Mat 7, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



723 



The goal of science is clear; it is nothing short 

 of the complete interpretation of the imiverse. 



Or as Muir has put it : 



The great business of chemistry is to force men 

 into close contact with some aspects of external 

 realities and, with the help of her sister sciences, 

 to remove everything that prevents the full vision 

 of nature. 



Aethuk D. Little 



TEE FUNCTION AND FUTURE OF THE 

 TECHNICAL COLLEGE "^ 



That the education of the child through 

 the first eight years of school should be at 

 the public expense is a matter generally 

 accepted as fundamental by every intelli- 

 gent voter in this country. There are, 

 however, those who insist that public funds 

 should not be used in carrying on schools 

 of secondary rank; and that the expense 

 of college or advanced technical training 

 should be met and universities sustained by 

 the state is a proposition many would com- 

 bat. The teaching of trades at public ex- 

 pense, a matter that a few years since was 

 considered impossible by trades unions and 

 society generally, is slowly but surely ma- 

 king its way in this country. If we are to 

 witness, in the next decade, such advances 

 in the scientific, commercial and industrial 

 world as would appear commensurate with 

 the progress of the past ten years, it will 

 be largely due to the work of the technical 

 schools, and colleges of science and engi- 

 neering — institutions under state control as 

 well as those on private foundations. 



As the opportunity and field for such 

 institutions are becoming vastly greater 

 and broader and the need for technically 

 trained men more and more apparent, the 

 fact is also clear that the training in such 

 schools is too narrow and restricted. This 

 is but the natural revolt against the old 

 scholasticism. From a college training in 



^ Elaboration of an address before the Technical 

 Education Department of the National Education 

 Association, July, 1907. 



letters merely, the tendency has been 

 strongly marked in the opposite direction, 

 and pure science and technique in the ab- 

 stract has characterized the technical 

 courses. 



In these institutions men must be pre- 

 pared, not alone to carry out the will of 

 another; not simply to be exact machines 

 to execute the plans presented to them. 

 The product of these schools must possess 

 initiative, imagination, individuality; they 

 must be experts, leaders, investigators, ex- 

 ecutives ; they must plan and lead, not fol- 

 low merely; they must create as well as 

 construct. In other words, continued prog- 

 ress means that technical education must 

 produce executive engineers and industrial 

 experts. For these men of the future we 

 must rely upon the endowed institutions, 

 of which there are all too few of high 

 grade, as well as upon public institutions 

 ranking with the former and offering all 

 the advantages of study and research. 



The time will soon be upon us when, 

 forced to sustain a much greater popula- 

 tion than we now have, and owing to keen 

 competition with foreign countries, the in- 

 dustrial and commercial development of 

 this nation will demand experts in many 

 lines. The depleting of our forests not 

 only robs us of timber needful in develop- 

 ing the arts, but in certain sections of the 

 country will so affect the water supply as 

 to produce regions dry and arid; the stor- 

 ing of water in reservoirs for purposes of 

 power, consumption and irrigation is a 

 matter hardly yet begun; the building of 

 railroads, canals, electric lines; the bridg- 

 ing of rivers and the draining of swamps ; 

 the constructing of a system of highways 

 and thoroughfares from city to city and 

 throughout rural districts ; the development 

 of scientific farming, the greatest industry 

 before our people to-day; the building of 

 harbors ; the perfecting of our great mining 

 industries; these are some of the enter- 



