June 2, 1911J 



SCIENCE 



841 



must be shrewd in detecting avarice or 

 perfidy. He should be a loyal husband 

 and father, and should find opportunity 

 for that enjoyment of art and literature 

 which will afford him present pleasure and 

 ensure the happiness of advanced years. 

 It is a matter for sincere rejoicing that 

 the engineering profession has reached 

 such a commanding position in our na- 

 tional life that only a man of this type can 

 completely fill it; but the imperfect por- 

 trait just drawn is evidently that of a man 

 for whom nature must have done much at 

 the start, and toward whose efficiency many 

 elements must have contributed. Of the 

 need of such men there is no doubt, and it 

 becomes a question of paramount impor- 

 tance to ask how far the engineering 

 schools, as such, or, indeed, how far our en- 

 tire educational machinery, can contribute 

 to the desired end. The most obvious func- 

 tion of the engineering school is to afEord 

 a fundamental knowledge and understand- 

 ing of the principles of the sciences under- 

 lying engineering operations. Failure to 

 do this seems to be without excuse, yet it 

 is almost inseparable from another im- 

 portant function, namely the develop- 

 ment of the power to think (for there can 

 be no adequate understanding of principles 

 unless one can think logically in terms of 

 them when considering concrete problems), 

 and it is just at this point that much of the 

 current criticism is aimed. The candid 

 teacher must admit that there is truth in 

 the charge that the graduates are too often 

 lacking both in a capacity for logical 

 thought and in an ability to command the 

 knowledge which they actually possess to 

 the degree needful for immediate or per- 

 haps ultimate success in their vocation. 

 But it should not be supposed that he is in- 

 different to this state of affairs. It is 

 within bounds to say that it is the supreme 

 desire of every worthy teacher to encour- 



age power of thought rather than mere ac- 

 quisition of knowledge on the part of his 

 pupils and that he is constantly devising 

 and testing new means to that end, but a 

 moment's consideration will show you how 

 much this depends upon personal contact 

 — now so difficult in even the smallest 

 practicable subdivisions of large classes — 

 and will convince you that there must also 

 be constant conflict of judgment as between 

 the extent of the field to be covered in a 

 given subject (rarely more than the mini- 

 mum quantity now-a-days) and the time 

 which can properly be spent in that drill 

 which is necessary to develop the powers 

 of the average student ; for it is against the 

 average student that the criticism is most 

 valid. I do not make these statements to 

 condone the conditions but rather to show 

 you that the teachers recognize them, de- 

 plore them, and are striving against them, 

 but the contest is an unequal one, at best. 

 Let it be remembered, moreover, that 

 some responsibility for these conditions 

 rests upon our public-school system, and 

 also that the sort of thinking which the 

 engineering professions demand is of a kind 

 which is more exacting than is essential in 

 the more common vocations, and that no 

 system of education has yet succeeded in 

 training a large proportion of exact think- 

 ers, however much such a result is to be 

 striven for. Let us also admit for our en- 

 couragement that, after all, there is a con- 

 siderable proportion of our engineering 

 graduates who can use their brains effect- 

 ively and do have their knowledge in avail- 

 able form, and my observation leads me to 

 believe that there is a much larger propor- 

 tion who appear deficient in these respects 

 at graduation who develop unexpected 

 power when they have opportunity to con- 

 centrate their efforts in a more limited 

 field. Remember that many of these 

 youths have been in some sort of educa- 



