Many had been impressed with the inconvenience caused by a lack of cohesion in the work.  Attention was called to those many common interests of which the faculties should have been the guardian, but of which they could not take care on account of their isolation.  Inquiry, begun in 1883, made the necessity of a reform obvious.  It ended in the rendering of the decrees of July 25 and December 28, 1885.  These decrees may be divided into two distinct parts—­one covering the interior life of faculties, the other providing for a grouping of faculties established in each academic center and the general council of faculties to be the representative organ and executive power of the new faculty life created.

Appreciable results were derived from these reforms.  However they were incomplete, and it was thought, in consequence, that genuine unity should be given to a superior education.  The establishment of the new universities had been a legal consequence of that express wish.

The law of July 10, 1896, gave the name of university to each body of faculties, substituting the university council for the general council of faculties, the duties and powers of such university council being regulated by the decree of July 21, 1897.  The rector of the university is president of that council by right, and is the legal representative of the university before the courts.

In the Department of Machinery the French exhibit included according to the general classification groups, steam engines, various motors and engines, sundry general machinery, machine tools, and shipyard machinery.  All of these several groups and classes were united in order to form a collective exposition for the whole department.

To the above groups there were added the following:  Spinning and rope-making machinery and weaving machinery and materials.  The latter groups included machinery that could also have been placed in the department of general machinery.

In compliance with a suggestion made by the head of the engineering service at the fair, all machines and mechanical appliances exhibited in the Palace of Machinery were distributed, not in accordance with the nationality of exhibitors, but in accordance with the character and nature of the machinery.

French manufacturers had nothing to fear from the fact of their machinery having been placed in the immediate vicinity of other similar machines made by foreign manufacturers.  On the contrary, a closer contact only resulted in setting off in a better light those particular qualities that have made France so successful in that branch of industry on previous occasions.

Outside of the Palace of Machinery there were exhibited in the boiler buildings five steam generators made by French manufacturers.  These boilers contributed to the generation of the steam required for the power houses of the fair.

The distribution of exhibits all over the Palace of Machinery has made it impossible to arrange any decorative devices for the whole group of French exhibitors.