November 14, 191)>.] 



SCIENCE. 



ms- 



stupefied, and he advocates the study of 

 pure mathematics and abstract dynamics 

 as absolutely necessary for the training of 

 the mind of every young engineer. I have 

 kno.wn the ordinary abominable system of 

 mathematical study to be advocated by 

 engineers who, because they had passed 

 through it themselves, had really got to 

 loathe all kinds of mathematics higher than 

 that of the grocer or housekeeper. They 

 said that mathematics had trained their 

 minds, but they did not need it in their 

 profession. There is no profession which 

 so much requires a man to have the mathe- 

 matical tool always ready for use on all 

 sorts of problems, the mathematical habit 

 of thought the one most exercised by him; 

 and yet these men insist upon it that they 

 can get all their calculations done for them 

 by mathematicians paid so much a week. 

 If they really thought about what they were 

 saying, it would be an expression of the 

 greatest contempt for all engineering com- 

 putation and knowledge. He was pitch- 

 forked into works with no knowledge of 

 mathematics, or dynamics, or physics, or 

 chemistry, and, worse still, ignorant of the 

 methods of study which a study of these 

 things would have produced; into works 

 where there was no man whose duty it was 

 to teach an apprentice; and because he, 

 one in a thousand, has been successful, he 

 assures us that this pitchforking process is 

 absolutely necessary for every young en- 

 gineer. He forgets that the average boy 

 leaves an English school with no power to 

 think for himself, with a hatred for books, 

 with less than none of the knowledge which 

 might help him to understand what he sees, 

 and he has learned what is called mathe- 

 matics in such a fashion that he hates the 

 sight of an algebraic expression all of his 

 life after. 



I do not want to speak of boys in gen- 

 eral. I want only to speak of the boy who 

 may become an engineer, and before speak- 



ing of his training I want to mention his 

 essential natural qualification— that he 

 really wishes to become an engineer. I 

 take it to be a rule to which there are no 

 exceptions, that no boy ought to enter a 

 profession— or, rather, to continue in a 

 profession— if he does not love it. We all 

 know the young man who thinks of engi- 

 neering things during office hours and 

 never thinks of them outside office hours. 

 We know how his fond mother talks of her 

 son as an engineer who, with a little more 

 family influence and personal favor, and 

 if there was not so much competition in 

 the profession, would do so well. It is 

 true, family influence may perhaps get 

 such a man a better position, but he will 

 never be an engineer. He is not fit even 

 to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water 

 to engineers. Love for his profession keeps 

 a man alive to its interests all his time, 

 although, of course, it does not prevent his 

 taking an interest in all sorts of other 

 things as well ; but it is only a professional 

 problem that warms him through with en- 

 thusiasm. I think we may assume that 

 there never yet was an engineer worth his 

 salt who was not fond of engineering, and 

 so I shall speak only of the education of 

 the young man who is likely to be fond of 

 engineering. 



How are we to detect this fondness in a 

 boy? I think that if the general educa- 

 tion of all boys were of the rational kind 

 which I shall presently describe, there 

 would be no great difficulty; but .as the 

 present academic want of system is likely 

 to continue for some time, it is well to 

 consider things as they are. Mistakes must 

 be made, and the parent who tries during 

 the early years of his offspring to flnd out 

 by crafty suggestion what line his son is 

 likely to wish to follow, will just as prob- 

 ably do evil by commission as the utterly 

 careless parent is likely to do evil by omis- 

 sion. He is like the botanical enthusiast 



