PRESTDRNTTAL ADDRESS. 455 



would enable this to be done and get over the jealousies between one firm and 

 another would be of enormous benefit to the trade in general. 



Another thing that must not be lost sight of is the urgent need of improving 

 our educational "system. It is little .short of a disgrace that the older Univer- 

 sities are closed to those without a knowledge of Latin and Greek. 



Languages are of the greatest importance to an engineer— not dead 

 languages but live ones. And these should be properly taught, so that the 

 student should not only be able to read and write them but also to speak and 

 understand them. It is quite a different knowledge of a language to be able to 

 read, write, speak, or understand it. Many people can I'ead a language without 

 being' able to write, speak, or understand it, and conversely it is not uncommon 

 to nieet people who can speak and understand a language without being able to 

 any large extent to read or write it. And it is only in live languages that a man 

 is trained to speak and understand a language. 



Why is it that we are so wedded to the dead languages? There is, of 

 course, the tradition that such are necessary for a liberal education, and 

 there is the argument that modern languages are not as good a training for 

 the mind. Granted that they are not quite so good from the point of view 

 of learning to read and write them, does not the fact that they can also be 

 taught as a live language to be spoken and understood make them on the 

 -wliole tlie best educationally for a man ? This is entirely apart from the fact 

 that modern languages are useful and ancient usele.=!S to the man in commercial 

 work. There is, of course, bitter opposition from that most conservative man, 

 the schoolmaster, and one great reason is that it is much easier and cheaper 

 to get a man to teach Latin and Greek than modern languages which have 

 to he taught orally. The teaching of Latin and Greek as they are usually taught 

 has been .standardised to the last degree, and as a result they can be taught 

 by the ' semi-.skilled ' man, and a ' skilled ' man is not necessary, to use 

 engineers' phraseology. In fact, teaching of Latin and Greek is a pure ' repeti- 

 tion job.' At the same time no education is comjileto unless science is rombined 

 with languages and aliso literature, and here lies one great danger of modern 

 technical education. 



And after tlie boy has left school and enters the shops more facilities 

 should he given to enable him not only to keep up but continue his education. 

 In the shops and drawing office too often the boy is left to pick up a 

 knowledge of his trade as" best he can. The apprentice who asks questions 

 is often looked on as a nuisance, and requests for information are generally 

 met by a blank refusal or worse. Often the foreman or chief draughtsman 

 is afraid to answer questions for fear of being charged with giving away 

 so-called ' trade secrets,' but an immense deal of information can be given 

 to an apprentice without doing so. 



Evening classes are .all very good in their way, but more facilities should 

 be given for the diligent apprentice to attend day classes, and this can 

 be arranged in various ways if the employer has a will to do it. A thing 

 that at present often prevents boys desirous of educating themselves getting 

 on is the fact that overtime is allowed as soon as a boy is eighteen, and 

 often he is compelled to work overtime regardless of classes that he ought 

 to be attending. 



It is important to remember that the boy of to-day is the man of to-morrow. 



One complaint is that after a lot of trouble is taken about a boy he 

 leaves after a few years and goes to another employer. The good of the 

 trade in general must be considered, and a man who has had experience of 

 various classes of work is generally a much more valuable man than one 

 whose knowledge is confined to one class only. In any case the other 

 employer gets the benefit of what has been done by the first, and thus the 

 trade in general benefits. 



It is felt that this is a very imperfect review of things as they are at 

 present, but if this address induces all classes engaged in engineering to 

 consider how things can be bettered the author feels that a part, at all events, 

 of his object has been attained. 



