408 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX No. 220. 



the extent to which all departments of edu- 

 cation are becoming systematized and or- 

 ganized in the United States. Hitherto, in 

 all countries, there had been observable a 

 very serious lack in this respect, even in 

 Germany, where the central government, 

 and the authorities of every kingdom alike, 

 control and direct the education of all 

 classes from centi'al organized bureaux. 



With us primai-y and secondary educa- 

 tion have had consistent and authoritative 

 direction, not always wise or expert, but al- 

 vi^ays earnest and well-intended ; for the 

 common school has been recognized, from 

 the first, as the strongest bulwark of our 

 institutions, political and social. Profes- 

 sional education and training, however, 

 have, like all higher learning, been sustained 

 mainly by private, sporadic and unsystem- 

 atic, unauthoritative, support and aid. 

 Education, in a true sense and on the lower 

 levels, has been fairly well-cared for; pro- 

 fessional training, that education which is 

 rather a noble form of apprenticeship to a 

 noble vocation, finds even yet almost no 

 public and little private recognition. Of 

 late the schools of engineering are secur- 

 ing some attention from investors in this 

 for_m of higher security and from the State 

 Legislatures and expert educators and pro- 

 fessionals. In the West, particularly, the 

 schools of the vocations are attracting more 

 and more attention as their relation to and 

 bearing upon the social condition of the 

 people is coming to be generally appre- 

 ciated. 



The volume before us contains the pro- 

 ceedings of a single meeting of a representa- 

 tive association of this class, and presents a 

 very excellent picture of the purposes and 

 methods of such an institution. The So- 

 ciety, about five years old, numbers 244^ 

 and includes practically all of the leaders 

 in the development of this branch of tech- 

 nical educational work in the country, and 

 representatives from nearly all recognized 



professional schools in this field. Twenty- 

 nine papers are published, together with 

 lists of officers and members, the constitu- 

 tion of the Society, its rules and its pro- 

 ceedings at the Boston meeting of 1898. 



The leading paper is the address of Presi- 

 dent Johnson, a discussion of the topic : 

 ' A Higher Industrial and Commercial 

 Education as an Essential Condition of our 

 Future Material Prosperity.' This is a 

 most interesting and impressive statement 

 of the needs of the United States in this 

 direction, and of the dangers that threaten 

 a nation neglecting to systematize its indus- 

 trial system and the education of the ' In- 

 dustrial Classes' for their life and work in 

 presence of a competition which is coming 

 to be more constant and more dangerous 

 as the means of communication and of 

 transportation become more extended and 

 more perfect. The foreign ' Mono-tech nic 

 Schools ' are held up to our view as models 

 of a type of school which is almost unknown 

 in this country, and as having proved the 

 salvation of the Germanic peoples. The 

 establishment of high-grade mono technic 

 and commercial schools is urged as the 

 most promising and desirable of all visible 

 modern improvements in education and 

 training for the industrial classes. 



A full evening was given to a paper ' On 

 the Organization of Engineering Courses 

 and on Entrance Requirements for Profes- 

 sional Schools,' in which the writer, follow- 

 ing a somewhat similar line of thought, 

 developed the theory of professional educa- 

 tion, exhibited the logical differences be- 

 tween the real ' education ' of the academic 

 colleges and the primarily vocational train- 

 ing, the ' higher apprenticeship ' of the pro- 

 fessional schools ; showing that while the 

 one should offer a ' ladder from the gutter 

 to the university,' as Huxley said, the other 

 lets down a ladder from the profession to 

 the people, the two thus demanding radi- 

 cally different methods of construction of 



