May io, 1906] 



NA TURE 



35 



ncction with the grant of degrees, diplomas, and 

 certificates to engineering students, that great import- 

 ance should be attached to laboratory and experimental 

 work performed by individual students, as well as to 

 their progress in mathematical and scientific studies, 

 rather than that degrees and so on should be granted 

 on the results of terminal or final examinations. It 

 is urged that facilities for post-graduate work by 

 engineering students in higher technical institutions 

 should be much increased; and it is admitted by 

 almost all authorities that the improvements of 

 engineering education depend greatly on the attitude 

 of emplovers towards the recommendations made by 

 the committee, and employers are urged to extend the 

 facilities to engineering students for post-graduate 

 study and research. 



The recommendations of the committee in respect 

 of engineering training embody the conclusions arrived 

 at by an examination of the replies just summarised, 

 and it is unnecessary to do more than point out the 

 respects in which the recommendations amplify the 

 opinions set forth in the schedule prepared for distri- 

 bution. The recommendation respecting the intro- 

 ductory workshop course explained above recognises 

 that at present there are practical difficulties in arrang- 

 ing for this workshop year being interposed between 

 the school and college work, and that employers 

 may consider the arrangement detrimental to their 

 interests. The committee suggests, however, that 

 these difficulties should not be insurmountable, and 

 the general agreement as to its advantageous effect 

 on training leads it to hope that practical trial may 

 be given to the plan. 



Concerning attendance at evening classes during the 

 introductory workshop course, the committee thinks 

 it is most important that all boys should at least 

 maintain their scholastic acquirements, and it is 

 considered that this result might be secured, by 

 private tuition or otherwise, without undue physical 

 strain. .So, too, the general recommendation that the 

 introductory workshop course should be followed im- 

 mediately by attendance at college is modified. It is 

 stated that in some cases — as, for example, when boys 

 are intended to become mechanical engineers--it may 

 be advantageous to complete the practical training 

 before entering college; but, if this is done, private 

 tuition or evening classes must be the rule during the 

 years of practical work. 



The longest of the recommendations urges the need 

 fo,- a sound and extensive knowledge of mathematics 

 ia all branches of engineering. The committee en- 

 dorses the practically universal opinion that a sufficient 

 time should be allotted to the studv of pure mathematics 

 during the common college course, and that the extent 

 to which individual students can be carried in mathe- 

 matics must be decided by the teachers. 



Such are, in brief, the more important of the com- 

 mittee's recommendations, and it is interesting to 

 compare these with some aspects of American practice. 

 The rule in the engineering courses of the colleges 

 of the United States, which it must be remembered 

 always follow a prolonged secondary education, is 

 that in the first two years of the course — which gener- 

 ally lasts four years — a fair amount of time is given to 

 mathematics, English, modern languages, and experi- 

 mental science, and it is chiefly in the workshop and 

 drawing office that the specialisation towards engineer- 

 ing is apparent during these years. Specialisation 

 begins to show itself prominentlv during the third 

 year, and mechanical technology and electrotechnics 

 are more or less taken up in the mechanical and 

 electrical engineering courses. In the fourth year a 

 crowd of engineering subjects is frequently introduced. 

 But as Prof. Ripper remarks in his Mosely Commission 



NO 1906, VOL. 74] 



report, " From the English standpoint too much import- 

 ance may be attached to prolonged literary training, and 

 [lot enough importance to the practical training of 

 students during the earlier years of their career, nor 

 to the cultural value of a scientific and professional 

 education." But in no respect are American condi- 

 tions more different from those at home than in the 

 attitude of the employer's of labour toward higher 

 education. As Dr. Walmsley has testified in a recent 

 report (see Nature, vol. Ixx., p. 231), " Without excep- 

 tion the officials interviewed asserted that, far from 

 having any difficulty in placing the graduates turned 

 out year by year from the engineering courses, for 

 the last few years the graduate class has had every 

 one of its individual members engaged for remunerative 

 work before the completion of the course at college." 

 Such are the importance of the report of the Institu- 

 tion of Civil Engineers and the care which has been 

 expended upon its preparation, that it is to be hoped 

 it will be read alike by all responsible for the educa- 

 tion of our future engineers, and by those who are in 

 a position to employ the young men when their train- 

 ing is complete. In face of the severe competition 

 between nations for industrial supremacy, it becomes 

 a national duty for each and all, who can assist and 

 forward the means of preparing the men in whose 

 care our manufactures and general mercantile welfare 

 will rest, to do their best ; and a debt of gratitude is 

 due to the Institution of Civil Engineers for the work 

 it has accomplished. A. T. S. 



BALLOONS AND KITES IN THE SERVICE OF 

 METEOROLOGY. 



DURING recent years a considerable amount of 

 information has been accumulated about the 

 conditions which prevail in the higher strata of the . 

 atmosphere. Although observations of temperature 

 and humidity were made by Glaisher from a free 

 balloon more than fifty years ago, and later Mr. Archi- 

 bald used kites to determine the change of wind 

 velocity with elevation, it is only in the last ten years 

 that a systematic attempt has been inaugurated to 

 obtain information. There is now a fair amount of 

 observational material awaiting someone with the 

 necessary skill and leisure to work it up, and it is 

 much to be hoped that the task may be taken in hand 

 shortly, so that the results obtained in various 

 countries and by various organisations or individuals 

 may be arranged and coordinated, in order that further 

 inquiry may be pushed along the most promising lines. 



The means of observation available are practically 

 kites and small unmanned balloons carrying self- 

 recording instrurhents, aided to some extent by direct 

 observations made from manned balloons ; and the 

 only obstacle to continuous daily or even hourly read- 

 ings at moderate heights is that of expense. 



The free balloons possess the advantages of reach- 

 ing heights unattainable by any other means, and of 

 being independent of weather conditions. Either 

 paper or rubber balloons are used of about six to 

 ten feet diameter. These balloons are filled with 

 hydrogen, and carry up with them a self-recording 

 meteorograph made as light as possible ; they frequently 

 reach heights exceeding ten miles, and it is seldom, at 

 least on the more thickly inhabited parts of the Con- 

 tinent, such as France and Germany, that they are 

 lost. Each balloon carries an attached label offering 

 a small reward to the finder, and the address to which 

 information is to be sent, and in general the meteoro- 

 graph is recovered with its record in a decipherable 

 condition within a few weeks or a month. It is desir- 

 able that the balloon should fall as near as possible 

 to its starting point, and with a rubber balloon this 



