THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



383 



of his replies. Tliese volumes con- 

 tain papers from 1735 to 17!)0 — the 

 first forty four volumes, letters to him; 

 the forty-fifth, copies of his own let- 

 ters; the forty-sixth, his correspond- 

 ence with his wife; the forty-seventh 

 and forty-eighth, his own letters from 

 1720 to 1791; the forty-ninth, his sci- 

 entific and political papers; the fiftieth, 

 his other writings— notably his Baga- 

 telles, those short essays which had 

 such a vogue, and which are still read; 

 the fifty-first, poetry and verse, his own 

 and that of others, no doubt selected 

 by him for use in his publications; the 

 fifty-second, the Georgia papers — he 

 was agent for that colony; and the 

 remaining twenty volumes, all the 

 multifarious correspondence, other 

 than official, mostly during his long 

 stay in France, his various public 

 offices at home and abroad, his enor- 

 mous correspondence about appoint- 

 ments from men of all nationalities, 

 who wanted to come to America under 

 his patronage to fight, to settle, to 

 teach, to introduce their inventions 

 for every imaginable and unimaginable 

 purpose. 



Both in England and France he kept 

 all notices of meetings, such as those 

 of the Royal Society, and other scien- 

 tific bodies of which he was a member, 

 invitations, visiting cards, notes, busi- 

 ness cards, etc., and at home he kept 

 copies of wills, deeds, powers of at- 

 torney, bonds, agreements, bills and 

 drafts, checks, bills of lading, public 

 accounts and even certified copies of 

 acts of congress and account books. It 

 is to be hoped that the preparation and 

 publication of the calendar showing the 

 contents of this rich mass of materials 

 may be completed at no distant day, 

 certainly by the two hundredth anni- 

 versary of the birth of Franklin. 



THE EDUCATION OF ENGINEERS. 

 At a recent meeting of the British 

 Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 

 Professor W. E. Dalby read a paper on 

 ' The Education of Engineers in 



America, Germany and Switzerland.' 

 According to the report in the London 

 Times, the author pointed out tliat with 

 scientific progress, changing methods of 

 manufacture and the advent of elec- 

 tricily, there has been scarcely any 

 change in the recognized methods of 

 training engineers. At the present 

 time, however, there is no difficulty in 

 obtaining scientific instruction of a 

 high character, and a training in work- 

 shop practise second to none can be 

 secured in the factories of this coun- 

 try. The weak point is the want of 

 cooperation between the workshops and 

 the colleges. The author proceeded to 

 give details of the course of instruc- 

 tion followed at the Massachusetts In- 

 stitute of Technology, Boston, U. S. A. ; 

 at Sibley College, Cornell University; 

 at the Berlin Technical High School, 

 and at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic 

 School at Zurich. There is an essen- 

 tial difference in the methods of train- 

 ing in America and Germany. 



In America the course of instruction 

 is very exactly laid down; in Germany 

 no student is compelled to take any 

 special course, though, for his con- 

 venience, definite courses are laid down 

 in the school calendar. At Zurich the 

 course is partly prescribed and partly 

 selected. The American course may be 

 taken as 3,000 hours, distributed over 

 four years; the continental course is 

 4,000 hours, distributed over three 

 years, independently of laboratory 

 work. The fourth year is not in- 

 cluded, as it is cut up by examination 

 work. In America a large proportion 

 of the time is devoted to workshop 

 practise; in Germany and Switzerland 

 no time at all is thus occupied. The 

 American courses are more practical 

 in character and devote a large pro- 

 portion of the course to the teaching 

 of handicraft skill. In America a 

 student finds himself with a dejrree or 

 diploma at the age of twenty-one. Em- 

 ployers take him without premium and 



