TECHNICAL EDUCATION 179 



This, then, I take to be an example of an examination, 

 devised by a very competent engineer, who has not sufficiently 

 considered what examinations can be expected to do. He 

 might defend his paper by observing that the Science and Art 

 examinations were meant to test the proficiency of teachers, and 

 for this purpose the examination is only faulty in requiring 

 superhuman knowledge. I sincerely hope that no similar paper 

 will be put before young students. 



On the other hand, neither in theoretical nor in Applied 

 Mechanics is there a single problem as to the strength of 

 materials and the stability of structures, the proportions of 

 which ought to exist between firebar surface, heating surface, 

 the dimensions of cylinders, etc., in steam-engines. Nothing is 

 said of the geometrical methods which engineers find so con- 

 venient for solving the problems of strains on framework, nor 

 are there any questions testing the capacity of the student to 

 understand the graphic representation of results by diagrams ; 

 whereas I hold that to those points the student's attention 

 should be directed before he enters the workshop, and that he 

 cannot possibly be expected to make a pen-and-ink sketch of 

 a ten-ton hydraulic crane, of a steam hammer, of a turbine in 

 equilibrium adapted to secure the best results from a fall of 

 sixteen feet, or even of a hydraulic accumulator. 



I wholly disbelieve in any attempt to ascertain a man's 

 mechanical knowledge by shutting him up for four or five 

 hours without any books of reference, and asking him to answer 

 eight such questions as these, ranging over every variety of 

 machine. The best men in the country could not pass such an 

 examination ; and a man who, in after life, attempted to design 

 machines of which he had only a general knowledge, without 

 referring to all the drawings he could find of similar contri- 

 vances, and without giving the subject a day or two's considera- 

 tion, would be an exceedingly bad engineer. 



Then, you may ask, to what kind of examination would you 

 subject your candidate for an engineering degree ? First, I 

 would subject him to an examination in some one or two 

 branches of theoretical knowledge, allowing him to choose the 

 branch, but then making the examination one which would 

 entitle the successful candidate to honours in that branch. 



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