FRANCE.
99
in the new direction which taste lias taken. For tliis they possess
iuherited advantages. But it is still a question of tlie future as to
how far tke reforms in matters of education ean bo accomplished.
The iuxury of the uppar classes in France during and after the
epoch of the Baroque style kept French industry in a flourishing
condition, and aided its diffusion all over the vvorld. Lncrative
occupation called forth nuraerous industrial sehools in which the
French artisan gained that technical routine which marks French
industry even to-day. Every thing done for art-industrial drawing
by the governmcut, by the eommunes, or by individual manufac-
turers, was done, as already remarked, not so mueli for the pur-
pose of purifying taste, as with a view to increasing wealth, and
keeping business in a flourishing condition. All the world, indeed,
believe 1 to be beautiful, andadmired, whatever came from France.
Thus, although it is left to other nations to lead form back to
law from caprice, France still has the advantage of a legion of
tcchnically well-trained workmen, made over to her by her past,
who can be used to good purpose in the reform of her art-industry,
while in other countries such workmen will first liave to be educated.
The special Industrial Schools arose in obedience to local wants,
and, in the provinces, are mostly of a purely local character; in
Paris the larger sehools are so organized as to serve more general
interests. Besides the higher Art-Schools, the citv at piesent has
forty Public Drawing-Schools, which are sustained partly by the
commune, partly by the government, or by private individuals.
All the Municipal Schools, furthermore, have evening classes, in
which apprentices and adults are taught free of Charge. I he
greater number of these evening-classes were opened as late as
1864 ; and the attendance in the year 1869 had risen from twelve
hundred to fonr thousand; after the war it decreased again to
two thousand. The attention which the commune of Paris has
latelv bestowed npon the Industrial Improvement Schools is best
shovvn by the increase in the amount expended upon them, which,
from thirty thousand francs shortly after the year 1850, has now
reached the suni of three hundred and fifty thousand fiancs.
The best of the drawing-schools at present to be found in
1 What Paria does for Art. — The following interesting remarks are taken
from an artiele by R. v. Eitelberger on “The Cultivation of Art by tlie State,”