The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-04
ART IN EUROPE.
Primary Art.Education In France, Prus-
hln. SNllZarland. aud Italy.

STA, SwlIzsrlaHd aud Italy.
The London Art Journal has an article on
Primary Art-Education in Europe, from which
we extract the following
FRANCE.
In the "a French lycees, and 247 commercial
colleges, in which &C. 600 French boys, out Of
a population of 37,000,000, are receiving
carefully y-studied education at the hands of
trained and certified masters, drawing, as we'll
as singing, is obligatory; and during the
greater part of the nine years course which
intervenes between the reception of the little
scholar of seven or eight years old from the
primary school, and his introduction, on leav-
ing the class of PHILOSOPHY" to the special
professional schools of the POLYTECHNIC, st.
Cyr, the Ecole Navale the EcoLe ForreStiere, or
the Ecole CentraIe des Arts ct Manufactures,
ABOUT two hours a week is devoted to each
study. Drawing is methodioally taught-not
as an accomplishment, but as necessary fea-
ture of ordinary education.
PRUSSIA.
In the 255 higher or secondary schools of
Prussia, out of population of Is, 500,0 ,000
$4,000 boys are receiving their education at
the hands of 3349 teachers, themselves care
fully trained for their duties. Prussia also
possesses S4 VorSchuLen, or public preparatory
schools containing 5000 scholars, under 18S
certifcated teachers. All the boys in the
classical schools three hours a week are given
to this study for the first three years. In the
non-classicsl schools two hours a week are
given to drawing in all classes below the first,
and three in the first.
1t is remarkable that while the number of
scholars in the secondary schools of Prussia is
almost exactly the same as that of the CORES
ponding pupils in France (although the popu-
lation of the former kingdom, at the time
when the information was collected, was only
about half of the latter), the proportion of
the non classical scholars is almost identical,
being, in round numbers, in each case, 20, 900
out Of $4,000. The lower number, in each
instance, must be taken to represent the desire
for special information or technical teaching,
rather than for general and high culture, as
the main object of eduoation. In Germany
the idea of culture, and the study of literature
and ''the humanities," is that which COM
mands by far the highest as well as the most
general respeet. In France the state of opin-
ion is more evenly divided.
SWITZERLAND.
In Switzerland the general judgment leans
rather to the practical than to the intellectual
side. In the canton of Zurich nearly a third
of the whole public expenditure is directed to
education, and one in five of the population
are at school. instruction is compulsory on
all children between the ages of six and six
teen, the first six years of which time are
passed in the communal schools. After the
close of the twelfth year, the education is car
Tied on either in the "Erganzungsschule,
fnishing-school, giving four hours of instruc-
tion twice week; or in the 'Singschule, " to
keep up the practice of church music and
singing by one hours exercise in the week,
which is coupled with the religious instruction
of the pastor of the place, occupying an hour
and a half. For those children whose educa-
tion is prolonged beyond the shortest obliga-
IL
course of five years and half, and the
"Gymnasium, " with one of six years and
half. These are caHtonal schools. In the
"GymHasium," classical school, modelled
much after the German pattern, free-hand
drawing is taught during the first five years,
or lower portion of the course. In the "lndus-
trieschule," the time occupied by Greek in
the Gymnasium" is devoted to geOmetrical
drawing.
Education in Italy is for the most part-like
so many other Italian bessings-in the future.
Yet the office of the Minister of Public Instruc-
tion exists, and is not snecure. The Italian
licei have 1862 scholars, the Ginnasi, II, S62;
the Scuoie techniche, S268. All the scholars in
the Scuoie techniche learn drawing.
COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS.
Now without for moment imagining that a
course of drawing lessons at school will turn
out q population OF artists, IL is evident that
the artistic taste and facility common among
a population of which the whole, or even only
the better instructed part, are accustomed to
regard the pencil as an instrument almost as
necessary as the pen, will be greatly in ad-
vance of those prevalent among people who
regard dTaughtsman as man OF rare and
unusual accomplishment. The great ques-
tion of culture or information OF teaching
or training, has excited no less attention on
the Continent than it has done among the
comparatively few persons who give atten-
tion in this country to the great educational
struggle. Only abroad it is matter of expert
ment while with us it is matter OF argument.
In France about a third Of the secondary
pupils are now non-olassical. In Prussia almost
exactly the same proportion. In Italy, again,
close upon the same, viz: o26o out OF
"A, 392. In Zurich the proportion is the
other way-about $50 scholars in the indus
trial to $50 in the classical schools. But in
regarding the increasing advantages with
which Swiss and German youth are now, even
in our own country, coming into competition
with English lads, we must not be too ready
to ascTi6e the superiority of the foreigner to
the industrial or more classical character of
his education. Into that part of the subject
1t is not the place here to enter, although 1t Is
one on which it is important to have those
clear ideas which study Of the working of
the Continental secondary schools may enable
thoughtful men to form. But in the care
which puts the pencil, as a matter OF course,
into the hands of the schO0l-bOy We can trace
surer cause for the ready ability OF the Ger
man, as compared with the English lad, when
he passes from school to the duties of daily
life than in any Iycees and gymnasium5 OF the