NATURE 



145 



THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1897. 



PROFESSOR KLEIN AND TECHNICAL 

 EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 



\ MOVEMENT regarding the higher technical 

 ^ »■ education in Germany was started a few years ago 

 by Prof. Klein, in conjunction with some of his colleagues 

 'Xernst and others) at the University of Gottingen, which 

 may become a most important factor in the development 

 <if technical education as well as of science. It has, 

 however, from the very outset, met with violent opposition, 

 both in University and in engineering circles. 



.An account of Prof. Klein's scheme, and of the dis- 

 cussion to which it has given rise, cannot fail to be of 

 interest to all concerned with technical education. 



The first publication of Klein's on this subject is con- 

 tained in the lithographed memoir dated Easter 1895, and 

 which has been published in the Zeitschrift des Vereins 

 Deiiischer Ingenieurc^ January 1896. In it is proposed 

 the establishment of a physico-technical institute at the 

 University of Gottingen. 



The object of this institute he states to be to give 

 opportunity to persons who already possess a certain 

 amount of scientific or technical education to increase 

 both their knowledge and their power of using it. 



It is not intended for the education of large numbers, 

 but rather to help the exceptional few who, in consequence 

 of their talents or other favourable circumstances, can 

 spend more time on their education. 



Or, as it stands in the original — 



" Das zu griindende Institut soil wissenschaftlich oder 

 technich bereits bis zu einem gewissen Grade vorgebildeten 

 PersonenGelegenheit zu weitererVertiefung ihres Wissens 

 und Konnens auf physikalisch-technischem Gebiete 

 liefern. Hierbei wird es sich nie um Massen ausbildung, 

 sondern nur um die Forderung einiger Weniger handeln, 

 denen Talent oder sonstige gliichliche Umstande ein 

 Uebriges auf ihre Ausbildung zu wenden gestatten." 



The projected institute should combine all the ap- 

 pliances of modern physics with those technically used, 

 but so that the first are subservient to the latter. 



In physics the study of nature is nearly always con- 

 ducted with experiments carried out in the smallest 

 dimensions, whilst the engineer works towards the mastery 

 over nature on the largest scale. The institute should 

 comljine both micro- and macro-physics. 



The following are given as the more important depart- 

 ments of the institute : "Precisions-Mechanik" (measur- 

 ing instruments) ; theory of elasticity and strength of 

 material ; kinematics, including hydraulics and experi- 

 mental ballistics ; practical thermo-dynamics and practical 

 electricity. 



It is added that it will scarcely be possible to establish 

 all these at once. 



Lectures of a practical nature are to be added on all 

 the subjects. 



The importance of practice in drawing]and construction 

 is also dwelt upon. The chief thing, however, will be the 

 work in the laboratory. 



It is pointed out that this scheme will enable the 

 engineer to take a University degree by a scientific thesis 

 on some technical subject. 



NO. 1442, VOL. 56] 



The qualifications of a director and an estimate of the 

 necessary expenditure are next discussed. The latter is 

 put down at about 1 5,000/. as the initial expense, and the 

 annual cost as 750/., exclusive of the director's salary. 



Then follows a more minute discussion of the plan and 

 its relation to the Reichsanstalt in Charlottenburg, its 

 connection with the University, the advisability of such 

 an institute from the engineer's point of view, the benefit 

 it will be to the University, and the suitability of Gottingen 

 for such an institute. 



The first thing which will strike every one in reading 

 this will be that there is nothing more proposed here than 

 is, or might be, carried out in many of the higher tech- 

 nical schools, and that the whole has been devised at the 

 University somewhat in ignorance of what the technical 

 schools are doing. Nothing, therefore, seems more 

 natural than that from these a unanimous voice against 

 it should have been raised. Klein himself has fully 

 acknowledged this defect in this first statement of his 

 scheme. 



To form a true idea both of his high aims and of their 

 importance for technical education, it is necessary to 

 enter into the criticism already mentioned, which the plan 

 has received from engineers and engineering professors, 

 and into a number of further publications by Klein on the 

 subject, mostly addresses read at meetings of engineers 

 and teachers. 



A perusal of these papers brings out clearly the follow- 

 ing points. 



There has grown up in Germany a strong feeling of 

 antagonism between the technical high schools ("Tech- 

 nische Hochschule" is the name now generally given in 

 Germany to the colleges devoted to higher technical 

 education) and the Universities. The new life infused 

 into Germany since its unification, and the great impulse 

 given thereby to German industries, has naturally had its 

 influence on the technical high schools and on technical 

 education in general ; but the Universities have remained 

 almost uninfluenced by it. They have remained stationary 

 whilst the others have progressed, and the engineers 

 have more than ever looked with sovereign contempt on 

 these ancient and, to their minds, fossilised seats of 

 learning. 



But their progress has been hampered by the unsatis- 

 factory preliminary preparation of the students on entering 

 on their technical studies, and so the whole question of 

 secondary education comes in, just as it does in England. 

 To remedy this, and make the school teaching less 

 classical, and to bring it into closer connection with the 

 requirements of modern life, the technical high schools 

 now claim that the teachers of .mathematics and science 

 should be educated by them, andjnot at the Universities. 

 At the same time, they feel the need of attaching to them- 

 selves, or where they exist alreadynto extend, just such 

 laboratories as Klein described, and they maintain that 

 these can only be useful to the development of industry 

 if they are under their direction, and further, that any 

 money given by the Government to the Universities would 

 be taken from them and utterly wasted. 



There has also been going on a gradual reformation in 

 the programmes recommended to the ^students, and an 

 endeavour to restrict the purely theoretical parts, and to 

 dwell more on the increase of power in the students to 



