August 19, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



231 



uates. I think there is no doubt that the 

 engineering courses make the best prepara- 

 tion for engineering and industrial life 

 that has been devised. Good engineers 

 lived before the engineering schools; but 

 the engineering schools are doing a tre- 

 mendous work in providing men with the 

 mental means to extend engineering knowl- 

 edge and advance engineering practise. 



One of the things that students, to their 

 disadvantage, commonly fail to keep con- 

 stantly in mind is the fact that a man of 

 ability and courage can usually make of 

 himself that which his ambitions dictate. 

 If you set your ambitions right there need 

 be no fear of your reasonable success. 

 Failure by a man of ability and" courage, 

 who also has the advantage of education, 

 is scarcely to be condoned. The only suf- 

 ficient excuse is an inadequate physique or 

 ill health caused through no fault of the 

 individual. In engineering nothing is 

 ordinarily siafficient to excuse failure. . 



Samuel Lover says in his humorous but 

 human story of Rory O'More: 



Now, it was not merely luck was on Rory's 

 side, for he turned all the accidents to good 

 account, which would have been thrown away en 

 a fool; and this, after all, is what makes the 

 difference in ninety-nine cases out of every hun- 

 dred between a lucky and an unlucky man. The 

 unlucky man often plays life's game with good 

 cards and loses; while the lucky man plays the 

 same game with bad ones and wins. Circum- 

 stances are the rulers of the weak — they are but 

 the instruments of the wise. 



If a man concentrates his efforts, is 

 honest, is patient, performs his duties with 

 thoroughness, masters the principles re- 

 lating to his employment, and thinks (it is 

 remarkable "how many never think, who 

 think they do"), he is sure to succeed. 

 True success is a great achievement, and 

 great achievements require long expendi- 

 ture of well-directed endeavor for their 

 erection. It is a restlessness and discon- 



tent born of a failure to note the last pre- 

 cept, often accompanied by an excessive 

 self-esteem, which leads to Mr. Taylor's 

 criticism of engineering graduates to which 

 I have previously referred. For the cure 

 of that I will refer you to Kipling. He 

 says in a burst of autobiographical confi- 

 dence : 



As there is only one man in charge of a steamer, 

 so there is but one man in charge of a newspaper, 

 and he is the editor. My chief taught me this on 

 an Indian journal, and he further explained that 

 an order was an order, to be obeyed on a run, 

 not a walk, and that any notions as to the 

 fitness or unfitness of any particular kind of work 

 for the young had better be held over until the 

 last page was locked up to press. He was break- 

 ing me into harness and I owe him a debt of 

 gratitude which I did not discharge at that time. 

 The path of virtue was very steep, whereas the 

 writing of verses allowed a certain play to the 

 mind, and, unlike the filling in of reading matter, 

 could be done as the spirit served. Now, a sub- 

 editor is not hired to write verses; he is paid to 

 sub-edit. At the time, this discovery shocked me 

 greatly; but some years later, when I came to be 

 a sort of an editor-in-charge Providence dealt me 

 for my subordinate, one saturated with Elia. 

 He wrote very pretty Lamblike essays, but he 

 wrote them when he should have been sub-editing. 

 Then I saw a little of what, my chief must have 

 suiTered on my account. There is a moral here 

 for the ambitious and aspiring who are oppressed 

 by their superiors. 



If every young engineering school grad- 

 uate who becomes discontented with his 

 duties and the treatment he receives would 

 read, ponder and reflect on these words of 

 Kipling, which express his youthful experi- 

 ences, I believe Mr. Taylor would have few 

 opportunities to repeat his criticism of the 

 new graduates from engineering schools. 

 DuGALD C. Jackson 



Massachusetts Institute of Technologt 



DOCTORATES CONFERRED BY AMERICAN 

 UNIVERSITIES 

 There are given in the accompanying 

 tables data in regard to the degrees of doc- 



