Capital must be induced to consider that home investments are more remunerative and not less secure than any others, and this could only be done by adding to the security of the property proposed for investment. He had referred to the unlimited nature of the property created by invention, and they would infer that if properly protected there was equally no limit to the capital that could be profitably employed in developing such property. The institute did not exist solely or even mainly for the purpose of advocating the claims of inventors to consideration, either individually or collectively, but for the great object of forcing home upon the convictions of the people the fact that at the very foundation of the wealth and prosperity of every nation lies the intelligence, the skill, the honesty, and the self-denial of its sons.
If, when these were exercised, for want of wise legislation such virtues failed to secure their due reward, they sought a more genial clime, and that nation which had undervalued them sank to rise no more; or, if the error were acknowledged, and too late the course was reversed, found itself already outstripped in the race of progress, and could slowly, if ever, regain its lost position. Finally he urged the inventors of England to rally round the institution in all their strength, and thus secure the objects of which he had striven, however feebly, to point out the importance. If they did so, this institution would take a rank second to no other in the empire: and while acknowledging that the interests of the inventor must always be subordinate to the welfare of the state, he asserted that the two were inseparable, and that in no other way could the latter and principal result be so completely secured as by according a due consideration to the former.
We present herewith, from _L'Illustration_, views of the amphitheater, and first and second year laboratories of the new Central School at Paris.
[Illustration: THE NEW CENTRAL SCHOOL AT PARIS.]
The amphitheater does not perceptibly differ from those of other schools. It consists of a semicircle provided with rows of benches, one above another, upon which the pupils sit while listening to lectures and taking notes thereof. Several blackboards, actuated by hydraulic motors, serve for demonstration by the professor, who, if need be, will be enabled, thanks to the electricity and gas put within his reach, to perform experiments of various kinds. Electricity is brought to him by wires, just as water and gas are by pipes. It will always be possible for him to support the theory that he is explaining by experiments which facilitate the comprehension of it by the pupils. The amphitheater is likewise provided with a motor which furnishes the professor with power whenever he has recourse to a mechanical application.