Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/70

58 passed through the Folkschule, a yearly examination, yearly distribution of prizes, a library containing technical and scientific books and models, and a period of study not confined to any particular time or length. The subjects taught are: (a) freehand and ornamental drawing; (b) arithmetic, geometry, and lineal drawing; (c) constructive drawing; (d) mechanics and natural science; (e) heads of German industry and mercantile business; (f) French, when possible.

There are a few minutiæ to notice as to the workshop. The most important are that the workers must bring their own tools, unless they can show satisfactorily that they are too poor to afford them, when they will obtain them freely at the shop. The government defrays the expense of living at Furtwangen of those also who would be unable to attend out of their own means. There are saw-mills and other appliances for doing the rougher work, preparatory to the more delicate details of the instructive workshop. Lastly, the whole is under the supervision of the government, through the minister of industry. The school and shop have both succeeded well, the trade increases every year, the prosperity of the people in an equal degree. As railways are extended, and the means of communication, not only with the immediate parts of Germany, but with the more distant countries of Europe and the world, become more easy, so undoubtedly will be seen a further extension of the business of the Schwarzwald.

It will be seen from these brief sketches that the wanderer in the Black Forest can not only receive pleasure from the charms of a peculiar and beautiful scenery,—he has also opportunities of studying some social features hardly to be found in more populous places. He finds—a long way from the great centres of commerce and manufactures—a simple and kind-hearted people, carrying on an ingenious trade quietly, yet actively, and keeping pace with modern improvements, for the peacefulness of the pine woods and the patriarchal simplicity of the villagers' lives seem to enable them to labour without the disturbing influences at work among so many industrial communities.

 

 From The Saturday Review.

remarkable likeness which exists between all country towns is perhaps due to the fact that in them there is none of the excitement and pressure which stimulates to change in cities. It may be urged by those whose love for one particular town of the class extends to all others, that there is really no more resemblance between them than there is between all members of the human race. It would probably, however, be nearer the truth to say that there is as much difference between country towns as there is between members of the same family. There are certain well-marked features which are common to all of them; there is, for instance, the market-place, paved with stones, whose roughness recalls memories of Alpine pine-wood paths, in the centre of which stands the town pump, with which in some cases an economical ingenuity has combined a lamp-post. Whether the object of this combination is that water should be in readiness at all times to put out the lamp, or that thirsty souls should never miss their way to the pump in the darkness of night, cannot be determined. On market days, or when some such extraordinary attraction as a cracked and incompetent German band offers itself, the market-place is filled by what is termed "a seething crowd," and on these occasions the vast superiority of the French or German over the English country town in point of picturesqueness is especially remarkable. The duller, or, as some would call it, the steadier, character of the English peasant finds expression in the monotony of his attire, of which the dingy whiteness or sombre mud colour is never relieved by a speck of brilliancy; and the crowd which the flat scarlet caps of some of the Swiss and German peasants, or the bright blouses of the French, would light up into liveliness, becomes a mere heavy mass. The market-place is generally overlooked by a church, which is to a cathedral what a hobbledehoy is to a grown man; and not far from this is the high street, upon which the whole building energy of the town seems to have expended itself, so that the word street applied to the other roadways of the place is a mere courtesy title. In the case of an assize town an abnormal importance is at the time of assizes assumed by the courts, which for the most part are stuffy narrow buildings, of which the ventilation and general arrangement rival in badness the law courts at Westminster. The 