FRANCE. 
97 
in which drawing ought to be practiced rather as an element of 
general than of special education. 
This demand, however, has not been satisfied by the study of 
drawing, as tauglit in the schools of France up to the present; for 
even in the Primary Schools special aims are generally keptin view, 
and drawing is simply cultivated for the practical purposes of in- 
dustry. As little attention as in other States has, so far, been paicL 
in France to general art-education, i.e., to educating the people to a 
comprehension of art; and the French Lycea, as Latin Schools, are 
quite as much strangers to it as are those of German}’ and of. 
Austria. The official instructions for drawing at the Lycea (De 
partment of the Seine) do not even intimate that the subject is 
looked upon in this light; for, besides flxing the hours (one to two 
per week), they conflne themselves to prescribing the regulations 
to be adhered to in teaching. But these regulations receive very 
little attention, being of a nature which makes it next to impossible 
to carry them out. Düring the first two years, for instance, with 
one hour weekly, the study of the Ornament is to be completed ; in 
the two following (two hours weekly) the human figure and per 
spective are to be taught; and so on, leaving to the last classes 
(two hours weekly) “ figures in light and shade from casts.” 
The specimens by pupils in this category only served to show 
that the teachers trcat the subject aecording to their own indi 
vidual fancy. and attach but little importance to it. Some of the 
institutions had again committed the mistake of sending magnifi- 
cent show-pieces, with the names of the pupils attached (Nimes 
for example), which can only be passed by in silence. The same 
error was made by many of the Communal Schools (and especially 
of the Department of the Seine) in respect to linear drawing; 
unless, indeed, these children are prodigies, who, at the age of 
twelve years, are capable of producing a locomotive in all sec- 
tions and all projections, or eomplicated architectures in perspec 
tive, with an exactness, and a manual skill, such as was shown in 
the work which some of the schools did not shrink from offering 
to the admiration of specialists. 
The higher courses of the “ Ecoles communales (laiques) ” of 
Paris exhibited very creditable specimens; Ornament, lightly 
shaded in crayon, is mostly practiced after the manner already 
1