670 



SCIENCE. 



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



icine? 5. Do the data in Table IV. justify 

 the usual classification of schools of law 

 and medicine as post-graduate and engi- 

 neering as under-graduate ? In this con- 

 nection the fact must not be overlooked 

 that some of the students in law and med- 

 icine have more or less college training be- 

 fore entering upon their professional course, 

 and the same is true in engineering but to 

 a much less extent. Time forbids a con- 

 sideration of these questions here. 



But statistics can not represent the 

 most important developments in engineering 

 education in the last third of the closing 

 century. Immense strides have been taken 

 in both the methods and the scope of in- 

 struction. At the close of the civil war 

 there were nominally only six institutions 

 giving any grade of instruction in engineer- 

 ing ; and for ten or fifteen years thereafter, 

 the engineering instruction offered by the 

 best institutions is hardly deserving the 

 name in comparison with that offered by 

 many institutions at the present time. 

 During this period some of the engineering 

 instruction was practical and not scientific, 

 and some was scientific and not practical ; 

 but none of it consisted of the principles 

 of scientific engineering, nor of the rela- 

 tions of the sciences to engineering prob- 

 lems. Text-books were few and poor. The 

 equipment of the schools was inadequate. 

 Then the student went to college to learn 

 details of practice and to fill his note- 

 book with formulas ; he was reluctant to 

 give his best efforts to the acquisition of 

 fundamental principles and to the develop- 

 ment of the ability to see straight and to 

 reason correctly. Happily now all that is 

 changed, and the schools of America are 

 now offering unexcelled facilities for the 

 acquisition of the fundamentals of an en- 

 gineering education, and the students are 

 laboring heroically to ground themselves in 

 the principles of scientific engineering. 



Twenty -five years ago practitioners had 



doubt as to the value of a technical training 

 for young engineers, and distrusted the en- 

 gineering graduate ; but now general man- 

 agers and chief engineers prefer technical 

 graduates, since they have been trained in 

 scientific methods of working, and have a 

 knowledge of the fundamental principles 

 underlying all engineering practice, and 

 look out upon the world of truth from the 

 view-point of a man of science. The na- 

 tional engineering societies now give credit 

 for training in the engineering school to- 

 ward the requirements for admission to 

 membership. The most cordial relations 

 now exist between practitioners and the 

 schools of engineering. Within recent 

 years, largely if not mainly through the 

 influence of the technical schools, engineer- 

 ing has ceased to be traditional and has 

 become scientific. 



The technical school met with no wel- 

 come from the older colleges and univer- 

 sities. In the beginning the devotee of the 

 non-technical subjects was not willing to 

 admit the study of engineering as being 

 upon the same high plane as that of litera- 

 ture, history and philosophy. Now all 

 who know the facts are ready to admit that 

 the engineering student secures greater ad- 

 vancement during his college career than 

 any other undergraduate. This result is 

 due to the definiteness of the aim of the 

 engineering student, to the stimulus of 

 professional preparation and to the nature 

 of the study. 



One of the most important advances in 

 engineering education has been the intro- 

 duction of the laboratory method of in- 

 struction. Now all the better institutions 

 have extensive and well-equipped labora- 

 tories fitted up especially for experimental 

 work, in which the student receives in- 

 struction of the very highest value. In 

 this respect our American schools are 

 unrivaled in the world. In Europe, par- 

 ticularly in Germany, are some notable 



