-Arago, member of the Institute,-Berthier, chief engineer of mines, member of the Institute,-Alex. Brongniart, director of the royal manufactory of porcelain, member of the Institute,-D'Arcet, member of the Institute,-viscount Héricourt de Thury, director of works at Paris, counsellor of state, member of the Institute,-baron Heron de Villefosse, district inspector of the mines, counsellor of state, member of the Institute,-Jomard, member of the Institute,-Laffitte, deputy,-Molard, senior, member of the Institute,-Odier, deputy, Payen, chemical manufacturer,-Casimir Périer, deputy,-baron Poisson, member of the Institute,-baron Ternaux, deputy,-baron Thénard, member of the Institute and deputy.

PROFESSORS.

Descriptive Geometry.-M. Olivier, founder, former pupil of the polytechnic school, past officer of artillery, ex-professor of the school of application at Metz.

Natural Philosophy.-M. Péclet, founder, former pupil of the normal school, master of conferences at the preparatory school, ex-professor of Natural Philosophy at Marseilles, &c.

Practical Mechanics.-M. Bénoit, founder, former pupil of the polytechnic school, ex-professor at the school of military engineers, [étatmajor] civil engineer.

General Chemistry and Chemical Arts.-M. Dumas, founder, tutor at the polytechnic school, professor at the Atheneum.

Course of Analytical Chemistry.-M. Bussy, former pupil of the polytechnic school, professor at the school of pharmacy.

Practical Natural History.-M. Ad. Brongniart, doctor of medicine, censor of the medical faculty of Paris.

Working of Mines.-M. Bineau, former pupil of the polytechnic school, engineer of mines.

Art of Building.-M. Goublier, architect of public works, recording and corresponding secretary of the council of civil edifices, &c.

Political Economy and Statistics.-M. H. Guilleminot, advocate at the royal court of Paris.

Design.-M. Leblanc, professor of design to the royal conservatory of arts and trades.

ADJUNCT PROFESSORS.

Descriptive Geometry.-M.

Natural Philosophy.-M. Colladon.
Mechanics.-M. Didiez.

Chemistry, Chemical Arts, and Analytic Chemistry.-M. Bergouhni

oux.

I. General considerations upon the design of the School. All men who reflect upon the great interests of the country, cannot look without fear upon the future prospects of French industry. For some years, the greatest part of the enterprises of industry have experienced serious obstacles; and the public, which in reality alone maintains them, and can alone maintain them, judges of their progress from their results. Since the latter are for the time being unproductive, many men, too little enlightened in regard to the nature of manufacturing speculations, without going back to the cause of these checks, hasten to withdraw from industry, even with great losses, the capital which they had invested in it; and most frequently they withdraw or refuse

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them at the very moment when they are on the point of reaching the end they wished to attain.

Persuaded that hazard has not had an unimportant share in the events which have influenced the march of industry in a manner much to be regretted, the founders of the new School have wished to apply the remedy at the very root of the evil.

An attentive comparison has proved to them, that the superiority in industry of England was due to the division of labour and to the specific perfection of each element of industry in the country. In order to compete with her, it is therefore necessary to have, like her, highly experienced workmen, skilful overseers, directors of establishments still more skilful, and civil engineers, who, devoting themselves to one particular kind of construction of industry may sound all its practical difficulties.

These engineers, free, without any dependence upon government, and specially devoted to one or more branches of industry, are, in relation to each of them, what architects are in France in relation to building operations; they give counsel, and direct the execution of their plans. It is to the civil engineers that England owes almost all the discoveries and improvements which have been made in practical industry; since this profession is in England as honorable as it is lucrative. In France, It is easy, nevertheless, to see of what civil engineers are still few. importance to industry, men of extensive theoretical and practical instruction would be, exclusively occupied with a few branches of industry, whose fortune and consideration should depend solely upon their labours. Their importance would be so much the greater, as the engineers of the government would probably become, what they are in England, inspectors of works directed by civil engineers.

But if the most pressing want of France, that to which public attention is at present most directed, appears to be the creation of civil engineers, it is nevertheless to be feared that a school exclusively devoted to them cannot support itself without the assistance of the government, on account of the very considerable expenses which it requires. At all times France will feel how important it is to her to see engineers formed, who will render possible the ameliorations called for in many of the public services, engineers whose knowledge will spare the operatists the errors which have so often brought on the ruin of their establishments, and who will inspire capitalists with the confidence necessary to insure their perseverance.

But we must repeat it, a school which should be solely designed to create civil engineers, could not at present support itself. Fortunately, the instruction which it is designed to spread, is equally suitable to other men, whom we have thought proper to invite to profit by it.

These are, directors of establishments and capitalists; as well as young men who are designed for instruction in the practical sciences. For, in order that industry may develope itself in France, it is necessary that the practical studies should enter into our manners; and that to such a degree, that each capitalist may find, either in himself or around him, useful counsel relative to the employment of his capital.

The moment appears favorable; since, for some years, the importance of the study of the sciences has been generally appreciated, and if any doubts may still arise upon the various advantages which the country or individuals may derive from this study, they would be removed from

the high reputation which the polytechnic school has acquired, and by the happy influence which this fine establishment exercises over the public works. These doubts ought still to cease, even if one chose to set the polytechnic school aside; for then, it would be sufficient to examine the actual direction of studies among the numerous young men whom a long and happy peace leaves free in their tastes and in their plans for the future. These young men have a remarkable tendency towards the study of the positive sciences, of which they feel the need in their actual or their future occupations.

But in the study of the sciences, as in all other studies, distinctions are to be established. With certain men, the search of truth is a lively passion, to which all their existence is consecrated, to which all their interests are sacrificed. These men, little numerous, study the sciences for their own sake. They love to sound their depths, to conquer, or at least to measure their difficulties; and for them, instruction could never be sufficiently detailed, nor sufficiently abstract. The mass of young men, on the contrary, seek in the study of the sciences a complement of education, without which one finds himself at the present day out of place in society. They wish in consequence an instruction rapid, clear, and concise. They seek opinions ready made; they fear difficulties, because they have not the time to investigate and conquer them. They shun details, because their attention is sustained neither by their direct interests, nor by a natural disposition of mind. Between these two classes, so distinct, is found a third much more considerable than the two first, for whom the teaching of the sciences ought still to be modified. This is the class of men destined by their condition to make a daily application of scientific conceptions.

These ought to be considered as having in view only the interest of their future position. The sciences are for them instruments, which ought to be made of easy and sure application. In regard to them, every thing in scientific instruction ought to be subordinate to the end which they have in view: general ideas ought to be arranged like facts in their minds, without the circuitousness of uncertain theories or of complicated details. The phenomena which attach themselves to applications ought on the contrary to be studied with depth in their theoretical relations, and with detail in a practical point of view. Inthis manner each deriving a true and simple idea of the subject as a whole, the pupils will be initiated into the chances of practice, the accidents which it brings, and the remedies which experience has made known, or which theory points out, against a crowd of difficulties, minute, but nevertheless so important.

There are then three very distinct divisions for instruction. It would be easy to show how all the establishments arrange themselves under one of them; but this general discussion would here be misplaced and useless. We wish to form a school of application; by consequence, a school directed in the sense of the third class. This then is the only one which ought to fix our attention.

We are about to show under what relations the new school may be useful to the country, and at the same time from what motives its creation has seemed to us necessary.

Young men find in France, at leaving the colleges, special schools for law, medicine, theology; civil, military, and maritime craft, the fine arts, and even commerce.

But those who are destined to practical industry no where find the instruction suited to them.

In fact, the establishments. of practical instruction which exist in France, are, the conservatory of arts and trades, the schools of Chalons and Angers, and the schools of workmen established recently by government in a great number of towns, at the request of M. Dupin.

The isolated courses of the conservatory cannot attain the end which we propose to ourselves in creating our school. It is evident, and no one at the present day denies it, that in the study of practical science, oral lessons are not sufficient. They ought to be accompanied by frequent examinations, by numerous experiments and manipulations, by graphic representations, by solutions of problems, performed by the students under the eyes of the professors; and these various means of instruction ought to be combined among themselves in such manner as to form a complete system of teaching.

The schools of Chalons and Angers are designed only for certain particulars in mechanics.

Finally, the public courses of elementary geometry and mechanics, which happily are multiplied in these later times, are principally instituted in favour of the working classes.

It may then be advanced, that as yet there no where exists in France a complete instruction of the practical sciences, but it is no more than just to remark that this instruction could be organised only where the business people should be convinced that they all have need of the elements, well arranged among themselves, of geometry, natural philosophy, mechanics, chemistry, the art of building, statistics, and even of natural history. They ought to have this conviction now, for they see every day that the progress and discoveries of a particular industry are due to knowledges which seem to be wholly foreign to it.

The Central School of Arts and Manufactures is established in order to satisfy this want, warmly felt by French industry, of a complete instruction in the practical sciences.

This institution has then for its object to propagate the knowledge of geometry, natural philosophy, mechanics, chemistry, natural history, and statistics; these sciences being considered in their application to the arts of industry.

Its special end is to form directors of establishments, heads of manufactories, civil engineers, constructors, and besides to give to all those who might wish to take part in the speculations of industry the instruction which is necessary to them, whether to appreciate their value or to superintend their progress.

Independently of the special end, of which we have just spoken, young men, whatever may be their future direction, will find in the School a positive education, which will inspire them with a taste for labour, because they will see that labour guided by science is fruitful in useful results.

Thus the instruction which young men will receive at the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, will offer to those, who shall distinguish themselves, a new career, as honorable as it is lucrative; to those who are to direct establishments, an indispensable instruction, and to all, a complement to a college education, in harmony with the spirit of our institutions, and of which the importance will be more and more felt, in proportion as French industry shall receive new developements, and its political influence be better appreciated.

In the organization of the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, the ancient polytechnic school has been taken as a model, adopting always the modifications required by the nature of the end which it is desired to attain. Thus, all that concerns the too elevated mathematical theories has been set aside from the instruction, experience having shown that these theories are rarely useful in application, and that, where this is not the case, the simple enunciation of the results obtained by a transcendent analysis may be sufficient.

Hence, supposing the duration of the studies to remain the same, the students will be able to give much more time to graphic works, experiments and manipulations, and to receive an instruction more fully developed upon the various applications of the sciences to the industrious arts. This disposition allows besides of the introduction of many important improvements in the system of studies; first, by the creation of numerous meetings, which have for their end to excite in the pupils the spirit of invention so necessary in the practice of the arts, directing it towards a useful end, and carefully correcting the dangerous wanderings of an imagination too lively and too mobile; secondly, by causing the pupils to execute at least four hundred labelled sketches of folio size, representing machines, plans, and details of every description, taken with care from establishments in operation, or from models of abandoned machines, and in fine from the studies of construction, &c. They will thus acquire the knowledge of a multitude of facts, which will serve as bases to their inventionary compositions; thirdly, by laying before the meetings complete plans of establishments, in the course and at the end of the second year of studies, which shall have for their object to teach the pupils to study with care the varieties which should enter into the creation of a branch of industry, to compare them, and to combine them in the manner most advantageous according to localities.

A gold medal will be decreed to each of the three best plans of the last meeting, and the School will publish them at its own expense.

The founders have sought to facilitate the access to the School to all classes of society, and in particular to young men who might wish to devote themselves to teaching, by the creation of three half-pays, by the appointments allowed to the heads of studies, and by the temporary places of tutors given to the pupils who shall distinguish themselves in their studies.

All the courses of the School form in reality only one same and single course, because it is in vain to attempt to establish limits to confine the attention of the pupils to such or such a point, to circumscribe their education in plans more or less suitable to their respective destination. For us, practical science is one, and every practitioner ought to know it in its fulness, under penalty of being inferior to the competitor who shall present himself better armed than he in the lists. For us, too, practical science is composed of elements very clearly determined; for it is sufficient to establish that industry always exercises itself upon given materials, with the design of augmenting their value, and by having regard to certain geographical and social conditions, in order to point out with precision what are the sciences necessary to the practitioner.

Geometry teaches him the relations of bodies among themselves; natural philosophy teaches him to put them in motion; mechanics