RELATION OF HIGH SrHOOI.S TO TECHNICAL COLLEGE. 55 



mistic vein with the training- of the future engineer in the 

 technical college of University rank and in the commercial works. 

 To that part of the training I do not refer, except briefly: I wish 

 to confine my remarks to the " general education " — to the 

 foundation for that " broad and liberal training " to which Air. 

 Harrison has referred. 



It is necessary, for the sake of the uninitiated, to be clear as 

 to what is not implied in the main when the term " engineer " is 

 used by a professional expert ; it does not mean the trade of 

 engine-driving nor that of a tradesman working in the fitting and 

 erecting shops of an engineering works ; the first is an engine- 

 driver, and the second is a fitter or engineer's mechanic. Again, 

 the switch-board attendant in an electric power station is not an 

 electrical engineer. A plumber is not a sanitary engineer, nor is a 

 builder an architect. The steel-worker erecting the steel work of 

 bridges and re-inforced concrete buildings is not a civil engineer 

 any more than is the mason building the stone dam of a reservoir. 

 The confusion in the lay mind, which, as a rule, does not distin- 

 guish between the profession and the trade branches into which 

 it has come to be divided, is probably due to the fact that it is 

 necessary for the professional engineer to have spent a certain 

 number of years at the practice of the trade: this is exceedingly 

 necessary in the mechanical and electrical engineering professions 

 and, to a less extent, in the profession of a civil engineer. In 

 this respect the engineering profession differs from the profession 

 of an architect, who is not usually expected to have worked at the 

 trade of builder. 



The engineer, broadly speaking, is recjuired 



to design the organisation, determine tlie policy, select the personnel, 

 control the finance and supervise the work done in his business. 



This means organising efficiency, a commercial grip on aft"airs. the 

 ability and tact to deal with one's fellow men in every social 

 grade, together with the highest training in the technics of his 

 profession. The function of the L'niversity technical college is 

 the training in technics ; if its atmosi)here is right, it will continue 

 to call forth those personal attributes which are specially neces- 

 sary to the success of the engineer as a profess'onal man, and the 

 foundation for which must have been laid in the engineer- 

 student's scliool life. It is here that the high school plays a rnost 

 important i)art. with responsibilities as great as those in connec- 

 tion with the i)reliminary training for any other learned profes- 

 sion. Sir J. ]. Thompson has ablv summarised what is required 

 in the education of an engineer; it 



ought to be so framed as to develop those qualities which will make him 

 in the best sense of the word a man of the world ; to make him a man of 

 wide S3'mpathies and interests. These qualities are more likely to develop 

 by a training which includes a considerable study of literature than one 

 which is severely restricted to scientific or technical subjects. 



