The Artisan Reports on the Paris Exhibition of 1878 ¹

Abstract

THE Society of Arts deserves the thanks of all who are interested in the progress and elevation of our national industries for the manner in which, it has attempted to bring home to British manufacturers and artisans the lessons of the Paris Exhibition of 1878. As in 1867, so in 1878, it took a prominent part in the movement for sending over to Paris a number of selected artisans, whose reports on the exhibits of the various departments of industry they represented the Society has now published. Thanks to the interest shown in this step by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and by Sir Philip Owen, the artisans sent over by this agency, some two hundred in number, were enabled to visit also a number of the workshops and factories of the French capital, to judge for themselves of the conditions under which the various industries are carried on. The thirty-nine selected Reports printed in the volume before us, form therefore, an extremely interesting and valuable contribution to our knowledge of the relative conditions of the skilled industries in the two countries. The frequent comparisons drawn from the workman's point of view not only upon the, quality of workmanship but also upon the conditions and price of labour, the machinery, the tools, and the character of the workmen, are striking and instructive in the extreme.