4 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN SHIP CONSTRUCTION 
It will be observed that the first year is practically no different from other 
engineering courses and needs no comment. 
In the second year a study of ship construction, consisting of class and 
drawing-room exercises, is begun. This course is given here to familiarize the 
student with ships and ship construction early in his course and to prepare him 
for the summer work to follow at the end of the second year. 
In the classroom the main features of ship construction are covered, with 
Holms as a text. In the drawing room each student fairs up a set of lines from 
partial offsets given him, draws a midship section to the rules of one of the classifi- 
cation societies, and works up an inboard profile construction plan. The midship 
section is finished completely and traced, but the inboard profile is more in the 
nature of a study plate and is in no respects a finished drawing. This inboard 
profile is used to work up various details studied in the classroom. Thus deck 
construction, pillar and deck-girder arrangement, bow and stern construction are 
worked out. The idea is to increase the student’s knowledge of ship construction 
by letting him draw up some of the details himself. No attempt is made to com- 
plete the drawing as would be done in practice. Thus, for example, the pillar and 
deck-girder construction is only worked out for one hold and the deck plating only 
drawn up for part of one deck, the object being to cover as much of a ship’s con- 
struction as reasonably possible, to drive home the classroom work and arouse the 
student’s interest for his summer’s work. 
No attempt is made to study the strength of ships in the second year except 
in a very general way, for the student at this point has not had the proper prepa- 
ration in strength of materials and applied mechanics. In drawing up these 
details, merely working from previous practice by use of classification society rules 
and other drawings, the student learns his limitations and gets a greater incentive 
to master the theoretical work of the following year in strength of materials. 
Naval architecture—displacement, center of buoyancy, stability and trim— 
is also given in the second year in order to bring the student in touch with his pro- 
fessional work early in the course. 
It is very important that the professional studies start early in the course to 
arouse the student’s interest early so that he will have a greater incentive to master 
the more abstract work of his course. 
Following the sophomore year the student is required to spend at least eight 
weeks in a shipyard on hull construction. Lehigh is probably one of the first uni- 
versities, outside of those giving cooperative courses, that requires this practical 
summer work as a requirement for the degree. 
The endeavor is made to distribute the men in as many different yards as 
possible, so that, when they return in the fall and compare notes, a number of 
different types of ships, methods and practices will be represented. 
Although in eight weeks a student will master but little of the art of ship- 
building, yet this practical training introduced in the summer vacation is of incal- 
culable value. First of all it rounds out his sophomore course in ship construction 
and clears up many little points that may have confused him in his college work; 
