RECENT GROWTH OF ENGINEERING COLLEGES. 



By F. O. Marvin, University of Kansas. 



Presidential address, delivered at Topeka. November 30, 1906, before the thirty-ninth annual 

 meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science. 



TN looking over the field of recent engineering operations for in- 

 -^ dications of growth and unusual activity, far too much is dis? 

 covered to warrant a simple notice even of all that is found. 



There are the great transcontinental lines, some new ones being 

 built and others projected, and the double tracking and other im- 

 provement of old ones. There is the trend toward the substitution 

 of electricity for steam locomotion, especially for service at termi- 

 nals, and the development of interurban electric lines. The steam 

 turbine has many achievements to its credit. The alternating cur- 

 rent has been harnessed. Bridge and building construction is being 

 revolutionized by the combination of concrete and steel, a matter 

 made possible by a revolution in the methods of making Portland 

 cement ; a revolution so important for America that we are likely 

 to wrest supremacy in the cement industry from Europe, as we not 

 long ago forced her to yield her first place in steel. We are usher- 

 ing in a cement age, as we then created a steel age. The gas-engine 

 has come into prominence as a prime mover. 



These and many others are great and interesting movements ; 

 yet the writer of this paper, being a teacher of engineering, and on 

 this occasion speaking to a body of scientific people, most of whom 

 are teaching science and its applications affecting the welfare of 

 mankind, has chosen to turn to another great movement in which 

 he has some part and about which he has some first-hand knowl- 

 edge, and which, furthermore, lies beneath other movements as a 

 basic or fundamental one. 



To the teacher, indeed to every wide-awake and patriotic citizen, 

 education is always an interesting and ever perennial topic, and to 

 scientific people the recent rapid growth and development of the 

 colleges of engineering in our land can but be of especial interest. 

 This subject is a large and inexhaustible one, and only some phases 

 of it can be discussed with any degree of adequacy within the 

 limits of a brief address. 



The report of the United States commissioner of education for the 

 year 1899-1900 gives a total enrolment of students in universities, 

 colleges, and schools of technology, exclusive of students in the pro- 



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