Education and Industry in France

Abstract

AN extremely interesting account of the rise and growth of industrial education in France appears in the Revue Généirale des Sciences, March 15, contributed by Prof. M. E. Bertrand, of the Ecole d'Arts-et-Métiers d'Angers. Whilst full of confidence in a military triumph, he is deeply concerned with the position,of French industry, especially from the point of view of the adequate scientific and technical training of all who are engaged in it, whether apprentices and workmen or foremen and directors, and urges that it is the imperative duty of the nation to ensure also a victory in the economic sphere. Much space is given to the measures taken from the earliest times for the satisfactory training of those engaged in industry, and the rise and progress of the craft guilds down to their decay on the birth of the factory system is interestingly portrayed. The advent of the Third Republic resulted in active measures for the establishment and support of different types of schools designed to secure the effective training of those destined for industry and commerce, and many excellent monotechnic schools were established, the fine work of which made a magnificent display at the Centennial Exhibition of 1900. Yet with all the variety of effort made for the due training of French youth, it would appear that out of 600,000 young people employed in industry and commerce from thirteen to eighteen years of age, only 30,000 frequent technical schools; whilst 65,000 beyond that age give a more or less assiduous attendance at evening adult courses, as compared with 500,000 under the same conditions in Germany; and where France spends seven million francs on this form of technical education, Germany spends thirty millions from Imperial sources alone. The grave moral danger attending this neglect of training is emphasised by the fact that there are 1,600,000 unemployed young people in France wandering about the public places exposed to serious temptations. Even though Germany is engaged in a devastating war, she is still thinking of the future, and is even now taking energetic measures to conserve her industries so as to secure and advance her economic interests on its conclusion. The article calls upon France to be up and doing, since delay is dangerous, and the economic industrial position of the nation is put in grave peril. A highly appreciative account is given of the educational provision made throughout Germany for the due training of all ranks engaged in productive industry, and much emphasis is laid upon the great value of the continuation schools, which ensure compulsorily the attendance, within the usual hours of employment, until eighteen years of age of all those who have left the day schools. The article contains much of the highest interest to English readers in the present crisis, since the conditions and the aims to be accomplished are much the same in the two allied nations.