AND MARINE TRANSPORTATION. 15 
courses to the institute, but after all, speaking from my own personal experience in my 
own business and my experience in the work of the institute, I think it is just as well to 
give a young man a fundamental education that will be of value to him in the future, 
leaving something to his own individual initiative. I believe that our success in life 
depends upon ourselves, and you may put some young men through the universities of 
Michigan, Cornell and Lehigh, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Webb 
Institute—all of them, one after another—and they will never make a success. 
I would like to say to the young students now present that their success in life depends 
upon themselves more than upon any institution which is trying to help them. 
Webb Institute is distinctive in this respect—it gives to the student not only his 
education, but it furnishes him with all books and materials necessary for the particular 
education he receives. It also furnishes him with board and lodging, the only physical 
requirements being that he must have good health and necessary clothing. We are 
limited in respect to admissions to the institute, because we can only admit students 
from that class of young men who cannot, through means of their own or of their parents 
or guardians, procure education in other places like Stevens, University of Michigan or 
Cornell or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, so that we have a distinct class 
of students. I sometimes think, concerning the education we give these young men, 
who thus get everything for nothing, that it is an advantage for them that they have no 
great resources of their own, because that condition, aided by the special education, 
rather increases initiative. 
I have been very much pleased, Mr. Chairman, with the discussion of this subject, 
and I must confess I was a little surprised, for I did not realize how intéresting the sub- 
ject is to so many members of this Society. 
In conclusion I make application now to Mr. Norton for a full set of drawings of 
one of his ships, and also to Mr. Bailey for a set of his drawings of machinery. 
THE AcTING PRESIDENT:—Is there any further discussion? 
Captain JosepH H. Linnarp, C.C., U.S.N., Member of Council:—A question has 
arisen in my mind, apropos of what has been said, and that is that the Webb Institute 
is favorably known to all of us who have young men come to us for investigation as 
to their qualifications for shipbuilding in various directions, and I often think that per- 
haps one of the reasons for success in the Webb Academy has been the fact that these 
men who go into it are selected from the beginning. They cannot get in unless they 
have certain qualifications to start with; they are a select body before they start. We 
see so often young men who enter into institutions with the vaguest ideas as to what 
they desire to learn and what they may expect in the future. Whether they have 
natural aptitude for the profession or occupation they propose to adopt is frequently a 
minor or non-existent question, and I have wondered, in listening to this discussion, 
whether some of these other institutions make any endeavor, before entering young 
men in their classes, to find out if they have any natural aptitude for the profession. It 
would seem to me to be one of those fundamentals which has been neglected in the past. 
Mr. STEVENSON TAYLoR:—The question raised by Captain Linnard is quite im- 
portant, and I may say just a few words about it. We hold examinations in September, 
and the examinations are very stiff. We insist that a high school education is necessary 
