November 9, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



587 



answer themselves. But still there are en- 

 gineers who seem to believe that engineer- 

 ing is something which can be practised 

 without regard to money values and that 

 others can be trusted to coordinate the en- 

 gineering and commercial elements of the 

 enterprises in which they are concerned. 

 These men may be ingenious inventors or 

 designers, they may be great mathematic- 

 ians, they may even be eminent as scien- 

 tists, but they are not engineers. The 

 man who is willing to scientifically spend 

 a dollar to save fifty cents can not be 

 classed as an engineer nor can he be of 

 much assistance in meeting the present 

 yellow-journal danger. The man to so 

 serve the cause of truth must be fully quali- 

 fied to practise his profession in conformity 

 with the limitations of commercial and in- 

 dustrial practise; to the knowledge and 

 training gained in the school of engineering 

 he must have added that knowledge and 

 training which is to be gained only in the 

 exacting school of experience. 



Then the question is raised— what should 

 the college education include that is not 

 now generally covered in the regular four 

 years' course? First it must be acknowl- 

 edged that the courses in place of other 

 material obsolete are crowded to the point 

 where nothing more can safely be added 

 unless there is a corresponding elimination. 

 Through the steady and rapid advance in 

 engineering science we are constantly hav- 

 ing thrust upon our attention new matter 

 for introduction into our courses. But 

 where this new material can not advan- 

 tageously be substituted as illustrations and 

 applications of scientific truths in place of 

 other material obsolete through displace- 

 ment, the new must necessarily be refused 

 admission. We must encourage ourselves 

 in the reflection that our engineering 

 courses are, after all, preliminary, and to 

 a certain extent, elementary, and that it 

 must in any case remain for each student 



after graduation to thoroughly learn all 

 the details of some one— possibly narrow — 

 branch of engineering or industrial opera- 

 tion. While every engineer-student should, 

 after four years, have a good general 

 knowledge of engineering science and prac- 

 tise and be thus prepared to acquire 

 rapidly and surely a specific and certain 

 control of some one branch of the profes- 

 sion, we must recognize that we can not 

 graduate our men as fully equipped engi- 

 neers, ready to assume positions of responsi- 

 bility in any part of the engineering field. 

 And are not the employers often at fault, 

 even some of those who themselves are 

 graduates in engineering, in expecting the 

 young graduate to be able at once to do 

 work which probably the employer himself 

 was not qualified to do for years after his 

 graduation? Is not too much expected of 

 the modern education? There is no royal 

 road to learning, there never will be, and 

 no progress in educational methods will 

 ever relieve the students from the hard 

 work required for mental discipline and 

 specific training. Should we not con- 

 stantly bear in mind that the amount of 

 work required in the four years should be 

 limited to the capacity for thorough work 

 by the eighty per cent, student ? 



How, then, with the four years already 

 crowded, are we to find time to give our 

 students some preparatory training in the 

 branches required to enable them to take 

 up their work in conformity with com- 

 mercial requirements? First let us see if 

 we can agree with Huxley that * ' The great 

 end of life is not knowledge but action. 

 What men need is as much knowledge as 

 they can assimilate and organize into a 

 basis for action; give them more and it 

 may be injurious. " Is it not probable that 

 in certain directions we are giving our stu- 

 dents more than they are yet prepared to 

 assimilate and organize as a basis for ac- 

 tion? Should they not be subjected to a 



