to draw from foreign nations.[1] All
these views can only be accomplished by giving a new turn to national
education.

[1] Monsieur Monge has drawn much from our countryman,
Hamilton's work on Stereography but he has not mentioned his
work.

This is to be done, in the first place, by making all intelligent young
men (who are born with a fortune) familiar with the use of descriptive
geometry, so that they may be able to employ their capital more
profitably both for themselves and the nation, and also for those who
have no other fortune than their education, so that their labour will
bring them the greater reward. This art has two principal objects, the
first to represent with exactness, from drawings which have only two
dimensions, objects which have three, and which are susceptible of a
strict definition; under this point of view it is a language necessary
to the man of genius when he conceives a project, and to those who are
to have the direction of it; and lastly, to the artists who are
themselves to execute the different parts.

The second object of descriptive geometry, is to deduce from the exact
description of bodies all that necessarily follows of their forms and
their respective positions; in this sense it is a means of seeking
truth, as it offers perpetual examples of the passage from what is known
to what is unknown, and as it is always applied to objects susceptible
of the minutest evidence, it is necessary that it should form part of
the plan of a national education. It is not only fit to exercise the
intellectual faculties of a great people, and to contribute thereby to
the perfection of mankind, but it is also indispensable to all workmen,
whose end is to give to certain bodies determined forms, and it is
principally owing to the methods of this art having been too little
extended, or in fact almost entirely neglected, that the progress of our
industry has been so slow. We shall contribute then to give an
advantageous direction to national education, by making our young artist
familiar with the application of descriptive geometry, to the graphic
constructions which are necessary in the greater number of the arts, and
in making use of this geometry in the representation and determination
of the elements of machinery, by means of which, man by the aid of the
forces of nature, reserves for himself, in a manner, in his operations
no other labour than that of his intellects. It is no less advant