THE whole institution is intended to fulfill a threefold purpose, as a school for the mechanic arts, manufactures, and commerce, as a conservatory of arts and manufactures, and as an institute for the promotion of national industry. The last named object is effected by public exhibitions, from time to time, of the products of manufactures, under the direction of the institute. For the better execution of this object, a spacious building is now erecting on the premises, adapted to the occasional display and permanent deposit of specimens of the mechanic arts. The collections which form the conservators of arts are also used for instruction in the school, and will be described in connection with it.

The whole institution is under the control of a director, who is responsible to the higher authorities of public instruction, and of trade and manufactures. The director is the general superintendent of the business of the institute and of the instruction, but does not teach. He regulates the admission of pupils and the discipline. The money concerns are under the charge of a treasurer, who is responsible to the director. The inferior officers are responsible to the same authority. The discipline of the scholastic department is simple but rigid, no pupil being allowed to remain connected with it whose deportment is not proper. The courses are gratuitous, except a small entrance fee, and this is considered as warranting prompt removal when the pupil does not perform the duties prescribed by the institution.

The department of instruction is composed of three schools, a technical, a commercial, and a "real school." The last named is a preparatory school for the two others, and may be entered as early as thirteen years of age. Its courses are of religious instruction, of German language, elementary mathematics, geography, history, natural history, elocution, calligraphy, and drawing, and are obligatory upon the pupils. Italian and French may be studied if the pupil desires it. As these courses lead in three years to the other departments of the institution, the candidates for admission are required to possess the elementary attainments necessary to their successful prosecution. There are five professors and four teachers connected with this school, which is superintended by the vice-director of the institute. The instructors rank by regulation with those in the gymnasia or classical schools of the empire. The course of instruction is not as comprehensive as that in the Prussian real schools, but is an adequate preparation for the next higher divisions, which supply in part these deficiencies.

The technical and commercial schools furnish special instruction according to the intended pursuits of the pupil, though he may, in fact, select the courses which he wishes to attend, not being limited as to the number or character of the branches. The director advises with the pupil, on admission, as to the studies most appropriate to be followed, if his intended calling is fixed, and he is not allowed to join the classes, the courses of which require preparation, without presenting a certificate from the school at which he has been instructed, or being examined, to ascertain his proficiency. In regard to other courses, there is no such restriction. The age for admission is sixteen years.

The instruction is given in the technical school by eight professors and two assistants; the professors lecturing, and in some of the courses, interrogating the pupils. Certain lectures are also gone over by the assistants with the classes. The courses which combine practice with teaching will be pointed out in enumerating the subjects of study. The division of these subjects, and the time devoted to them during the week, are as follows:

I. GENERAL CHEMISTRY, applied to the arts, five hours.

II. SPECIAL TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY, ten hours. This course gives a particular account of all the processes of the arts of which the principles were developed in the general lectures.

There is a special laboratory devoted to the course, where, under the superintendence of the professor or of his assistants, the pupils go through the processes on a small scale. Those who have a particular object in view, as dyeing, bleaching, printing upon stuffs, or the manufacture of chemical preparations or metallurgy, are directed in their investigations espe cially to the parts of chemistry which they will have to apply. Practice and theory are thus combined.

III. PHYSICS, with special reference to its applications, five hours.

IV. ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS, including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and mensuration, ten hours. This course is intended for those who have not passed through the real School.

V. HIGHER MATHEMATICS, five hours. There is a repetition by an assistant, also of five hours.

VI. MECHANICS, including the description and calculation of machines, five hours. This subject is founded upon a course of machines, considered as an application of descriptive geometry and drawing, superintended by an assistant.

VII. PRACTICAL GEOMETRY, including land and topographical surveying, levelling, &c., five hours. The lectures are accompanied by practice in the use of instruments in the field. VIII. CIVIL and HYDRAULIC ARCHITECTURE, ten hours. This includes a complete course of engineering, in its various branches. It is accompanied by exercises in drawing.

IX TECHNOLOGY, or a general discussion of arts and trades, five hours. The subjects which come under the head of special chemistry are omitted in the lectures of this division. X. The assistant professor of chemistry delivers an extra lecture, daily, on the methods of measuring SPECIFIC GRAVITIES, during part of the course.

XI. Elementary DRAWING for those who have not passed through the real school, five hours. There are extra courses in the Latin, Bohemian, and English languages, for those who wish to follow them.

The time devoted to drawing depends upon the student, but it is obvious that his knowledge must be very incomplete, and that he will carry away from the school but an imperfect record of descriptive geometry and its applications, unless he devotes a great deal of time to this branch. In this respect the arrangement of the school is entirely different from that at Berlin, where the drawings accompanying the courses are made as much a matter of regular duty as the attendance upon the lectures themselves. This is certainly the proper plan, and while it appeared to me that the time spent in the graphic exercises at Berlin was even beyond the measure of their importance, I am decidedly of opinion that a strict attention to this department is essential.

The collections, by the aid of which these courses are carried out, are-1. An extensive collection of chemical preparations for both special and general chemistry. The pupils in special chemistry, as already stated, make preparations in the departments of the art which they intend to follow, and some of these are left behind them as specimens of their skill. In the department of the dyer there is quite a large series of specimens collected in this way. The laboratories for both special and general chemistry are admirably adapted to their purpose.* 2. A cabinet of instruments for the course of practical geometry. 3. A considerable collection of physical apparatus. 4. A collection of models of machines, and in engineering. 5. A technological cabinet of a most complete character, and admirably arranged; it contains many of the best specimens of Austrian arts and manufactures. All these collections are under the care of the professor in whose department they find a place; there being, besides, curators for the immediate charge of them, and for keeping them in repair. The cabinet of physical apparatus, and of models and machinery, were in the main supplied from the workshops of the institution. These shops have long been celebrated for the astronomical and geodesic instruments furnished from them. They are still kept up, though on a reduced scale, their chief object having been accomplished. They were never intended, like those of Berlin, to afford practical instruction to the pupils. The institution, indeed, does not recognize the principle that this can be done to advantage in the mechanical department. It is certain, as already stated, that great care is required to render such establishments of any avail beyond the point of giving to the pupil a general readiness with his hands, and that even when well conducted they are expensive. Success in practical chemistry requires essentially a very considerable knowledge of theory; the processes on a small scale represent, in general, fairly those upon the large, and experiments thus made frequently save the outlay which is required to make them in the large way. The

*The laboratory of the professor of general chemistry, Professor Meissner, is one of the best arranged which I saw abroad. The furnace operations, and others likely to incom. mode the class, are performed behind a screen, with large glass windows, which allow a per. fect view the space behind is provided with the means of carrying off the fumes.

practice in the laboratory of a school is, besides, very nearly of the kind required for the manufactory. These, among other circumstances render the problem in regard to successful preparation for the arts depending upon chemistry, different from that relating to the art of the machinist. It is in this department that the polytechnic school of Vienna is particularly strong. There can be no doubt that Austrian manufactures in general have received a great impulse through the medium of this institution, and particularly of its scholastic department, but while praise is yielded to the different courses, the arrangements for teaching chemistry must be considered as having a preference over the others.

The lessons in the commercial school embrace the following subjects:

1. Commercial correspondence, three hours per week.

II. The science of trade (Handelswissenschaft,) three hours.

III. Austrian laws relating to trade and exchange, three hours.

IV. Commercial arithmetic, six hours.

V. Book-keeping, by single and double entry, four hours.

VI. Account of the materials of trade. (Waarenkunde.) the sources, uses, properties, kinds, adulterations to which they are subject, &c., four hours.

VII. Commercial geography, three hours.

VIII. History of commerce, three hours. There are five professors in this school.

Once a week the professors of the institute meet, under the presidency of the director, to confer on the business of the institution. Saturday is appropriated in part to this purpose, and there are no exercises for the students on that day. One of the professors is secretary of the board. The professors rank by regulation with those of the universities.

The lectures last from October to August of every year. At the close of them, a pupil who wishes a certificate in any branch, presents himself, and is examined by a professor, in presence of a director and of two members of the imperial commission of studies. A student who has attended the lectures, and does not wish to be examined, may receive a certificate of attendance.

To supply the place of a regular division of studies for different callings, one of the earlier programmes contained a recommendation of certain courses of study as preparatory to particular occupations. The recommendations were the following:-For tradesmen, the two years of the real school, and one year of the commercial school; or for a more complete education, an additional year, embracing the courses of chemistry, physics, and technology of the technical school. For dyers, printers in stuffs, bleachers, manufacturers of chemical products, of salt, of saltpeter, for miners, metallurgists, brewers, &c., special chemistry, physics, and technology, with some of the courses of the commercial school. For machinists, hydraulic engineers, mill-wrights, foremen in manufactories, and mining engineers a course of two years was recommended, the first to embrace mathematics, physics, and drawing, and the second, mechanics, machine-drawing, and technology. As a preparation for agriculturists and foresters-courses of mathematics, physics, practical geometry, chemistry and book-keeping. For miners, mathematics, physics, practical geometry, mechanics, drawing, and book-keeping. For surveyors, mathematics, physics, practical geometry, drawing, and bookkeeping.

There is still a regular course laid down for architects and civil engineers, the satisfactory completion of which entitles to a diploma. The first year includes elementary mathematics, technology, and drawing; the second, higher mathematics, physics, and drawing; the third, the applied mathematics, mechanics, practical geometry, and drawing; the fourth, architecture, engineering, drawing, technology, chemistry, and book-keeping.

The library of the institute is appropriated to the several departments, and is used by the students, as well as by the professors. Yearly appropriations, besides the entrance and diploma fees, are devoted to its increase. The professors have the right of recommending such works to be purchased as they may deem of use in their departments. An annual is published by the institute, consisting of original and selected scientific articles, by the professors, and notices of the institution.

XVII. TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

[THE following extracts from "Report to the Board of Regents of Normal Schools in the State of Wisconsin," exhibits the nature and efficiency of the Teachers' Institute, as an educational agency, when worked in connection with other departments of a system of public instruction, among earnest teachers and a willing people.]

To the Board of Regents of Normal Schools:

In giving an account of my proceedings as your Agent for 1859, it is hardly necessary to say, that I have attempted to do a large amount of work, much of it novel, all of it important, touching many interests, institutions and individuals, spread over a large amount of territory, and in a period of time, not long, even if the whole of it could have been devoted to the work, but largely abridged by a period of severe illness. What I have attempted to do has been done without that system and thoroughness which I hope soon to introduce into the operations of this agency.

My duties as specified by section 10, chapter xciv., of the General Laws, passed in 1859, and by your instructions are "to visit and exercise a supervisory control over the Normal Departments of all such institutions as shall apply for a participation in the Normal School Fund;" to "conduct County Teachers' Institutes, and give Normal instruction in the same;" and "to cooperate with the Superintendent of Public Instruction in providing a system of public educational addresses, to be delivered in the various counties of the State."

In touching briefly on each department of my labors, I will select,

I. TEACHERS' INSTITUTES AND EDUCATIONAL ADDRESSES.

By this designation, a Teachers' Institute, is now understood, a gathering of teachers, old and young, experienced and inexperienced, of both sexes, and of schools of different grades ;-in such number as will develop the sympathies and power of a common pursuit, and yet not so large as to exclude the freedom of individual action;-for a period of time, long enough to admit of a systematic plan of operations, and yet not so protracted as to prove a burdensome expense, or an interruption to other engagements;-under the direction of men, whose only claim to respect and continued attention must be their experience and acknowledged success in the subjects assigned them—and in a course of instruction, at once theoretical and practical, combined with opportunities of inquiry, discussion and familiar conversation.

The Teachers' Institute, so appointed, organized and conducted as to exclude professional jealousy, and at the same time enlist the coöperation and attendance of school officers and parents, and by the almost universal practice of welcoming teachers to the hospitalities of the families of the place where the Institute is held, and assigning to the evening lectures and discussions all topics of general interest, has proved an educational revival-agency of the most extensive, permanent and unobjectionable character. During nearly a quarter of a century's study and observation of schools, school systems and educational agencies, in different States and countries, I have tried, seen or read of nothing so universally applicable or so efficient in awakening and directing rightly both professional and parental interest in the broad field of popular education, as a well attended and wisely conducted Teachers' Institute. A single educational lecture or address, or a convention in which a number of addresses are delivered, may occasionally move a sluggish community into sudden and vigorous action, but generally it is only after years of effort, by a few individuals, against all sorts of obstacles, that a good school-house is built, a proper classification of studies secured, and well qualified teachers employed and adequately paid, in schools of different grades. But I can not recall a town where I ever held a well-conducted Institute, where the teachers were distributed through all the principal families, and the evenings were devoted to public addresses and discussions on topics connected with the organization and administration of the school system, and the classification, instruction and discipline of public schools, where the work of educational improvement did not at once begin-and begin too where all improvement in the education of children must begin, in the heads and hearts of parents, in the enthusiasm, enlarged knowledge and practical skill of teachers, and in the well considered and liberal action of school officers and the public generally.

Permanent Associations of teachers, for mutual improvement and advancement of their profession, have accomplished much good, and may be made still more widely beneficial, and should receive the aid and countenance, not only of teachers, but of the Legislature and the people. But a well arranged and judiciously conducted series of Institutes, will, in a single year, without wasting time in forming and amending constitutions, or election of officers, and discussing questions of order, or places of meeting, and avoiding all occasions of jealousy or charges of exclusiveness, reach a larger number of teachers, secure a more thorough and systematic presentation and discussion of the principles and methods of teaching and discipline, exposing and exploding those which are obsolete and defective, and explaining and commending those which are new and valuable, awaken more professional spirit, and form and strengthen more bonds of connection between the older and younger teachers, than.all the state, county, and town associations, acting together, with meetings extending over only one or two days, can do in many years.

A well equipped Normal School, or institution for the special training of teachers, modified to suit the peculiar circumstances of the state, and