September 14, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



397 



OBIGINAL INVESTIGATIONS BY ENGINEER- 

 ING SCHOOLS A DUTY TO THE PUBLIC 

 AND TO THE PROFESSION. 



The function of the modem university 

 includes much more than the mere impart- 

 ing of instruction to its students. In a 

 newly recognized, important sense, the en- 

 tire public must be considered university 

 students, and by frequent publications, ad- 

 dressed to different classes of people, by 

 extension lectures and possibly by corre- 

 spondence instruction, the modern univer- 

 sity must seek to educate this greater stu- 

 dent body. Besides this no university, no 

 department even, of a university can be 

 considered to be doing living, vital work, 

 unless in addition to its routine of instruc- 

 tion it is carrying on original investigations. 

 Otherwise its work will be merely mechan- 

 ical. No student can be properly educated 

 without bringing Mm into such close con- 

 tact with veiled truth that he feels the 

 very throb of her pulse, and receives direct 

 from her the inspiration to become himself 

 a searcher after truth. 



It is the object of this paper to make a 

 plea that the function of the modern tech- 

 nical school should be, in its particular 

 field, closely similar to that of the univer- 

 sity, as outlined above. The author believes 

 that in addition to educating engineers, the 

 technical school should, by special courses 

 supplying special equipment, train leaders 

 for all the industrial and commercial work 

 of modern civilization. More than this, 

 he believes that by the publication and 

 distribution of frequent bulletins on tech- 

 nical, industrial and commercial subjects, 

 by its faculty taking part in the meetings 

 and conventions of the various technical, 

 industrial and commercial interests and so- 

 cieties, and eventually perhaps by syste- 

 matic extension lectures and correspondence 

 courses, the technical school should seek to 

 educate the ind ustrial and commercial public 

 in the applications of science to their work. 



It is the special object of this paper, how- 

 ever, to make a plea for systematic, original 

 investigation in technical schools. The 

 necessity for work along this line has been 

 so great and so plainly apparent that a 

 great deal has already been accomplished. 

 The term original investigation should be un- 

 derstood to include much besides experi- 

 mental research. The writing of good 

 technical books, for example, involves a 

 large amount of original study and research, 

 for such books should never be mere com- 

 pilations. In the columns of one of our 

 principal technical journals 73 technical 

 books were reviewed during the year 1899, 

 and 25 of these were written by professors 

 in engineering schools. There is not a 

 single technical journal, and perhaps not 

 an important technical society publication 

 in the country to whose columns frequent 

 contributions are not made by engineering 

 educators. The current of progress of tech- 

 nical education is sweeping engineering 

 professors farther and farther away from 

 the old exclusive devotion to class room in- 

 struction, and more and more bearing them 

 into active participation in the daily outside 

 work of their professions. 



The development of original investiga- 

 tion at technical schools has been especi- 

 ally rapid in late years along the line of 

 experimental research. The modern meth- 

 ods of instruction require extensive and 

 expensive laboratory equipment, which is 

 also available for experimental research. 

 The multitude of subjects pressingly need- 

 ing such research is so great that energetic 

 engineering instructors are naturally led 

 into experimental investigations. Frequent 

 reports of the results of such work are seen 

 in the technical society proceedings. Also 

 most engineering schools maintain regular 

 publications, in which the results of many 

 experimental investigations by both faculty 

 and undergraduates are reported. It is 

 impossible to mention here many of the 



