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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 85

Education of Artisans Abroad

Education of Artisans Abroad.

In two every respects, however, the education of a certain proportion of persons employed in industry abroad is superior to that of English workmen: first, as regards the systematic instruction in drawing given to adult artisans, more especially in France, Belgium, and Italy; and, secondly, as to the general diffusion of elementary education in Switzerland and Germany. In some parts of these latter countries great attention is paid to drawing in the elementary school. In France, too (where elementary education has hitherto by no means been so general as in the two former countries), in the case of those workmen who have had the benefit of regular elementary school training, more attention has been paid to elementary drawing than is the case in this country. There are also in all large towns in France, and to a more limited extent in other countries, numerous evening "conferences" and "cours" on almost every subject of interest in art, asience, and literature which workmen have the opportunity of attending, as they are entirely gratuitous. Among these the most remarkable are the lectures given by eminent men at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers of Paris. Most of these are of the nature of lectures rather than of practical instruction. There are, however, in many places excellent and numerously attended evening and Sunday technical classes, more especially in Belgium and Austria, and there can be no doubt that the instruction thus given is already exerting a considerable influence on the capacity and intelligence of the workmen, and that this influence will be increasingly felt in the future.

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In the evening schools of North Germany (Forthildungsschulen) the studies of the ordinary elementary school are continued, the further instruction being confined mainly to book-keeping and rudimentary mathematics, with some notions of natural philosophy. In the evening schools of the same class in South Germany the instruction given is of a more technical character than in the North.

For instruction in drawing, as applied mainly to decorative work in Franco, and to both constructive and decorative work in Belgium, the opportunities are excellent. The crowded schools of drawing, modelling, carving, and painting, maintained at the expense of the municipalities of Paris, Lyons, Brussels, and other cities—absolutely gratuitous and open to all comers, well lighted, furnished with the best models, and Under the care of teachers full of enthusiasm—stimulate those manufactures and crafts in which the line arts play a prominent part to a degree winch is without parallel in this country. Instruction in art applied to industry and decoration is now pursued with energy in South Germany and in several of the northern Italian towns, and the influence of this instruction on the employment of the people is becoming very conspicuous in those countries. The government schools of applied art in France, under the decree of 1881, of which the Limoges Decorative Arts School is the earliest example, and which, like the abovementioned schools, are gratuitous, should be mentioned in this connection. * * *