776 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 411. 



in existence at tlie present time, and in any 

 case it could only be of use in the way of 

 mere suggestion to an engineer who had 

 already a good knowledge of his profession. 



It was a curious illustration of mental 

 inertia that the usual engineering visitor, 

 even if he was a professor of engineering, 

 always seemed to suppose that the work 

 done at Finsbury was the same as that 

 done in all the great engineering colleges. 

 As a matter of fact no subject was taught 

 there in the same manner as it was taught 

 elsewhere.* 



Most of the students were preparing for 

 electrical or mechanical engineering,' and 

 therefore we thought it important that 

 nearly every professor or demonstrator or 

 teacher should be an engineer. I know of 

 nothing worse than that an engineering 

 student should be taught mathematics or 

 physics or chemistry by men who are 

 ignorant of engineering, and yet nothing 

 is more common in colleges of applied sci- 

 ence.! The usual courses are only suit- 

 able for men who are preparing to be mere 

 mathematicians, or mere physicists, or mere 

 chemists. Each sub,iect is taken i;p in a 

 stereotyped way, and it is thought quite 

 natural that in one year a student shall 

 have only a most elementary knowledge of 

 what is to the teacher such a great subject. 

 The young engineer never reaches the ad- 

 vanced parts which might be of use to him ; 

 he is not sufficiently grounded in general 

 principles; his whole course is only a pre- 

 liminary course to a more advanced one 



* It is really ludicrous to see how all preachers 

 on technical education are supposed by non-think- 

 ing people to hold the same doctrine. The people 

 asking for reform in edvication differ from one 

 another more than Erasmus and Luther and John 

 of Leyden and Knipperdoling. 



t At the most important colleges the usual pro- 

 fessor or tutor is often ignorant of all subjects ex- 

 cept his o\vn, and he generally seems rather proud 

 of this; but surely in such a case a man cannot 

 be said to know even his own subject. 



which there is no intention of allowing him 

 to pursue, and, not being quite a fool, he 

 soon sees how useless the thing is to him. 

 The professor of chemistry ought to know 

 that until a young engineer can calculate 

 exactly by means of a principle, that prin- 

 ciple is really . unknown to him. For ex- 

 ample, take the equation supposed to be 

 known so well, 



2H, + 0, = 2H,0. 



It is never understood by the ordinary ele- 

 mentary chemical student who writes it 

 down so readily. Every one of the six 

 cunning ways in which that equation con- 

 veys information ought to be as familiar 

 to the young engineer as they are, or ought 

 to be, to the most specialized chemist. 

 Without this he cannot compute in connec- 

 tion with combustion in gas and oil engines 

 and in furnaces. But I have no time to 

 dwell on the importance of this kind of 

 exact knowledge in the education of an 

 engineer. 



Mathematics and physics and chemistry 

 are usually taught in water-tight compart- 

 ments, as if they had no connection with 

 one another. In an engineering college 

 this is particularly bad. Every subject 

 ought to be taught through illustrations 

 from the professional work in which a 

 student is to be engaged. An engineer has 

 been wasting his time if he is able to 

 answer the questions of an ordinary ex- 

 amination paper in chemistry or pure 

 mathematics. The usual mathematical 

 teacher thinks most of those very parts of 

 mathematics which to an ordinary man 

 who wants to use mathematics are quite 

 valiteless, and those parts which would be 

 altogether useful and easy enough to un- 

 derstand he never reaches; and as I have 

 said, so it is also in chemistry. Luckily, 

 the physics professor has usually some small 

 knowledge of engineering; at all events 

 he respects it. When the pure mathe- 



