FRANCE. 
With no nation has drawing, as such, played a more important 
part, for upwards of a Century, than with tke French. In truth, 
it might be said, that their wealth is owing principally to tlieir 
drawing-schools, whick are the mainstays of their industry, even 
to-day. We would liave to go far back into the past did we wish to 
seek for the causes which liave enabled the French to raise them- 
selves to the mastery of the world in the departments of art and of 
art-industry, and to.maintain themselves as the recognized leaders 
of taste down to the very present. The. first impulse towards the 
emancipation from blind Submission, on the part of other nations, 
was given by the contests at the World’s Fairs; and, under the 
leadership of art-science, a campaign was opened against the 
weaknesses and the defects of established French custom. 
England energetically took the lead; Austria and Germany fol- 
lowed, the latter, however, only in part. Thauks to the Museums 
and Art Schools, the reform, which took its rise at the London 
Exhibition of 1851, has advanced victoriously tlius far, and has 
produced a change of forms, even in France. But with the French 
kighly-gifted artistically as they arc, and with past successes 
upon which they can justly look with pride — the inherited tradi- 
tions are too strongly rooted to make a rapid revolution possible. 
It cannot be gainsaid that all efforts in the direction of art, 
although they arise unconsciously in every civilized nation, can be 
superintended, directed, and fostered much more readily to-day 
than in former times. This is first of all owing to the fact, that, as 
a result of the great activity displayed in the field of art-scientific 
research, the classics of the past have been put at our disposal, 
and can be used as a means for the education of taste by being 
presented to the people in collections. But besides tliese we have