The causes of this state of things are not remote. The position of the Royal and of other societies is equally influenced by them. Although intimately connected with the greatest interests of the country, they can offer to those who give their time or intellect to advance such objects, neither wealth nor rank—neither place nor patronage. They constitute no distinct combination of men into a powerful class, like the Bar, the Navy, or the Army: they are of no party, and finally, they are not fashionable. It is true that the discoveries which such societies profess to reward, are in many instances the source of wealth to the few who, fortunately for themselves, possess those other qualities necessary for its acquisition, but which are so rarely united with genius. It is also true that wealth once acquired, will, if discreetly employed, certainly lead its possessor to all those other things, equally coveted as the great prizes in the lottery of life by the Bar, the Military, and even by the Church. Nor is this to be regretted, seeing that the aristocracy of this country thus fortunately receives fresh blood and renewed intellect by adopting into its class the sagacious merchant, or the skilful fabricator of a princely fortune: the time may thus be postponed when the accident of birth will no longer be admitted as a fit qualification for a legislator. But even here it is the wealth of the aspirant that wins the position, not the integrity and sagacity of the man. In France the government itself took the lead in directing an institution for the advancement of the arts. In 1795 it established the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, in which are deposited an extensive collection of drawings, models, and machines employed in the various manufactures of the nation. Subsequently, ten professors were attached to this institution, to lecture gratuitously on those sciences more immediately connected with arts and manufactures. One of these devotes himself exclusively to the explanation of machinery in actual employment. There are also lectures on descriptive geometry, and on mechanical drawing. The expense of this establishment is about 6,000_l._ a-year. § The government of France perceived at a still earlier period the advantages which would result from the juxtaposition, at proper intervals of time, in one large building, of selected specimens of all the produce of the national industry, and in 1798 the first of these periodic meetings was held at the expense of the government. During upwards of half a century, at intervals of about five years, France, uninterrupted by the many changes in the form of its government, has continued to maintain these valuable expositions with increasing success and advantage. Prussia and Belgium also have adopted the plan of holding these meetings.