NATURE 
[SEPTEMBER 25 1902 
pleasure in undertaking than the arrangement of a laboratory 
in which students might study for themselves such problems as 
come before railway, canal, river, harbour and coast-protection 
engineers ; there is no such laboratory in existence at the present 
time, and in any case it could only be of use in the way of mere 
suggestion to an engineer who had already a good knowledge of 
his profession. 
It was a curious illustration of mental inertia that the usual 
engineering visitor, even if he was a professor of engineering, 
always seemed to suppose that the work done at Finsbury was 
the same as that done in all the great engineering colleges. As 
a matter of fact, no subject was taught there in the same manner 
as it was taught elsewhere.! : 
Most of the students were preparing for electrical or mechanical 
engineering, and therefore we thought it important that nearly 
every professor or demonstrator or teacher should be an engineer. 
I know of nothing worse than that an engineering student should 
be taught mathematics or physics or chemistry by men who are 
ignorant of engineering, and yet nothing is more common in 
colleges of applied science.? The usual courses are only suitable 
for men who are preparing to be mere mathematicians, 
or mere physicists, or mere chemists. Each subject is 
taken up in a stereotyped way, and it is thought quite 
natural that in one year a student shall have only a most 
elementary knowledge of what is to the teacher such a 
great subject. The young engineer never reaches the advanced 
parts which might be of use to him; he is not sufficiently 
grounded in general principles; his whole course is only a 
preliminary course to a more advanced one which there is no 
intention of allowing him to pursue, and, not being quite a fool, 
he soon sees how useless the thing is to him, The Professor of 
Chemistry ought to know that until a young engineer can 
calculate exactly by means of a principle, that principle is really 
unknown to him. For example, take the equation supposed to 
be known so well, 
2H, + O, = 2H,0. 
It is never understood by the ordinary elementary chemical 
student who writes it down so readily. Every one of the six 
cunning ways in which that equation conveys information ought 
to be as familiar to the young engineer as they are, or ought to 
be, to the most specialised chemist. Without this he cannot 
compute in connection with combustion in gas and oil engines 
and in furnaces. But I have no time to dwell on the importance 
of this kind of exact knowledge in the education of an engineer. 
Mathematics and physics and chemistry are usually taught in 
watertight compartments, as if they had no connection with one 
another. In an engineering college this is particularly bad. 
Every subject ought to be taught through illustrations from the 
professional work in which a student is to be engaged. An 
engineer has been wasting his time if he is able to answer the 
questions of an ordinary examination paper in chemistry or pure 
mathematics. The usual mathematical teacher thinks most 
of those very parts of mathematics which to an ordinary man who 
wants to wse mathematics are quite valueless, and those parts 
which would be altogether useful and easy enough to understand 
he never reaches ; and, as I have said, so it is also in chemistry. 
Luckily, the physics professor has usually some small know- 
ledge of engineering; at all events he respects it. When 
the pure mathematician is compelled to leave the logical 
sequence which he loves to teach mechanics, he is apt scorn- 
fully to do what gives him least trouble; namely, to give as 
““mechanics” that disguised pure mathematics which forms 
ninety per cent. of the pretence of theory to be found in so 
many French and German books on machinery. As pure 
mathematical exercise work it is even meaner than the stupid 
exercises in school algebras; as pretended engineering it does 
much harm because a student does not find out its futility until 
after he has gone through it, and his enthusiasm for mathe- 
matics applied to engineering problems is permanently hurt. 
But how is a poor mathematical professor who dislikes engin- 
eering, feeling like Pegasus harnessed to a common waggon— 
how is he to distinguish good from evil? He fails to see how 
worthless are some of the books on ‘‘ Theoretical Mechanics” 
11t is really ludicrous to see how all preachers on technical education are 
supposed by non-th.nking people to hold the same doctrine. ‘lhe people 
asking for reform in education differ from one another more than Erasmus 
and Luther, and John of Leyden and Knipperdoling. 
* At the most important colleges the usual professor or tutor is often 
ignorant of all subjects except his own, and he generally seems rather proud 
of this ; but surely in such a case a man cannot be said to know even his 
own subject. 
NO. 1717, VOL. 66] 
written by mathematical coaches to enable students to pass 
examinations. An engineer teaching mathematics would avoid 
all futilities ; he would base his reasoning on that experimental 
knowledge already possessed by a student ; he would know that 
the finished engineer cannot hope to remember anything except 
a few general principles, but that he ought to be able to apply 
these, clumsily or not, to the solution of any problem whatso- 
ever. Of course he would encourage some of his pupils to take 
up Thomson and Tait, or Rayleigh’s ‘‘ Sound,” or some other 
classical treatise as an advanced study. 
Not only do I think that every teacher in an engineering 
college ought to have some acquaintance with engineering, but 
it seems to me equally important to allow a professor of 
engineering, who ought, above all things, to be a practical 
engineer, to keep in touch with his profession. A man who is 
not competing with other engineers in practical work very 
quickly becomes antiquated in his knowledge: the designing 
work in his drawing-office is altogether out of date ; he lectures 
about old difficulties which are troubles no longer; his pupils 
have no enthusiasm in their work because it is merely academic 
and lifeless ; even when he is a man distinguished for important 
work in the past his students have that kind of disrespect for his 
teaching which makes it useless tothem. If there is fear that 
too much well-paid professional work will prevent efficiency in 
teaching, there is no great difficulty in applying a remedy. 
One most important fact to be borne in mind is that efficient 
teachers cannot be obtained at such poor salaries as are now 
given. An efficient labourer is worthy of his hire ; an inefficient 
labourer jis not worthy of any hire, however small. Again, 
there is a necessity for three times as many teachers as are 
usually provided in England. The average man is in future to 
be really educated. This means very much more personal 
attention, ard {rom thoughtful teachers. Is England prepared 
to face the problem of technical education in the only way which 
can lead to success, prepared to pay a proper price for the real 
aiticle? If not, she must be prepared to see the average man 
remaining uneducated. 
Advocacy of teaching of the kind that was given at Finsbury 
is often met by the opposition, not only of pure mathematicians 
and academic teachers, but I am sorry to say also of engineers. 
The average engineer not merely looks askance at, he is 
really opposed to the college training of engineers, and I think, 
on the whole, that he has much justification for his views. Uni- 
versity degrees in engineering science are often conferred upon 
students who follow an academic course, in which they learn 
little except how to pass examinations. The graduate of to-day, 
even, does not ofien possess the three powers to which I have 
referred. Tle is not fond of reading, and therefore he has no 
imagination, and the idea of an engineer without imagination 
is as absurd as Teufelsdidch’s notion of a cast-iron king. He 
cannot really compute, in spite of all his mathematics, and he 
is absurdly innocent of the methods of the true student of 
Nature. This kind of labelled scientific engineer is being manu- 
factured now in bulk because there is a money value attached to 
a degree. He is not an engineer in any sense of the word, 
and does not care for engineering, but he sometimes gets em- 
ployment in technical colleges. He is said to teach when he is 
really only impressing upon deluded pupils the importance of 
formule and that whatever is printed in books must be true. 
The real young engineer, caught in this eddy, will no doubt 
find his way out of it, for the healthy experience of the work- 
shop will bring back his common-sense. For the average pupil 
of such graduates there is no help. If he enters works, he 
knows but little more than if he had gone direct from school. 
He is still without the three qualifications which are absolutely 
necessary for a young engineer. He is fairly certain to be a 
nuisance in the works and to try’another profession at the end 
of his pupilage. But if it is his father’s business he can make 
1 One sometimes finds a g90d mathematician brought up on academic lines 
taking to engineering problems. But he is usually s¢a/e and unwilling to go 
thoroughly into these practical matters, and what he publishes is particularly 
harmful, because it has such an honest appearance. When we do get, once 
in forty years, a mathematician (Osborne Reynolds or Dr. Hopkinsur) who 
has common-sense notions about engineering things, or a fairly good en- 
gineer (Rankine or James Thomson) who hasa common-sense command of 
mathematics, we have men who receive the greatest admiration from the 
engineering profession, and yet it seems to me that quite half of all the 
students leaving our te-hnical colleges ought to be able to exercise these 
combined powers if mathematics were sensibly taught in school and college. 
We certainly have had enough of good mathematicians meddling with 
engineering theory and of engineers with no mathematics wasting their time 
in trying to ald to our knowledge. 
