568 
INO: 
[OcToBER 12, 1899 
THE BEST EDUCATION FOR AN ENGINEER} 
AN admirable address, well thought out, well delivered, 
and received with bursts of applause, which were 
so enthusiastic that they sounded like volleys of musketry. 
We are still in the early days of the history of technical 
education, and such deliberate expression of opinion by 
those who are connected with the engineering industry 
are much needed on the subject of the early training of 
the engineer; and when the speaker 1s Sir Andrew Noble, 
in whose works 30,000 gain their living, and when, in 
addition, he says what he really thinks, and does not 
merely confine himself to complimentary remarks about 
the College in which he is speaking, his address cannot 
fail to command close attention. 
On two important occasions captains of industry, when 
referring to the early education of those who afterwards 
go to the City and Guilds Technical Colleges, have en- 
Jarged on the value ofa classical training—Mr. Alexander 
Siemens in 1892, and now Sir Andrew Noble. Now, why 
is this? 
A considerable proportion of those who have made 
their mark undoubtedly received a classical education, 
but one asks, Was it the classical education that made 
them famous, or was it their great natural ability, and 
consequent success, that made the reputation of classical 
education? Oris there some other and deeper reason 
for this advocacy of the study of the language and 
literature of the peoples who, near the beginning of our 
era, occupied a small portion of the earth as we now know 
it? Not certainly the argument so frequently urged— 
urged even by Sir Andrew Noble in this address—that a 
student of science should study classics to better 
understand tke meaning of scientific terms. This will 
teach him that “geometry” means “land surveying,” 
and leave him disappointed that six books of Euclid do 
not enable him to measure an irregularly shaped field ; 
his Greek will tell him that a “logarithm” is a “ pro- 
portion number,” but a book of them will still be Greek 
to him. That it is a microphoné that is used in sending 
a message to a téléphoné will provoke a laugh from the 
man in the street, and if to a knowledge of classical 
grammar the student of science adds that of his own 
language, he will realise that one reason why it is so 
difficult to obtain a “reliable” measuring instrument is 
because such a thing is impossible, for the verb “to 
rely” must be followed by the preposition “on.” 
No! such a utilitarian argument in favour of classical 
study is rather a confession of weakness. Nor—as is 
so often alleged—is a classical study of importance 
because it facilitates the learning of modern languages. 
For many are the Dutch, the Poles and the Russians 
who talk with exasperating volubility in one’s own 
language, wherever one may have been born, but who 
know less Greek and Latin than an Eton boy whose 
linguistic powers are as insular as himself. 
A study of the classics and a public school education 
are frequently regarded as synonymous, and so the ad- 
vantages of the one are confounded with the advantages of 
the other. At the present time, when so much attention 
is devoted in secondary and technical schools to matter 
rather than to #zanmer, when the aim apparently is to 
turn out scientific encyclopedias rather than fairly well- 
informed people with cultivated manners, the following 
opinion expressed by Sir Andrew Noble should be taken 
to heart by every engineering student : 
‘*Speaking as an employer of labour, I should say that we 
find a pleasant speech and manner, tact in dealing with others, 
and some power of organisation of the utmost value; and it is 
precisely those qualities which a boy acquires, or ought to 
acquire, in his Zafer years at a public school. Without such 
qualities even the highest scientific attainments will never make 
1Tnaugural Address of the Session 1899-1900 of the City and Guilds 
Central Technical College, given at the College, Exhibition Road, bv Sir 
Andrew Noble, K.C.B., F.R.S., on Tuesday, October 3. 
NO. 1563, VOL. 60] 
a captain of industry, and in selecting candidates for appoint- 
ments the man of business distinctly prefers a youth who has 
had the benefit of some years at a good school.” 
But this polish, we urge, might equally well be acquired 
were the study of Japanese or the production and use of 
the electric current, or the action of mechanical forces, 
substituted by a though¢ful teacher in a public school for 
that of Greek and Latin. For that cultivation, which we 
all value so highly, is not produced by the association of 
a lad with dead writers of exceptional ability, but with 
living lads of his own standing, coming, like himself, 
from homes where refinement and right feeling pervade, 
and all, like himself, bent on preserving a tradition 
which, though sometimes foolish, sometimes rough or 
even brutal, still tends on the whole towards civilisation. 
It is not so much the study as the /zfe of a public school 
boy that is so valuable in forming his character. 
But if that be the case, is Sir Andrew justified in 
deducing the following conclusion ? 
““My own impression with regard to early education is that, 
as a sharpener of the young intellect, and as a mental discipline, 
it would be difficult to improve upon the curriculum which is 
now in force at our public schools, and which, in the main, has 
been in force for so many centuries.” 
The curriculum of a public school is, we think, not 
exempt from the rule that what man has devised can 
always be improved. A classical education, the staple of 
the public school curriculum, has undoubtedly the great 
advantage that some of the greatest thinkers in the past 
spent the early part of their lives in receiving it, and the 
latter portion in giving it to others. It is, therefore, the 
particular form of training that has been carefully 
thought out, and its development is the result of long 
years of trial and error. Further, it possesses another 
advantage, the value of which does not seem to have 
received the recognition it deserves, and this is that 
when the merest dullard is puzzling out some passage 
with the aid of dictionary and grammar, he is really 
engaged in a small way on precisely the same kind of 
work that enchants the greatest scientific investigator, 
viz. finding out for himself something that he wants to 
know. 
Now this by no means characterises the work of all 
the students in a well-fitted modern laboratory. Not a 
few, following the instructions, spend hours taking read- 
ings of instruments and tabulating the results, but fail to 
find out what is the meaning of these results, or even 
what is the object of the experiment itself. They have, 
in fact, been laboriously grinding at the handle of the 
barrel organ, but have been mentally deaf to the tune 
that it played. 
Heartily then do we join with Sir Andrew Noble in 
deprecating training of this kind—whatever it may be 
called—and agree with him that even when all technical 
study is postponed until after school and college life :— 
“Those men who, with fair abilities, have received a really 
good education, have been taught to use their minds, and who, 
by contact with other students, have acquired habits of appli- 
cation, amply make up for their late start by the power of mind 
and grip that they bring to their work.” 
But can these qualities, we ask, only be acquired by 
confining a boy’s attention to the study of words and 
ideas, and by excluding all study of nature and things? 
Sir Andrew himself states :— 
*“TIn nine cases out of ten, I should say, any knowledge 
acquired by a boy before he is sixteen can have but a slight 
intrinsic value. Up to that age, it is not what he learns that 
we have to look at, but Zow he learns ; it is the habit of dis- 
cipline, of mental application, of power in attacking a subject, 
that are so valuable ; not, generally, any definite piece of know- 
ledge he may have gained.” 
Now surely “the habit of discipline, of mental ap- 
plication, of power in attacking a subject ” is exactly what 
