JANUARY 12, 1912] 
purposes, but which may publish data of 
value to constructors and students. 
Instruction in aeronautics is now given 
in many foreign technical schools and uni- 
versities, the best known course of study 
being under Professor Prandtl at the Uni- 
versity of Gottingen, in connection with 
the laboratory already mentioned. M. 
Basil Zaharon, a wealthy Greek residing 
in Paris, has endowed a chair of aero- 
nautics at the Sorbonne with a fund of 
$140,000, so that France will soon rival 
Germany in facilities for training students 
in this science. 
The United States is almost absolutely 
lacking to-day in aeronautical laboratories 
and technical instruction, for the brilliant 
researches in the past of Langley, Zahm 
and Nipher have not been followed by sim- 
ilar work since the flying machine was real- 
ized. Our government maintains no aero- 
dynamic laboratory and few of our tech- 
nical schools or colleges possess apparatus 
for this purpose, while none offer regular 
instruction though some investigations have 
been made by advanced students. The 
instruction in flying by the so-called avia- 
tion schools is, of course, unworthy of 
consideration, since the best of these only 
teach the aviator to operate and repair his 
machine as the automobile school does the 
chauffeur. 
It appears likely that the demand for 
collegiate instruction from young men 
wishing to enter aerial engineering as a 
profession will soon require the establish- 
ment of regular courses of study based on 
the European curriculum, at the comple- 
tion of which a degree or certificate of 
proficiency shall be given, ranking with 
that conferred in other professional 
courses. It seems to the writer that aerial 
engineering can best be taught in institu- 
tions that now possess departments of 
mechanical engineering and naval archi- 
SCIENCE 45 
tecture, for the preliminary training would 
be the same as that now given in these 
studies and the specialization would consist 
in the substitution of air for water as the 
navigable medium. The installation of 
laboratories having powerful blowers con- 
nected with large wind-tunnels, or equipped 
with whirling-tables in a large enclosed 
space, is, of course, essential. 
The board of governors of the Aero Club 
of America have requested the committee 
on aerodynamics to consider the most feas- 
ible method of organizing and maintain- 
ing an aeronautical laboratory in this coun- 
try. This committee, of which the writer 
is a member, through its chairman, Dr. A. 
F. Zahm, has made a preliminary report 
containing the following suggestions. The 
fact that the United States Signal Corps 
and the Bureau of Navigation of the Navy 
Department will probably establish such 
laboratories for their officers, should not 
prevent the creation of a civil aeronautical 
institution similar to those already de- 
seribed in England, Germany and Russia. 
If the English precedent is followed, and 
the laboratory be maintained by the gov- 
ernment, it could properly be attached to 
the Bureau of Standards, but if privately 
endowed, like those on the continent of 
Kurope, it might become an adjunct of the 
Smithsonian Institution, and this would be 
the more appropriate because the institu- 
tion through its late secretary has already 
undertaken extensive aerodynamical re- 
searches and still possesses workshops and 
a special library. 
Two years ago our chairman, Professor 
G. F. Swain, in speaking of engineering 
as a profession, remarked that aeronautics 
was a peculiarly appropriate field for this 
section to occupy, because it had not been 
taken up to a considerable extent by the 
engineering societies. This is still true to- 
day and the object of this address is to 
