July 13, 191 1] 



NATURE 



49 



of the leading engineering institutions in the United 

 Kingdom in setting up a special committee which 

 should consider and report to the council on the broad 

 principles of engineering education and training likely 

 to yield the best results. Sir William White, who 

 was then president of the institution, was appointed 

 chairman of the committee; its membership embraced 

 a considerable number of men occupying eminent 

 positions in the practice of all branches of engineer- 

 ing. The inquiries of the committee incUded general 

 preparatory education, as well as the scientific and 

 practical training of those who were proposing to 

 enter the engineering profession. The work to be done, 

 therefore, was very" extensive in its range, and occu- 

 pied the committee more than two years. The report 

 was unanimous, and was approved by the council of 

 the Institution of Civil Engineers and by the councils 

 of the other engineering institutions which had been 

 represented on the committee. That report has exer- 

 cised great influence since its appearance, and as the 

 council of the institution arranged for its publication 

 at a low price (b\ : Messrs. Clowes and Sons) it has 

 obtained a wide circulation, both at home and abroad. 

 One of the most valuable features in this report was 

 an appendix containing the analysis of replies made 

 by a laree number of eminent practising civil engineers 

 to a series of questions framed and circulated by the 

 committee. From this analysis it became evident that 

 the suggestions made in the report not merely repre- 

 sented the views of the members of the committee, but 

 that the recommendations of the committee were 

 endorsed by the great majority- of engineers consulted. 

 In the main the report undoubtedly represented, and 

 still represents, the views of the leading men in the 

 civil engineering profession. Five years have passed 

 since the report was issued, and the council of the 

 institution this year reached the conclusion that many 

 questions of detail and of method which were in- 

 volved in the realisation of the principles laid down 

 in the report might with advantage receive further 

 consideration. It was mainly for the purpose of 

 affording an opportunity of discussing important ques- 

 tions of that kind that the recent conference was held. 



The broad conclusions of the members of the con- 

 ference in regard to preparatory' education of boys 

 who may be intended to become engineers were con- 

 firmatory of opinions expressed in the education com- 

 mittee's report of 1906: a good general education, in- 

 cluding modern languages, was considered to be essen- 

 tial, and early specialisation was deprecated. The 

 advantages obtained by engineering students who are 

 attached to a university were generally admitted, but 

 one most interesting feature of the discussions was 

 an outspoken declaration by professors of engineering 

 in favour of the practical workshop training being 

 chieflv obtained in manufacturing establishments 

 rather than in college workshops. As to practical 

 training, anyone who has studied the subject cannot 

 fail to have been impressed with the enormous im- 

 portance attaching to friendly relations between 

 engineering employers and college students. 



The question of the period at which practical train- 

 ing should be undertaken by those who intended to 

 receive a college training has been much discussed. 

 The report of the education committee of ipo6 recom- 

 mended that boys after leaving a secondary- school 

 Csav, at the age of seventeen or eighteen) should 

 serve for about a year in mechanical engineering 

 workshops, so as to gain some knowledge of practical 

 conditions and work. It was also recommended that 

 at the age of about nineteen thev should proceed to 

 college and complete their scientific training, taking 

 courses of three or four years, and availing them- 

 selves of any opportunities for practical training dur- 



NO. 2176, VOL. 87] 



ing the vacations. After graduation, their practical 

 training in such branches of engineering as they 

 might desire to follow would be completed. 

 This clear statement of the committee's report was 

 not grasped by some of the. speakers at the recent 

 conference, some of whom argued that the whole 

 of the practical training should be taken between the 

 secondary school and the college, while others main- 

 tained that all the practical training should be taken 

 after the college course was completed, in order that 

 there should be no break between the secondary school 

 and the college. The balance of opinion, however, 

 was much in favour of the committee's suggestion, and 

 that also represents the established practice in Ger- 

 many. Formerly all practical training in that countrv 

 was put after the technical university or high-school 

 education ; but experience led the Germans to 

 adopt the system which the education committee re- 

 commended. After twelve years' trial of the new 

 arrangement, the German authorities are more than 

 ever in favour of its beneficial effects. 



No doubt whatever was expressed as to the abso- 

 lute necessity of thorough scientific training for 

 all engineers. There was equally universal acceptance 

 of the view that no man can be considered fit to take 

 part in the design, as well as in the control and 

 direction, of engineering works, unless there is added 

 to a competent scientific knowledge a thorough prac- 

 tical training under actual engineering conditions. 



In announcing their decision to summon the con- 

 ference, the council expressed the hope that it would 

 be widely supported by those interested in solving the 

 difficulties and uncertainties which are experienced by 

 aspirants to membership of the engineering profession. 

 The result of the conference has shown that this hope 

 was well founded. No one who took part in the 

 conference will entertain the least doubt as to the 

 value and interest of its proceedings or of the certain 

 and considerable benefits which will result therefrom 

 to the engineering profession. W. H. W. 



THE PROBLEM OF PITHECANTHROPUS. 1 



NEARLY twenty years have gone since Eugene 

 Dubois, then a young surgeon attached to the 

 Dutch forces in Java, and now professor of geology 

 in the University of Amsterdam, discovered that re- 

 markable individual to which he gave the name of 

 PitJiccanthropus erectus. The actual discovery, it will 

 be remembered, consisted of the roof of a skull, a 

 thigh bone, and two teeth ; they were found in a fossil- 

 bearing stratum on the left bank of the Solo or 

 Bengawan, a stream which, after flowing through the 

 province of Mediun — " the hell of Java " — in the centre 

 of the island, turns in a north-easterly direc- 

 tion to reach the sea. Experts agree that the 

 bones found were parts of the same individual 

 or at least of individuals of the same race 

 or species. As to the nature of the individual, there 

 has been a wide divergence of opinion ; the discoverer 

 regarded it as more anthropoid than human, hence 

 the name, while others, looking on it as altogether 

 human, simply name it the "fossil man of Java." 



The position of Pithecanthropus amongst the higher 

 primates is still debated ; while one school of experts 

 places it in the direct line of human evolution, another 

 regards it as part of a side stem which ended in 

 extinction. The age of the formation in which it was 

 found is also still under discussion ; Dubois assigned 

 the fossil-bearing layer to late in the Pliocene period ; 



1 " Die Pithecanthropus-Schichten auf lava." Geologische und Palaonto 

 logische Ergebnisse der TrinilExpedition (1907.1903). Herausgegeben von 

 M. Lenore Selenka und Prof. Max Blanckenhom. Pp. xlii+268+32 

 (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 191 1.) Price =0 marks. 



