Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/86

66 poses; the most prominent among them were the colleges and other edifices of the Jesuits in which there are now classes of the university with a splendid library, a priest’s seminary, a military hospital and law courts. Prague retained on the whole its expressive baroque and rococo character in many sumptuous palaces and parks of the nobility as the original Roman and Gothic churches with only few exceptions were either destroyed or remodelled after the later victorious fashions.—The Napoleonic wars were fought almost entirely in the surrounding countries, so that Bohemia was not directly devastated as in former wars, nevertheless it felt heavily their consequences through state failures, ruinous to the welfare of millions of people. To the energy of many public spirited men of this time we owe the founding of scientific (1784) and agricultural societies (1788), of an Academy of arts (1796), a Conservatory of music (1810) a Technical College (1802) and the reawakening of the national feeling of the inhabitants, repressed since the Thirty years war. Industry and wealth began again to grow and with the first steam railway (in Prague 1845) a mighty impulse to the expansion of the city was given which was nor stopped even by the occupation of Prague in 1866 by the Prussians; the fortifications were pulled down and either converted into public parks or sold for building purposes and. Prague is a progressive city, providing a new main drainage-system and a good water supply for the sanitary benefit of its inhabitants; the schools and public libraries afford all possible instruction and the theatres offer highly classical entertainments in drama and music, and therefore it is considered also by the other Slavonic nations of the monarchy as their metropolis.

Jan Emler.