VI

PREFACE.

“ Assured of this truth, I have considered it tobe a duty to attempt in France , according to myfeeble means, the extension of teaching geometryand mechanics applied to all the arts ; instructionwhich, by a deplorable fatality, is at once the mostnecessary and the most abstruse.”

After mentioning the extensive opportunitieswhich he has enjoyed, of collecting valuable prac-tical materials for the composition of a normalcourse, adapted, when published, for repetition byintelligent professors of mathematics, without thenecessity of visiting, as he had done, the manu-factories and public works in France , and othercountries; and after enumerating the conductors oxworkshops and manufactories, who soon began pub-licly to communicate these lectures to the menwhom they employed, Dupin proceeds “ to speakof the same species of education, applied on a greaterscale in the principal towns in France .

“ His excellency the minister of the marine and ofthe colonies, desiring to contribute to the progressof the arts of production in our seaports, both com-mercial and military, has directed the professors ofhydrography to lecture twice a-week when theshops are closed, on the application of geometry,and mechanics to the arts; forming courses similarto those which have been delivered in the Conserva-toire of Paris.

“ Thus, by this single act, which places the nameof M. Le Comte de Chabrol, amongst those of thegreatest benefactors to the industry of France , the