PROBLEMS IN TRAINING MINING ENGINEERS 657 



roe, of the Columbia School of Mines. For many years he has de- 

 voted much labor, with notable foresight, judgment, tact, and 

 discrimination, to the system now known as the Summer School 

 of Practical Mining. To him, more than to any other one man, we 

 owe this very useful adjunct, which has been adopted, with va- 

 rious modifications, by most American mining schools. It is an 

 outgrowth of the geological excursion, so long practiced in German 

 mining schools. But here it has been made to comprise the study, 

 by a body of students, under the direction of their professors, of 

 the leading operations of mining, dressing, and working ores. One 

 or more mining districts and several mines are visited, during a 

 trip of a month or more. Surveys are made; sketches and notes 

 are taken; and the student begins to acquire a first-hand know- 

 ledge of many conditions which he must afterwards meet. 



An interesting modification of this method has just been at- 

 tempted jointly, at the suggestion of Prof. John Hays Hammond, 

 of the Sheffield School, and under the direction of Prof. H. S. Mun- 

 roe, of Columbia, by the mining schools of Columbia, Colorado, 

 Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yale. 

 It consists in hiring a mine for the summer, and putting the stu- 

 dents at work under proper direction at the various operations of 

 practical mining. In this way the mine for the time being is turned 

 into a sort of school for the young men. This change certainly has 

 many advantages. It comes as near the European conditions as 

 is possible in America. It enables the operations of the mine to be 

 subordinated for the time being to the needs of instruction. This, 

 for beginners, is certainly a great advantage. The method is, how- 

 ever, an expensive one; and several years of experience are neces- 

 sary before it can be finally judged. 



There is another modification of the summer school idea, per- 

 haps even more difficult of general application, with which I have 

 had the most experience, and from which I hope much in the future. 

 I began by visiting with my students various mining districts each 

 year; but I found in this plan not only many advantages, but also 

 many serious difficulties. One of the most fundamental of the latter 

 was, that there is an important element which a man does not get 

 by merely looking on. He often thinks he understands a thing 

 that he sees another do; but such superficial knowledge is not to 

 be trusted. It may suffice for amateurs and dilettanti ; but real 

 professional knowledge and power are not so obtained. It leads 

 to that false sense of knowledge that makes practical men so dis- 

 gusted with the man just out of college. It is the thorough, in- 

 grained mastery which long familiarity with his work has given 

 the practical man that makes him superior in any emergency to 

 the mere "looker-on in Venice." Moreover, traveling with a large 



