Studio: international art (54.1912)

Austrian Schools for IVeaving

SCHOOLS FOR WEAVING IN has been taken to foster the particular industries
AUSTRIA. of Particular districts. Thus, weaving is one of the

staple industries of Moravia, Austrian Silesia, and
In an article on the Craft Schools of Bohemia, and special schools have been opened in
Austria which appeared in The Studio, 1905, these parts of the Empire for the furtherance of
vol. 35, pp. 201-219, an attempt was made to give this branch of industry. In various districts there
a general idea of the work of these " Fachschulen," are special schools for pottery, jewellery, glass-
but as this volume may not be accessible to all, it working, cabinet-making, stone-cutting, in fact for
may be as well to recapitulate a few important and every imaginable calling. Some of these are in the
interesting facts. towns, while others are located in remote mountain

In the article referred to it was explained that villages ; but wherever they may be they are always
these Fachschulen were originally founded for furnished with the best possible machinery and
the purpose of reviving special home industries other equipment necessary for the particular kind
which had almost become extinct, and that the aim of instruction given. The workshops are large
of the authorities in establishing them was to create and airy, and each school is furnished with a good
superior workmen, fully equipped both practically library containing current literature on all subjects
and scientifically, not only as far as their own bearing on the particular trade taught, and art
particular trade was concerned, but also branches industry in general, in German, English, French,
allied to it—that is, to give the pupils attending Czech and other languages. Pupils are allowed to
the schools some interest in life over and above take books home or they may peruse them in the
the daily portion of work allotted to them in the reading-room attached to every school,
inner world of the school, and the greater world Of late many of these schools have been re-
lying beyond it. The Fachschulen come under the organised; some of the former directors and
category of " secondary " schools ; they stand mid- professors having retired on pension, their places
way between the public elementary schools on the have been taken by younger men who have been
one hand and the " Kunstgewerbeschulen " or trained at the Imperial Arts and Crafts Schools in
Industrial Art Schools and the Imperial Academy Vienna or Prague, and who are au courant with
on the other hand. The Fachschulen train work- the modern views concerning the relation of
men, the Kunstgewerbeschulen and the Academy art to industry. The Austrian Government in
train artists and teachers.

Formerly all the schools
were under the direction of
the Ministerium fiir Cultus
und Unterricht; but since
the founding of the Minis-
terium fiir offentliche
Arbeiten (Ministry of Public
Works) some four years ago,
the control of the Fach-
schulen has been one of the
functions of this new depart-
ment, while the Ministerium
fiir Cultus und Unterricht
retains control over the other
institutions. This point is
one of considerable signifi-
cance, for it means that the
training of the future work-
man is rightly considered a
public work.

The Fachschulen are
planted all over Austria to
the farthest end of her

fig. I. plant study from nature by first-year student at the school

dominions, and every care FOr textile industry (fachschule fur textil-industrie), landskron
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