified the expectations of its founders, it is devoted to the education of civil engineers, directors of machine-shops, and chiefs of manufactories. Besides the four principal courses studied, the mechanic arts, the chemical arts, metullurgy and architecture, it instructs its pupils in all the pursuits of industrial labor. Since chemistry has left laboratories to enter workshops and to perfect there the results of manufacturing processes; since the physical world has been searched for the means of employing heat and steam, which have become such powerful agents of production, industry has ceased to be abandoned to empiricism. Every manufacture has asked from science methods quicker, surer, and more economical. The central school satisfies this demand. By physical and chemical study, it prepares pupils expressly for the direction of industrial labor, just as the polytechnic school, by the study of mathematical science, becomes a seminary for the department of public works, and for some other special professions. Under these institutions, which have a general character, may be ranked those institutions which we will term local. These may be divided, in respect to their destination, into two great classes; one, consisting of those whose design is to instruct in the applications of some one science to the industrial arts; and the other, of those which confine their instruction to the practice of an art or trade; or to the collaterial knowledge necessary to exercise it. To estimate the actual influence of both, they must be considered in the place where they exist. In the northern section, where manfacturing industry reigns supreme, we see only the arts of design as applied to arts and trades, gratuitously taught. The schools of design established in most of the important towns, are generally of recent creation. The oldest date from the restoration or from the empire, except that three or four, have an earlier origin. For instance, the school of Arras, where some instruction is given, which relates partly to industrial occupations, was founded by the states-general of Artois, in 1775; that of St. Omer in 1780, and that of Calais in 1787. These institutions are every where much valued among the working classes. Some of them contain classes of as many as a hundred and fifty pupils. Some of them are particularly for children, but most for adults. The State allows the central school an annual sum of $6,000, which is distributed to can. didates (for prizes) by a vote. |
