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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 85

Foreign Technical Schools

Foreign Technical Schools.

To meet this state of things abroad, foreign countries established technical schools zerland and the polytechnic schools of Germany and Swit-becoming teachers and men of science to England to prepare themselves for Technical high schools exist in nearly every continental state and are the recognized channel for the instruction of those who are inteuded to become the technical director of the instruction of those who are inteuded to become the tech-however been and Many of the technical chemists have, however, been and are being trained in the German universities. Your commissioners believe that the success which has attended the foundation of extensive manufacturing establishment, engineering shpos, and other works on the continent could not have been achieved to its full extent in the face of many retarding influences, had it page 39 not been for the system of high technical instruction in these schools, for the facilities for carrying on original scientific investigation, and for the general appreciation of the value of that instruction and of original research which is felt in those countries.

With the exception of the Ecole Centrale of Paris, all these schools have been created and are maintained almost entirely at the expense of the several states, the fees of the students being so low as to constitute only a very small proportion of the total income. The buildings are palatial, the laboratories and museums are costly and extensive, and the staff of professors, who are well paid according to the continental standard, is so numerous as to admit of the utmost subdivision of the subjects taught. In Germany, as we have stated in a previous part of our report, the attendance at some of the polytechnic schools has lately fallen off, chiefly because the supply of technically trained persons is in excess of the present demand: certainly not because it is held that the training of the school can be dispensed with. The numerous young Germans and Swiss who are glad to find employment in our own manufactories have almost without exception been educated in one or other of the continental polytechnic schools.

Your commissioners cannot repeat too often that they have been impressed with the general intelligence and technical knowledge of the masters and managers of industrial establishments on the continent. They have found that these persons as a rule possess a sound knowledge of the sciences upon which their industry depends. They are familiar with every new scientific discovery of importance and appreciate its applicability to their special industry. They adopt not only the inventions and improvements made in their own country, but also those of the world at large, thanks to their knowledge of foreign languages and of the conditions of manufacture prevalent elsewhere.

The creation abroad of technical schools for boys intending to become foremen is of much more recent date than that of the polytechnic schools. To this statement the foundation during the First Empire of the three French Écoles des Arts et Metiers, at Chalons, Aix, and Angers, is only an apparent exception, because they simply vegetated until their reorganization within the last twenty-five or thirty years. Mining schools were, however, established in Prussia in the last century and in Franco about 1817. Among the examples of schools for foremen are those of Winterthur in Switzerland, Chemnitz in Saxony, and Komotau in the Austrian dominions, principally for engineers, and the École des Mines at St. Étienne, the latter more especially for mining and metallurgy. The theoretical instruction in these schools is similar in character but inferior in degree to that of the great polytechnic schools. On the other hand considerable attention is devoted in these schools to practical instruction in laboratories and workshops, which is not the case in the polytechnic schools. In Prussia, as will be seen from the ministerial report found in the appendix, a beginning has been made in the establishment of such secondary technical schools, but, in the words of the report, "its execution will be tedious and costly." In Bavaria the Industrie-Schulen, which are technical schools of a grade inferior to the polytechnic school, give both theoretical and practical instruction, the latter in some cases highly specialized, in preparation either for direct entrance on an industrial career or for further study in the polytechnic school. In France technical schools of a somewhat lower type are being established all over the country. The one at Rheims, previously described, is an excellent example of these schools. The boys from the Rheims school either enter the École des Arts et Métiers at Châlons or go into manufactories or into business, in each case with a fair knowledge of theory and manipulation, as mechanics or as chemists.

It is important to bear in mind that the French schools of the type of that at Rheims, though virtually advanced schools, now rank as superior elementary schools, to which the pupils are consequently entitled to claim admission without the payment of any fees.

Up to the present time, however, although a few foremen have received some theoretical instruction in schools of this kind, foreign foremen have not generally been technically instructed, but, as in England, are men who, by dint of steadiness, intelligence, and aptitude for command and organization, have raised themselves from the position of ordinary workmen.

The continental weaving schools may, on the whole, so far as their influence on trade is concerned, be ranked in the first and second categories; that is to say, they are attended by those who propose to become merchants, manufacturers, managers, or foremen. They are held in the highest estimation by some of the most intelligent and successful continental manufacturers; of this there can be no better proof than the erection, in substitution for the one already existing, of the splendid new weaving schools at Crefeld, probably the most flourishing centre of the general silk trade, at the joint expense of the state, the locality, and the commercial body. Weaving schools for workmen, like the evening and Sunday school of Chemnitz, which must not be confounded with the superior weaving school of that town, are poorly attended, page 40 and can have had no sensible influence on the progress of textile manufactures. But there are in many places lectures on weaving and pattern designing largely attended by workmen.

The French and German schools for miners, and the one which has been quite recently founded in Westphalia for workers in iron and steel, differ from the preceding schools for foremen inasmuch as they are reserved for the theoretical instruction of men who, having already worked practically at their trades, have distinguished themselves by superior intelligence and good conduct. Most of the German schools of this kind are founded or maintained by the manufacturers, and will, we feel confident, repay the trades which have had 'the foresight and public spirit to create them, by training young men to become foremen and leading hands, willing and able to carry out with intelligence the instructions of their superior officers.