science--and, at the same
time, to give them a general knowledge of what constitutes the bases of
technical training, and such a skill in some special trade as would
enable each of them to take his or her place in the grand world of the
manual production of wealth. I know that many will find that aim too
large, or even impossible to attain, but I hope that if they have the
patience to read the following pages, they will see that we require
nothing beyond what can be easily attained. In fact, _it has been
attained_; and what has been done on a small scale could be done on a
wider scale, were it not for the economical and social causes which
prevent any serious reform from being accomplished in our miserably
organized society.

The experiment has been made at the Moscow Technical School for twenty
consecutive years with many hundreds of boys; and, according to the
testimonies of the most competent judges at the exhibitions of Brussels,
Philadelphia, Vienna and Paris, the experiment has been a success. The
Moscow school admits boys not older than fifteen, and it requires from
boys of that age nothing but a substantial knowledge of geometry and
algebra, together with the usual knowledge of their mother tongue;
younger pupils are received in the preparatory classes. The school is
divided into two sections--the mechanical and the chemical; but as I
personally know better the former, and as it is also the more important
with reference to the question before us, so I shall limit my remarks to
the education given in the mechanical section. After a five or six
years' stay at the school, the students leave it with a thorough
knowledge of higher mathematics, physics, mechanics, and connected
sciences--so thorough, indeed, that it is not second to that acquired in
the best mathematical faculties of the most eminent European
universities. When myself a student of the mathematical faculty of the
St. Petersburg University, I had the opportunity of comparing the
knowledge of the students at the Moscow Technical School with our own. I
saw the courses of higher geometry some of them had compiled for the use
of their comrades; I admired the facility with which they applied the
integral calculus to dynamical problems, and I came to the conclusion
that while we, University students, had more knowledge of a general
character, they, the students of the Technical School, were much more
advanced in higher geometry, and especially in the applicat