NA TURE 



621 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1920. 



ASSET AND OBLIGATION. 



WE referred in our issue of January 29 to 

 an appeal made by University College, 

 London, for 100,000/. for the extension of its 

 cng-ineering school. The work done there since 

 its foundation in 1828 has been of such outstand- 

 ing value that it should stimulate a ready response 

 in the form of generous subscriptions to the 

 amount required for the desired extension. The 

 need is now very urgent, as the college, like 

 others, has been compelled to refuse a large 

 number of applications for admission by well- 

 qualified candidates owing to lack of accommoda- 

 tion in the lecture rooms, drawing offices, and 

 laboratories. 



University College was the first in London to 

 tstablish a school of engineering, soon after its 

 foundation in 1826, and it has maintained its 

 ourses of study in this branch of applied science 

 ever since as a potent and living force. It 

 has always had the advantage of the guidance 

 of distinguished engineers for its teaching, 

 and they have greatly assisted the advance- 

 ment of engineering by their inventions and con- 

 tributions to applied science, as well as by their 

 distinction in practical engineering affairs. Among 

 these in its early days were three Fellows of the 

 Royal Society — Eaton Hodgkinson, a great 

 authority on the strength and testing of materials, 

 notably in connection with columns, and C. B. 

 Vignoles, also widely known on questions relating 

 to railways, while William Pole exercised a great 

 influence on contemporary engineering as secre- 

 tary of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Other 

 distinguished men of a somewhat later period are 

 George F'uller, the inventor of a well-known form 

 of slide-rule, and the eminent electrician, Fleem- 

 ing-Jenkin, who for a short period was professor 

 of civil engineering. 



The advent of Prof. A. B. W. Kennedy (now- 

 emeritus professor) in 1874 marked a new epoch 

 in its influence on contemporary thought in 

 engineering science, since it was mainly due to 

 his efforts that engineering laboratory training on 

 a practical scale was initiated, and this has now 

 become universal. Besides this notable achieve- 

 ment, Prof. Kennedy's activities during his 

 fourteen years as professor there were remarkable 

 for their extent and variety ; he was famed alike 

 for his work as an original investigator in such 

 matters as riveted joints, marine engines, boilers, 

 NO. 26,;24, VOL. 104] 



and kinematical science, and as an authority on 

 a wide range of civil engineering practice, and still 

 later as one of the foremost electrical engineers of 

 his time. The keynote to his success as a teacher 

 was mainly derived from his clear exposition of 

 principles and their application in well-devised ex- 

 periments in the laboratory. The effect of his 

 teaching may be traced in the successful careers 

 of his many students, of whom perhaps the best 

 known are Sir Ernest Moir, Bart., a leading 

 authority on harbours and tunnels, and Sir Alex- 

 ander Gibb, whose firm is responsible for the 

 construction of H.M. Dockyard at Rosyth. 

 Municipal engineering, under the fostering care of 

 the late Prof. Osbert Chadwick, has now become 

 an important department. In the field of electrical 

 science Dr. J. A. Fleming, the present professor 

 of electrical engineering, has, for more than thirty 

 years, had a far-reaching influence, not only 

 bv his great gifts as a teacher, but also as an 

 investigator of rare capacity, particularly on alter- 

 nating currents and on wireless telegraphy and 

 telephony. Especially important are the services 

 which Dr. Fleming has rendered to telephony by 

 the invention of the thermionic valve, but these 

 are too well known to need recapitulation to 

 scientific readers. 



The engineering school at University College is 

 an element, and an important one, in the Uni- 

 versity of London, the largest university of the 

 Empire, in the richest city, and probably the least 

 well off when its size is taken into consideration. 

 In University College alone there are more than 

 2200 students, without taking into account the 

 medical students in University College Hospital. 

 There will be many more if its buildings can be 

 enlarged, as they must be if the University is to 

 do its proper work. 



During the war the staff and buildings of the 

 collerre, like those of similar institutions, were 

 utilised to their fullest extent in scientific work of 

 the highest importance to the effective prosecution 

 of the conflict, and now that it has come to a suc- 

 cessful conclusion the men who guide public opinion 

 are unanimous in declaring that one of the most 

 important duties is to provide our universities 

 with adequate means for the scientific training of 

 our most precious asset, "brains," for the future 

 guiding and directing of one of our greatest indus- 

 tries. Civic pride in the University will, we hope 

 and believe, be sufficient to ensure that the engin- 

 eering students of University College do not lack 

 the modest range of buildings and equipment 

 required to give them their chance in life, 



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