GENERAL EDUCATION FOB ENGINEERS. 443 



it is of the highest importance that every man realize that the noble 

 duties of citizenship devolve upon him, that he has responsibilities 

 other than those of merely providing the daily bread for himself and 

 his. We have a community of interests only as long as we have com- 

 mon points of contact; we have the latter only as we have a broad 

 common subsidiary training. 



Admitting that the high school course of the embryo engineer 

 should be rounded out with additional work in language, science, his- 

 tory and economics, the question arises where shall this knowledge be 

 acquired ? 



For the training of our engineers we have, broadly speaking, two 

 types of schools in this country — technical schools pure and simple, 

 such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Rensselaer 

 Polytechnic Institute and others, and engineering departments either 

 in our colleges of engineering and mechanic arts, or in our universities. 

 I group the last two named, because in both of them some of the gen- 

 eral culture studies mentioned as necessary for the broadening of the 

 engineer's training are presented merely from the standpoint of the 

 specialist. 



In the schools of the first type there is a recognition of the fact 

 that the general culture courses must be adapted to the needs of the 

 technical student. There is a frank acknowledgment that these broad- 

 ening studies may be made to serve a useful purpose, even when they 

 are not an end to themselves, and that this does not detract from their 

 value. The fact is recognized by teachers of these subjects in purely 

 technical schools, that because the student is to be a specialist in some 

 line of engineering, he can not at the same time be a specialist in 

 ancient and modern languages, in history, economics and the pure 

 sciences. From the engineer's standpoint, as regards the acquirement 

 of this supplementary general training, there is much to be said in 

 favor of the autonomy of technical schools. This, too, is the view at 

 which the German Society of Engineers has arrived. As in this coun- 

 try, there has been a very large increase in the number of students in 

 the technical courses in Germany. So large has this increase been that 

 for a time at least foreign students in mechanical engineering were 

 barred at Berlin. Existing institutions are still so crowded that the 

 establishment of new technical schools is contemplated. The suggestion 

 was made, that in those places where universities existed and technical 

 schools were needed, the latter might well be incorporated in the uni- 

 versity. At a meeting held in Munich in September, 1904, which 

 was attended by representative teachers from the technical schools, the 

 universities, the preparatory schools and by engineers of standing in 

 practise, the following resolution was submitted : " It is not desirable in 

 place of establishing new technical high schools, to add technical facul- 



