June 4, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



883 



undersell the market. Tou are not aiming 

 merely to increase the output of engineer- 

 ing graduates. Your president has clearly 

 emphasized in his address that it is not 

 cheap engineers but better engineering that 

 the public needs. 



Magnificent work has been done for the 

 engineering profession by our colleges. I 

 believe our American system of training 

 men for the engineering profession is far 

 in advance of that in vogue in any other 

 country. We must recognize, however, 

 that the rapid changes in science and in- 

 dustry and engineering make changes nec- 

 essary in our engineering schools. Imagine 

 a boy to-day taking the course of study 

 that was required at the Rensselaer Poly- 

 technic Institute sixty years ago, and then 

 going out to do engineering work. A high- 

 school graduate of 1909 would be in many 

 ways better equipped. 



Go back only a quarter of a century and 

 you will find that the engineering courses 

 then in vogue would not suit present-day 

 requirements. It is no argument for those 

 courses that men who graduated from them 

 have achieved eminence in the profession. 

 Many men who were denied all educational 

 advantages have become great by sheer 

 ability. 



So we face the question, What education 

 shall the engineering college give to its 

 students to-day that shall best fit them to 

 win success in their profession 1 



I have called your institution a mill 

 which is to turn raw material into a fin- 

 ished product. Well, it is raw, sure 

 enough, but let us remember that the ma- 

 terial is alive — and let us hope very much 

 alive. I believe, after all, your college is 

 not a mill, but— begging the pardon of the 

 freshman class — a greenhouse. 



Engineering education, like any other 

 education worthy of the name, is a process 

 of growth. To achieve success in your 

 greenhouse culture you must have the 



right sort of plants to start with. Unless 

 a boy has natural abilities of the right sort 

 you can not make him into a good engineer. 



On the other hand, boys with good nat- 

 ural abilities who can not afford a college 

 training are going out into the working 

 world all the time, beginning at the bottom 

 rung of the ladder in some line of engineer- 

 ing industry, educating themselves in the 

 school of daily experience, aiding that de- 

 velopment by study in night schools and 

 correspondence schools and by wide read- 

 ing and observation. 



I want to leave a wide door open into the 

 engineering profession for the men who 

 obtain their education in such a way. I 

 want to deprecate any petty prejudice on 

 the part of college-trained engineers against 

 the engineers who have won success despite 

 their lack of systematic college training. 

 Such prejudice is as unworthy as that with 

 which the so-called "practical" man met 

 the engineering graduates of a quarter 

 century ago. 



The engineering colleges to-day must 

 recognize the aids that are now available 

 to the boys outside of the college, in the 

 shape of the correspondence schools, for 

 example. The question is. How shall the 

 boy who spends four years or five years in 

 the college achieve such growth that he can 

 excel in competition the boy who has mean- 

 while been learning engineering by doing 

 practical work. 



For the past twenty years, the engineer- 

 ing colleges of the United States have been 

 trying to answer this question by special- 

 izing their instruction in engineering, by 

 multiplying the number of their courses, 

 by trying to make men expert in one par- 

 ticular limited branch of engineering work. 

 Now I am far from denying that there is a 

 large demand and a certain field of useful- 

 ness for such special courses ; but I believe 

 the consensus of opinion among those best 

 able to judge is that there has been too 



