668 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 305. 



neering schools gave but little technical in- 

 struction ; most of the so-called engineering 

 part of the course consisted of mathematics 

 and elementary science. 



In 1862 Congress passed an act giving to 

 the several states public lands for the bene- 

 fit of ' instruction in the arts and sciences 

 relating to agriculture and the mechanical 

 arts.' Shortly after the close of the civil 

 war many of our engineering schools were 

 organized under this act. Never was there 

 a movement more timely or more successful 

 than this, since it has resulted in the estab- 

 lishment of sixty-four technical colleges — 

 at least one in each state and territory. 

 Fifty of them give instruction in one or 

 more branches of engineering. 



The number of institutions at present 

 giving instruction in engineering is shown 

 in Table I. The institutions are classified 



TABLE I. 



Number of Institutions giving Instruction in Different 



Branches of Engineering in 1898-99. 



with reference to their requirements for 

 admission according to the scheme pre- 

 sented by the Committee on Entrance Re- 

 quirements — see the annual report of the 

 Society for 1896, pages 103-4. The report 

 of the Committee includes 110 institutions, 

 but the writer concludes from a careful 

 study of their catalogues that at least twelve 

 of these have no engineering course. The 

 writer has received no report from seven of 

 the United States institutions listed by the 

 Committee, nor from the two Canadian en- 

 gineering schools. 



Table II. shows the number of students 

 in the several branches of engineering for 

 the year 1898-99 ; and Table III. the 

 number of graduates for the year 1899, 

 These data were collected from the institu- 

 tions for this purpose. A few schools were 

 not heard from, but in each case they were 

 small ones having few, if any, engineering 

 students, which fact probably accounts, in 

 some cases at least, for their failure to report. 

 Therefore, Tables II. and III. may be con- 

 sidered as representing the total number of 



Number of Students in Different Brandies of Engineering 

 in 1898-99. 



engineering students and graduates for the 

 year 1898-99. During the decade 1889-99 

 the number of students increased from 3,043 

 to 9,659, or 317 per cent. ; and the gradu- 

 ates increased from 483 to 1,413, or 242 per 

 cent. However, in this connection aver- 

 ages are misleading, since the rate of growth 

 for the diiBferent courses vary greatly. For 



TABLE III. 

 Number of Engineering Qraduates in 1899. 



