November 25, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



609 



some attention to personnel research along 

 various lines. 



It is surprising to one who has not had a 

 share in the direction of a great engineering 

 enterprise to learn how broad and various is 

 the knowledge demanded in the creation of a 

 Catskill aqueduct, a Panama Canal, a Penn- 

 sylvania Railroad system, a Niagara power 

 development, an East River bridge, a Hudson 

 tunnel, a manufacturing plant of modern 

 magnitude, or a great mine. 



A primary duty of technical schools is to 

 discover young men with genuine research 

 spirit and capacity. For this purpose, psy- 

 chologists may be able to devise tests equiva- 

 lent to those developed by Professor Seashore 

 for detecting innate musical talent. 



A second obligation is to train these natur- 

 ally endowed men thoroughly for research 

 careers. The technical schools should dis- 

 tinguish the individual who by nature is a 

 lone worker from the team worker, and train 

 each suitably, but should indicate to all the 

 value of cooperation. 



A third obligation is to instill the re- 

 search spirit into all technical students. The 

 technical school should foster the habit of 

 inquiry — not mere inquisitiveness, but the 

 purposeful search for truth, the alertness that 

 asks " Why " of every phenomenon, the keen- 

 ness of observation that does not pass indica- 

 tions which the dull-minded would call triv- 

 ial. 



The technical schools should not only 

 discover and educate the rare man with re- 

 search capacity, but should also train men 

 who can be foremen and technical directors 

 of industrial plants, capable of appreciating 

 research and of working sympathetically with 

 research specialists. 



There are numerous ways in which each 

 technical school can give research service to 

 the industries within the region contributory 

 to the school. Each school may well special- 

 ize to some degree according to the needs of 

 its community. Through some central organ- 

 ization, the schools of the country should, 

 however, keep one another informed of con- 

 templated projects and specialities chosen so 



as to get the most beneficial distribution of 

 such specialization without undesirable dupli- 

 cation. Choice of specialities should vary 

 from time to time with progress in scientific 

 research and change in the needs of industry. 

 In helpful relationship to research in the 

 industries, the technical schools should teach 

 their students : 



1. How to assemble, arrange and analyze con- 



ditions so as to state a problem; 



2. That it is wise before plunging into a pro- 



gram of work to learn what the literature 

 contains (a large proportion of supposedly 

 original problems can be answered from 

 records of work done, to be found in our 

 libraries) ; 



3. The economy of spending sufficient time 



to understand the problem and to com- 

 pare several methods before launching 

 upon any one method of attack; 



4. How to select and use the simplest appa- 



ratus and method for a given research 

 which will accomplish the purpose, but 

 to make sure of their adequacy; also how 

 to analyze the apparatus and instru- 

 ments, as well as the method, to detect 

 unsuspected sources of error; 



5. To limit the undertaking according to the 



resources and time available; 



6. That there are elements of research in 



every technical task, which require the 

 ever watchfulness for new light, new 

 aspects, new applications; 



7. How to extract research information out 



of both the ordinary experiences and the 

 unusual happenings in the plant; 



8. How to secure the intelligent and enthusi- 



astic cooperation of foremen and opera- 

 tives in observing closely and reporting 

 accurately in the course of their daily 

 work incidents which may be helpful to 

 a research in progress; 



9. The value of research, even when its re- 



sults seem remote from the present pur- 

 I>ose of industry; 



10. How to express scientific knowledge in- 



terestingly — fascinatingly, but still cor- 

 rectly — in language readily understand- 



