June 2, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



839 



Certain activities of a health department 

 may be worth continuing for their educa- 

 tional value, although their direct utility 

 may be questioned. Many topics need in- 

 vestigation in order to discover their real 

 bearing upon the public health. Among 

 these are such matters as the effect 

 of a smoky atmosphere, the alleged nervous 

 strain due to city noise and numerous 

 important questions in the domain of food 

 adulteration and contamination. Prema- 

 ture and drastic action by health authori- 

 ties in matters concerning which there is 

 profound disagreement among experts may 

 cast discredit on other lines of activity in 

 which there is and can be no difference of 

 opinion. 



For the present it seems worth while to 

 emphasize more sharply than heretofore 

 the distinction between public health 

 measures of proved value and those that 

 owe theij" existence to tradition or to 

 misdirected and uninformed enthusiasm. 

 Further study of the results obtained by 

 certain of the usual and conventional health 

 department activities is also much needed, 

 and as a preliminary to such study the 

 proper collection and handling of vital 

 statistics is essential. It is poor manage- 

 ment and unscientific procedure to continue 

 to work blindly in matters pertaining to 

 the public health, to employ measures of 

 whose real efficiency we are ignorant and 

 even to refrain from collecting facts that 

 might throw light upon their efficiency. 

 Edwin 0. Jordan 



University or Chicago 



TEE ENGINEEBING SCHOOL GMADUATE: 

 HIS STBENGTS AND HIS WEAKNESS^ 



So much has been written and spoken of 

 late concerning the success or failvire of the 



' Presented before the Congress of Technology 

 at the fiftieth anniversary of the granting of the 

 charter of the Massachusetts Institute of Teoh- 



various engineering courses in our schools 

 of technology that a reason should be of- 

 fered for the introduction of this topic at 

 this time. It is to be found, I think, in the 

 general and increasing interest in these 

 matters which is leading the practising 

 engineers, the manufacturers, the men of 

 affairs, in short, the consumers of the prod- 

 uct of the engineering schools, to examine 

 and evaluate the work of these schools. 

 This interest has voiced itself more and 

 more freely in the daily press, the engi- 

 neering journals, and the occasional ad- 

 dress. Some of the comments thus made 

 are harshly critical, some are based upon 

 sadly insufficient knowledge of existing 

 conditions, but many are sane and helpful. 

 It is the duty of those of us who are 

 charged with the conduct of those courses 

 to give heed to these utterances and to 

 avail ourselves of the helpful counsel which 

 many afford; but it is also a privilege 

 which we may sometimes allow ourselves 

 to present the case as it appears to us, and 

 this anniversary occasion seems to suggest 

 both retrospection and introspection. 



The complexity of the educational prob- 

 lem is nowhere greater to-day than in the 

 training of the engineer, using that term in 

 a broad sense to include the man who ap- 

 plies his science to concrete ends, whether 

 he be, for example, civil engineer, research 

 chemist, or field geologist. The bounda- 

 ries of all the sciences have been extended 

 at a rate which has far outstripped any 

 reasonable alteration of educational meth- 

 ods to meet these changing conditions ; for, 

 over against the charge of undue conserva- 

 tism which is commonly made with respect 

 to educational practises, should be placed 

 the fact that seven years is the minimum 

 period which must elapse before the ulti- 

 mate success or failure ot! an educational 

 experiment can be determined, and since 

 the remodeling of a course or system of 



