The severer and preparatory studies of mathematics are supposed to have been completed prior to entrance into the Polytechnic or St. Cyr. Some, however, of the studies of applied science occupy considerable time at the School of Application.
The following analysis will show the time assigned to each branch:—
1. Astronomy occupies 1½ hours weekly for the pupils of the first year; afterwards it ceases entirely.
2. To Applied Descriptive Geometry a good deal of time is given, but still only by the pupils of the first year. 12 hours a week are spent upon it in the first half year, 10 in the second.
3. Military Topography occupies about 10½ hours in the first year, 6 in the second.
4. A good deal of time is devoted to Field Fortifications. The junior division, it is true, only begin it in their second half year of study, and then only work at it for 1½ hours weekly. But the senior division are occupied 4½ hours weekly in their first half year, and 7½ hours in their second.
5. The Study of Military Administration and Legislation is begun immediately upon entrance. It occupies during both years 1½ hours weekly.
6. Lectures on Military Art and Tactics are also given for 1½ hours weekly during both years, and after hearing these lectures the students are occasionally required to write a military memoir on a campaign, descriptions of reconnaissances, or of fields of battle, and to make sketches of ground with accompanying reports. This course was noted by General Foltz, the director of the school, as defective, on the ground that it was too difficult to find a teacher for, or indeed to teach military art; and he thought that lectures on military history, or such works as Napoleon’s Memoirs, would be more useful to the pupils.
7. Drawing occupies throughout 4½ hours weekly, and great attention is bestowed upon it. “We were shown a large number of works done by the young officers of the school. To enumerate some of the most important—there were specimens of objects, with shadows; perspective of the exterior and interior of buildings, with shadows; perspective views of country; machinery drawings, plan, , and elevation; in fortification, a plan of comparison of a portion of ground with proposed field-works for defense; military bridges; reconnaissance, and memoir of a route, with accompanying notes and sketches, done both on foot and on horseback; plan of a portion of country made with a compass by parties of ten, under the direction of a Captain (for this the trigonometrical points and distances were furnished, and it was filled up by a minor triangulation;) plan of a field of battle, made without points; and a description of the battle.”
These drawings were mostly executed with great care, and we were told that the course was fully as much as the student could accomplish in two years. Some parts of it are done entirely in the Salle d’étude; sketches are made on horseback in the neighborhood of Paris, always under the direction of the professors, others again at great distances, such as one at Biarritz last year, and the one on which the pupils are to be engaged this year, is the line of operations of Wellington from the Spanish frontier to Toulouse. The two last kinds of work are roughly sketched, and finished at Paris. These summer occupations seem to stand in place of vacations, of which there are none.