Recently we paid a visit to the New Municipal School of Physics and
Chemistry that the city of Paris founded in 1882, and that is now in
operation in the large building of the old Rollin College. This
establishment is one of those that supply a long-felt want of our
time, and we are happy to make it known to our readers. The object for
which it was designed was, in the intention of its founders, to give
young people who have just graduated from the higher primary schools
special instruction which shall be at once scientific and practical,
and which shall fit them to become engineers or superintendents in
laboratories connected with chemical and physical industries. To reach
such a result it has been necessary to give the teaching an
essentially practical character, by permitting the pupils to proceed
of themselves in manipulations in well fitted laboratories. It is upon
this important point that we shall now more particularly dwell; but,
before making known the general mode of teaching, we wish to quote a
few passages from the school's official programme:
"Many questions and problems, in physics as well as in chemistry,
find their solution only with the aid of mathematics and
mechanics. It therefore became necessary, through lectures
bearing upon the useful branches of mathematics, to supplement
the too limited ideas that pupils brought with them on entering
the school. Mathematics and mechanics are therefore taught here
at the same time with physics and chemistry, but they are merely
regarded in the light of auxiliaries to the latter.
"The studies extend over three years. Each of the three divisions
(1st, 2d, and 3d years) includes thirty pupils.
"During the three first semesters, pupils of the same grade
attend lectures and go through manipulations in chemistry,
physics, mathematics, and draughting in common.
"At the end of the third semester they are divided into 10
physical and 20 chemical students.
"From this moment, although certain courses still remain wholly
or partially common to the two categories of pupils (physical and
chemical), the same is no longer the case with regard to the
practical exercises, for the physical students thereafter
manipulate only in the physical laboratories, and the chemical
only in the chemical laboratories; moreover, the manipulations
acquire a greater importance through the time that is devoted to
them.
"At each promotion the three first semesters are taken up with
general and scientific studies. Technical applications are the
subject of the lectures and exercises of the three last
semesters. At the end of the third year certificates are given to
those pupils who have undergone examination in a satisfactory
manner, and diplomas to such as have particularly distinguished
themselves."
When pupils have been received at the school, after passing the
necessary examination, their time of working is divided up between
lectures and questionings and different laboratory manipulations.
The course of lectures on general and applied physics comprises
hydrostatics and heat (Prof. Dommer), electricity and magnetism (Prof.
Hospitalier), and optics and acoustics (Prof. Baille). Lectures on
general chemistry are delivered by Profs. Schultzenberger and
Henninger, on analytical chemistry by Prof. Silva, on chemistry
applied to the industries by Prof. Henninger (for inorganic) and Prof.
Schultzenberger (for organic). The lectures on pure and applied
mathematics and mechanics are delivered by Profs. Levy and Roze.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF A LABORATORY AT THE PARIS SCHOOL OF
PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY.]
The pupils occupy themselves regularly every day, during half the time
spent at the school, with practical work in analytical and applied
chemistry and physics and general chemistry. This practical work is a
complement to the various lectures, and has reference to what has been
taught therein. Once or twice per week the pupils spend three hours in
a shop devoted to wood and metal working, and learn how to turn,
forge, file, adjust, etc.
The school's cabinets are now provided with the best instruments for
study, and are daily becoming richer therein. The chemical
laboratories are none the less remarkably organized. In the
accompanying cut we give a view of one of these--the one that is under
the direction of Mr. Schultzenberger, professor of chemistry and
director of the new school. Each pupil has his own place in front of a
large table provided with a stand whereon he may arrange all the
products that he has to employ. Beneath the work-table he has at his
disposal a closet in which to place his apparatus after he is through
using them. Each pupil has in front of him a water-faucet, which is
fixed to a vertical column and placed over a sink. Alongside of this
faucet there is a double gas burner, which may be connected with
furnaces and heating apparatus by means of rubber tubing. A special
hall, with draught and ventilation, is set apart for precipitations by
sulphureted hydrogen and the preparation of chlorine and other
ill-smelling and deleterious gases. The great amount of light and
space provided secure the best of conditions of hygiene to this fine
and vast laboratory, where young people have all the necessary
requisites for becoming true chemists.--_La Nature._
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