642 MINING ENGINEERING 



(3) The university followed by the technical school. 



Some pupils of all three plans reach the highest pitch of profes- 

 sional responsibility, as the whole question is more one of the man 

 than of the plan. We have no reliable statistics showing percentages 

 of success of or proportional success. One is obliged to resort to 

 opinion, and the opinion of no two may agree. 



The especially strong point in the first plan is the intimate know- 

 ledge that is acquired of the employee class and of the minute de- 

 tails, -- knowledge of work which is obtained in the doing of it. 



The especially weak point in the first plan is that it is narrow 

 and that progress is slow. Experiments may be more expensive to 

 the company and in consequence a greater conservatism rules and 

 lack of readiness to adopt new ideas even when proved. 



The second plan has the advantage that in four years from the high 

 school the student is equipped and strengthened along a sufficient 

 number of lines so that he can do the rest if he is reasonably ener- 

 getic and sensible. He may tumble down because he has not made 

 a sufficient study of the employee class. He can perfectly well avoid 

 this, however, by taking hold of manual work as a laborer or a miner 

 for a sufficient time to acquire the knowledge of what men are, 

 what they do, and how they do it. He may tumble down because 

 he has not made a sufficient study of how to deal with men who 

 are his superiors, or of the capitalist class. This he can avoid if 

 he will accept every opportunity to meet men, and keep himself 

 well read up on the progress of his profession and on affairs of 

 public interest, together with reading of good literature. 



The third plan takes six, seven, or eight years from the high 

 school and may lead to crystallization of the man even to the point 

 of inability to adapt himself to what is wanted of him. This is the 

 weakest point of this school. His best prevention or cure will be 

 to take hold of work as the laborer and miner and make an inti- 

 mate study of the employee class by doing the work side by side 

 with them. In regard to the professional work, the third plan may 

 or may not have an advantage over the second in consequence of 

 maturity. The logical advantage may be offset by the time lost 

 and by hurtful crystallization. "The college student may have 

 learned to do nothing thoroughly well, and if he enter the scientific 

 school after graduation may be less fit to do its work than he was 

 four years earlier. He may have learned to depend on text-books 

 rather than observation, and on authority rather than on evidence." 

 The strongest point of the third plan is the knowledge the student 

 gets of men of influence who later become capitalists. If, however, 

 the member of the second school is energetic and sensible in work- 

 ing for this, it is doubtful if even this is a sufficiently strong point 

 in favor of the third plan to give it preference over the second. 



