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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 681 



highest standing that students are received 

 into the schools of law or medicine until 

 they have prepared themselves for the 

 study of these professions by a liberal edu- 

 cation involving the taking of a bachelor's 

 degree, which is accompanied by the attain- 

 ment of the necessary degree of maturity. 

 Is chemistry as a profession one which does 

 not need the same foundation? In my 

 opinion, this is not the case. A sound 

 foundation is quite as much needed as in 

 law or medicine. 



The subject has been discussed, pro and 

 con, at great length in numerous recent 

 addresses. Professor George F. Swain, in 

 opening a discussion on engineering educa- 

 tion before the American Society of Civil 

 Engineers in 1906, said: 



Most people will admit to-day that civil engi- 

 neering, like other branches of engineering, be- 

 longs to the learned professions, and should re- 

 quire a preliminary training corresponding to that 

 necessary for the lawyer or physician. 



The trouble with the young man between the 

 ages of sixteen and twenty-two, who is given the 

 opportunity of a higher education, is that he fails 

 to realize his opportunity and does not take ad- 

 vantage of it, and, as a result, many of the gradu- 

 ates of technical schools and colleges have neither 

 accurate knowledge of any one subject, nor the 

 ability to think clearly and logically, nor the 

 power of taking up a new subject and mastering 

 its fundamental principles without assistance. . . . 



In laying out an engineering course, the aim 

 should be, first of all, to develop broad-minded 

 men who can observe Correctly, reason logically, 

 express themselves in language and on paper, men 

 with imagination and with character, and with 

 good physical development. 



He adds: 



Studies which involve discipline of the mind and 

 observation should be preferred to those which 

 merely give information. 



Subject to the above restrictions, what is taught 

 is not as important as how it is taught. 



The choice of a profession should be made as 

 early as practicable and a continuous course 

 should be arranged with that profession in view 

 from the beginning of the higher education. 



Professor Hugo Miinsterberg in a recent 



address at Lafayette College, already re- 

 ferred to, in which he sings a song of praise 

 for the American college and advocates the 

 establishment of one in Germany at Ham- 

 burg, says: 



The idea was that in Hamburg, just as in Har- 

 vard, the youth ought to get in common, in years 

 of academic freedom, the inspiration of cultural 

 work in history and economics, in literature and 

 philosophy, in art and natural science, before their 

 ways are divided to go either to the professional 

 schools of the typical German university or to the 

 practical enterprises which commerce or industry 

 or agriculture or politics may offer. 



That which is needed for the Germany of to-day, 

 and still more for the Germany of to-morrow, is 

 an academic institute of a new type — a university 

 where the full freedom of academic life can be 

 joined to studies of a purely cultural character, 

 where young men may enter two years before they 

 have reached the present goal of the professional 

 university, and where a three or four yeare' course 

 would prepare them for the duties of life without 

 any thought of their later occupation. 



He adds that in America: 



Public opinion was thus imbued with the cor- 

 rect idea that these professional studies did not 

 in themselves guarantee a high level of culture. 

 The real culture, on the other hand, the making 

 of a gentleman, was left to the college. . . . The 

 highest professional schools to-day demand the 

 bachelor degree at their threshold. 



If Professor Miinsterberg demands some- 

 thing of the sort for Germany, why should 

 it not be put to greater use in the educa- 

 tion of our chemical engineers in this coun- 

 try, where it can be had for the asking ? 



The board of visitors to the Military 

 Academy at West Point for the present 

 year appreciated the necessity of overhaul- 

 ing the curriculum at that institution, with 

 a view to bringing about a broader culture, 

 the course now evidently being too inten- 

 sive. The board states: 



An officer of the army should be an all-around 

 educated gentleman. As it is now, his entire train- 

 ing, both preparatory at the academy and post- 

 graduate, is almost purely technical, 



and within a few weeks President Schur- 

 man, of Cornell, has emphasized the impor- 



