688 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 619. 



well-balanced course? Should they not 

 then at least be taught the necessity for 

 practising in conformity with commercial 

 limitations and methods? 



I contend that every engineer-student 

 should have some instruction in the prin- 

 ciples of accounting, in depreciation, busi- 

 ness law, patent- law, banking, specifica- 

 tion, and even of sociology. And in con- 

 nection with the business side of their 

 training they should be made to see the 

 importance of the correct use of language. 

 They should be given opportunities to see 

 how the work of the world is impeded and 

 hindered through the ambiguous expression 

 of thought. They should be taught that 

 it is not enough to know, but that they 

 must be able to give effect to their knowl- 

 edge through the use of correct, clear, ex- 

 plicit and forcible language. More partic- 

 ularly in this business department they 

 should be warned by those who can speak 

 from experience of the pitfalls into which 

 they are liable to fall and especially 

 through the efforts that probably will be 

 made to purchase their professional opin- 

 ions if these opinions prove to be of value. 

 Here, as in no other department, can the 

 ethics of the profession be impressed upon 

 the young engineer-student. As religious 

 instruction is excluded from engineering 

 courses, it is all the more incumbent upon 

 us to show our students the lines along 

 which they should practise if they wish to 

 maintain their self-respect. 



Some authorities oppose the broadening 

 of our schemes of instruction on the score 

 that necessarily the effect must be to make 

 them less specific and more superficial. 

 Others oppose making the courses more 

 technically specific on the score that neces- 

 sarily the effect must be to narrow them. 

 I venture to maintain that the change I 

 recommend would broaden the instruction 

 and also make it more thorough and more 

 specifically adapted to the needs of the 



engineer-student. To reach this result the 

 selection of matter for elimination must be 

 made with the utmost care, keeping con- 

 stantly in view the work for which the 

 engineer-student is being specifically 

 trained and that we are not only giving 

 him knowledge but we are training him 

 to think straight and that it will remain 

 for him to acquire in the school of experi- 

 ence that additional training in application 

 which can not be obtained elsewhere. 



In this university you are already 

 equipped, as few educational institutions 

 are to supplement as I have suggested the 

 studies more directly concerned in the tech- 

 nical side of engineering. I refer to the 

 Wharton School of Finance and Commerce. 



Even if only one hour a week during 

 the junior and senior years could be de- 

 voted to these economic subjects, the stu- 

 dents would be better prepared to go out 

 into the industrial world to promptly equip 

 themselves to take authoritative positions, 

 positions from which they could do much 

 to counteract the danger arising from the 

 indiscriminate condemnation by yellow 

 journals of the results obtained from the 

 combination of capital and individual en- 

 terprise working under corporate organiza- 

 tion. Even if, with the time saved by 

 elimination of studies of less comparative 

 value, we could only give our students be- 

 fore their graduation a keen appreciation 

 of their need of the class of knowledge I 

 have referred to, the time would be well 

 spent. 



This is an industrial nation and the peo- 

 ple should therefore have the opportunities 

 to learn the truth as to the fundamentals of 

 industrial management, and the lawmakers 

 should have the opportunities to learn the 

 special conditions, local and otherwise, 

 affecting each branch of industry. This 

 information must come from those who, 

 knowing the truth, are willing to place it 

 before the public. The public inust first 



