From this High Trade School I passed on to the Royal Imperial Art Trade School, where all the arts that are required to elevate the higher handicrafts are studied. This school was founded in the year 1885, and divided into departments for the especial needs of the home industries.

1. The general school, with divisions for

a. Figure and ornamental drawing and painting.

b.

modelling.

c. For those preparing to be teachers of drawing in secondary schools.

2. The trade and special schools are

a. Decorative architecture

4. The Art Trade Evening and Sunday School.

a. Ornamental and figure drawing.

b.

modelling.

c. Geometry, projection and perspective, and practice in

drawing.

As usual, the pupils must have gone through eight classes of a Volks and Bürger schule before being admitted here, and they must have reached fourteen and not have passed their thirtieth year, or in the women's school their twenty-fifth.

For the first six months the pupils are on trial, and are only subsequently accepted as regular students if they do good, diligent, and orderly work in that six months.

Every scholar on admission to the day classes has to pay an entrance fee of 1 gulden (1s. 8d.), while the half-yearly tuition fees payable (1) in the general school and in the women's school are 7 gulden, and (2) in the trade and special schools 10 gulden. Students showing proof of poverty can obtain exemption of fees, but not until they have paid for their instruction for the first six months and have been accepted as regular students at the end of that period.

Material is supplied on a half-yearly payment of 3 gulden in the general and women's school, and 5 gulden in the trade and special schools, and this includes the use of the library and of the collections of architectural and other sketches, photographs, examples of sculpture and bronze work, art-needlework, water

4291.

G

The true

function of

examinations --to attest

solid attain ments, not to

induce cramming.

colours, lay and living models, and all the loan collections from the State and others. The students of the Sunday and evening classes if under eighteen years of age pay 50 kreutzers per month, or 1 gulden if over eighteen.

TRUE VALUE OF EXAMINATIONS.

The examinations in this school, as in the other similar institutions which I visited during my journey in Austria and Germany, comprise written, oral, and practical tests, and extend both to the theoretical and practical parts of the students' work. The regulations lay great stress on the importance of avoiding any kind of questions which might encourage candidates to cram up" a mass of details for the purpose of reproducing it in the examination instead of devoting themselves to gaining a thorough and lasting basis of coherent knowledge. The examiners are instructed to test the solid and lasting attainments of the candidates, and to ascertain how far the latter have really assimilated the fundamental principles of the studies in whichthey have been engaged, and with what success they can actually apply in practice the knowledge and aptitude so acquired. Regulations alone, however admirably phrased, are no certain guarantee against the mischievous results of ill-planned examinations, but I believe that in the present case they accurately represent the point of view from which the examinations are regarded alike by professors and candidates, and that the tests are so arranged as really to test the advancing attainments of the student, and not to induce and reward any form of cramming, however skilfully concealed.

The examinations are compulsory and more or less continuous throughout the year. No student is allowed to pass on into a higher grade until he has satisfied the professors by his work in the grade below. The work of each student is marked according to the following scale: I. Excellent, II. Good, III. Fair, IV. Passable, V. Insufficient. Those whose work is marked "insufficient" are quickly excluded from the classes. If at the end of a year's work a student gains no higher mark than "insufficient," the professor decides whether he shall be required to devote another year to repeating the same work, or be excluded from the class altogether.

This is one of the privileged schools, the "leaving certificate" (Reifezeugniss) of which excuses the holder from all but one year of service with the colours, such service being made by him as a "volunteer."

During the year excursions are made to study and sketch both natural and art treasures.

To assist poor but clever students there are scholarships ranging from 160 to 230 florins yearly, say £12 10s. to £18 10s., but to gain these the student must have gained the mark "excellent" for conduct and for his principal subject, and not less than "good" for his other subjects as well as for diligence and regularity of attendance.

An exhibition is held of the scholars' finished work, and some Exhibition of very interesting and highly artistic work I found to be in progress work done. as I went through class-rooms and workshops.

In the special wood carving school I found the Professor at work at an altar piece, and I was shown some good work done by the students, notably a decorated hand mirror.

In the Women's Art Needlework School, work was being done that reminded one of the famous mediaval needlework, when women sat in castle oriel and worked with needle and thread those monuments of patience and beauty, whilst husband and brother were absent for months and years. One of these pieces of work was an antependium or altar frontal, in rich relief of gold, white, and purple; it looked like the work of years, but the two ladies who were working upon it told me that it had taken six months' work of eighteen hours a week. They were exceptional students, being in their fifth year, four years being the usual course, and certainly this marvel of needlework justified their retention in the school for another year.

In the second year I found the pupils engaged on letters and monograms; one girl of fourteen was doing embroidery.

In the art life class two old men were the models, and the students, men and women, were working, some in black and white, others in water-colours, others in pencil or in chalk; and for expression, modelling, and colour the work was good beyond what I have seen being executed in the life classes of some art schools in large English cities.

In another room students were drawing flowers from nature; one lady of twenty was making an effective sketch of a bouquet of geraniums and stocks.

Amongst other work in the chasing and repoussé school was a vase for the Paris Exhibition, modelled and worked by the pupils, and a very charming candlestick of a chaste design from a laurel leaf motive. A jardinière modelled by the Professor proved his capacity to lead the pupil as well as to make him learn.

out to
execute

In the modelling room we found a Professor but no pupils, Pupils sent but he told us the best were all away at Pilsen engaged upon actual work on a new museum, doing all the plaster work for it; actual work. the best pupils of each class had been sent, but we saw around us studies of very varied types from nature, flowers, designs artistic and grotesque, and heads and figures. In the modelling of a nude child one of the legs was faulty, but such faults emphasised the general artistic quality of the other works.

The whole school appeared to be under excellent organisation, and proved the director, Herr George Stibral, an architect by profession, to be not only a good artist but a good organiser. As usual in these schools, there were good discipline and general cleanliness.

It may be asked what effect does an excellent education have upon the general masses of the people.

Statistics, and the great number of new factories being erected, Effect of prove that it is having a great effect upon the trade of Austria, education on and conversation in the train or the café quickly proves that the G 2

4291.

trade.

Utility and culture.

Austrian artisan is a more intellectually trained man than the average English artisan. The Austrian artisan can generally talk in an interesting manner about the history of his country and any special interest attaching to his own locality; often, too, he shows a well instructed interest in literature or art.

Nor has this wide diffusion of culture been without its influence on the middle classes. The number of people who are interested in artistic, literary, and scientific subjects is remarkable. How frequently one goes into a middle class Austrian household, where the talk may be of ordinary life or of business, but where quickly one discovers that one's hosts are highly skilled in painting or music, or conversant with the literature of the three principal European tongues. As an illustration, let me give the instance of the home of a middle-class official, where the wife, as is usual in Austria and Germany, waited upon us at table, bore round the great jugs of the light ale which all Austrians love, talked of the meals and the cooking, comparing the dishes of different nations; a thorough housewife, wrapt up in household matters. But what happens when coffee and cigars are handed round? The talk becomes artistic, first on painting, then on music and poetry. The husband quotes poetry in English, and then a Czech rendering by a friend; and then recites some little Czech poems, giving the English of them, suddenly exclaiming, "Ah, my wife has set that to music."

I ask to hear it, and, protesting she plays so little now, family matters so engage her, the housewife goes to the piano, runs over the keys, and without notes and with really exquisite expression plays her own composition, the simple pathetic melody, well harmonised, which her husband sings; then the conversation runs on upon music, and the housewife is transformed into the enthusiastic artist, and plays Dvorak and Wagner, her eyes lit up with pleasure as the notes ripple from her fingers, but with no note of music before her. I do not ascribe all this to education; much is due to the artistic temperament of the nation; much to the traditions of social life; but the Austrian admirably succeeds in training the artistic gifts, while at the same time developing domestic and practical aptitudes as well, and in making women good cooks and good managers, while at the same time cultivating their artistic taste and intellectual interest. Similarly the artisan, while being trained to be a painstaking craftsman, is also educated to think and to take an intellectual interest in his work.

On leaving Prague I had one other town to visit in Austria en route for Saxony, for time prevented my again visiting the industrial centres of Pilsen and Budweis, where the technical training is very much in evidence.

CHAPTER XII.

REICHENBERG.

This interesting and picturesque town lies in a district full of historic interest, and is not many miles from the famous old town and castle of Friedland, and all around it are hills dotted with medieval castles, some in ruins, others still inhabited, and in many cases filled with art treasures.

And it lies also in the midst of a most intensely active industrial population. The chief industries are textile, but not far off is Gablonz, the seat of the pottery trade, and Haida, the home of glass manufacturing, and the people are excessively keen to be abreast of every scientific advancement in their trades, as I think a description of their educational establishments will prove.

I did not visit Gablonz this year, but the merchants and assistants and artisans there are filled with ardour and love for the scientific and commercial development of their trade. I wrote a description of the technical school in a newspaper article on May 22nd, in the year 1886. The school then was newly built, and the town had about 10,000 inhabitants; yet, to show the keen verve of the clerks and travellers in the town, an English club had been founded wherein only English was spoken, and this in a town to which even railway communication came no nearer than within sixteen miles, though it was the capital, one may say, of a district doing an immense trade with England and our colonies.

The school, as I described it thirteen years ago, "taught," to quote my own words,* "modelling, drawing, engraving, designing, working in metal; in fact, the highest art for the labour of the district. A night or Fortbildungschule is also held here, so that apprentices and men may perfect themselves in the work. The models placed before the students are most artistic both in form and colour. Freshness is given to the designs by models of Russian, Hungarian, or Eastern work. Designs in arabesque also that are curiously intricate and beautiful. The reliefs in brass work are to be seen in progress, the designs, perhaps some relief, as Thorwaldsen's Night or some Greek study, appearing slowly beneath the hammer, and then being turned and finished off from the upper surface. Lads of about eighteen were painting from intricate designs examples for pottery, porcelain, and enamelled glass. Examples of lads' work would put to shame many a clever South Kensington pupil. Boys of about thirteen and fourteen were engaged upon geometrical design. Others were beginning engraving on metal; first straight lines, then squares, and so on up to the intricate designs introducing faun and satyr and the delicate outlines of the nude. Everything in

The articles that were written from 1886 to 1892 were republished in a little shilling volume in the latter year, under the title of "Our Foreign Competitors."

4921

G 3