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EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
The Technical and Polytechnic Schools have greatly helped to effect this result; while, upon the other hand, Austria, Germany and England, have, by diligent attention, greater or less in degree, paid to the subject of Art-industry, gradually neared the two nations so long famous for tine work, industrial and artistic—France and Italy. The United States is not in the race, if w T e may judge her by what was exhibited in the American section of the Vienna Exposition. Not that it was worthy in any respect of the position w T e occupy among the nations of the earth, though we secured moi;e prizes in proportion to the number of exhibitors than any other country. Those prizes were all awarded upon the basis of industrial merit. The artistic element was nil , if we except Prang’s chromos and the photographs exhibited. The first germs of a change in this respect were shown in the School Group; viz., samples of drawings executed by the pupils of our common schools and by students of the evening classes, established in several of our large cities. It was but a grain in that vast granary, but any one who took the trouble to compare these drawings with those exhibited as the work of the pupils of a similar grade in the Austrian, Swiss or German section, found that their merit was as great as that of the others, notwithstanding the much shorter period this kind of instruction has been imparted to the young scholars here. This is a small but very encouraging fact. Those countries that have not paid the same attention to Art-industrial education as have the principal nations of Europe, were poor in proportion in their exhibition. Spain and Portugal are illustrations of decay in these matters. Kussia, Sweden and Denmark illustrate the results of a one-sided education, i. e., technical; the bulk of their exhibit consisting of articles of utility, industry and defence. Austria, as we have seen, showed an even balance. Germany is not so strong in her Art as in her Industry, but is still very respectable, and evinces a strong tendency to improve in the future in this respect. Much that she has done is of the first order; still, the professional men engaged in the endeavor to elevate the standard of taste in their country’s work are not satisfied. They regard their own progress as too slow, and continually fret under the influence of French