648 _ MINING ENGINEERING 



receive but scant attention. The American often amuses himself 

 with titles, but deep down in his nature is an instinctive distrust of 

 any one who takes them seriously. Among the men who have done 

 most to develop the mineral wealth of our country this feeling is 

 particularly strong. What a man is, is more important to them than 

 who is he. What a man knows interests them but little; it concerns 

 them much more, what use he can make of this knowledge. 



Herbert Spencer, a radical in so many of his opinions, was quite in 

 sympathy with this point of view. I quote from his Autobiography, 

 vol. i, p. 199, beginning with a passage from a letter to Herbert 

 Spencer from his father: 



"'I am glad you- find your inventive powers are beginning to de- 

 velop themselves. Indulge a grateful feeling for it. Recollect, also, 

 the never-ceasing pains taken with you on that point in early life.' ' 



Herbert Spencer then adds: 



" The last sentence is quoted not only in justice to my father, but 

 also as conveying a lesson to educators. Though the results which 

 drew forth his remark were in the main due to that activity of the 

 constructive imagination which I inherited from him, yet his dis- 

 cipline during my boyhood and youth doubtless served to increase it. 

 Culture of the humdrum sort, given by those who ordinarily pass for 

 teachers, would have left the faculty undeveloped." 



Footnote by Mr. Spencer : " Let me name a significant fact, pub- 

 lished while the proof of this paper is under correction. In The Speaker 

 for April 9, 1892, Mr. Poulteney Bigelow gives an account of an inter- 

 view with Mr. Edison, the celebrated American inventor. Here are 

 some quotations from it : 'To my question as to where he found the 

 best young men to train as his assistants, he answered emphatically: 



'The college-bred ones are not worth a ! I don't know why, but 



they don't seem able to begin at the beginning and give their whole 

 heart to the work.' Mr. Edison did not conceal his contempt for the 

 college training of the present day in so far as it failed to make boys 

 practical and fit to earn their living. With this opinion may be joined 

 two startling facts: the one that Mr. Edison, probably the most 

 remarkable inventor who ever lived, is himself a self-trained man; 

 and the other that Sir Benjamin Baker, the designer and constructor 

 of the Forth Bridge, the grandest and most original bridge in the 

 world, received no regular engineering education." 



Mr. Spencer might have added himself to this list of remarkable 

 self-made men, for his schooling, though excellent as far as it went, 

 was very meagre, and he made himself what he came to be. 



In the words : " / don't know why, but they don't seem able to begin at 

 the beginning and give their whole heart to the work" Mr. Edison has 

 put his finger with singular acuteness on the principal failing of 

 improperly trained college students. The reason why they are not 



