484 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1110 



simultaneously in two of our most noted 

 engineering schools, Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology and the engineering school 

 of Cornell University. In each of these, 

 the first graduates completed their courses 

 in June, 1885. Thereafter, formal courses 

 of instruction in electrical engineering were 

 established in most of the educational cen- 

 ters supporting engineering schools, until 

 there are now ninety-five such courses in 

 the land, embracing over 8,000 students, 

 and from whom over 19,000 students have 

 graduated. These courses can not be ac- 

 cepted as of equal rank, but it may be rea- 

 sonably claimed for all that certain meth- 

 ods of instruction have proved serviceable 

 and are given more or less full acceptance, 

 depending upon the stability and strength 

 of the organization, and the thoroughness 

 of preparation which may be required of 

 entering students. 



Fundamentally there are two principles 

 lying at the root of the methods of our best 

 engineering schools, which are : 



1. It is the business of these schools to 

 train young men into fertile and exact 

 thinkers guided by common sense, who have 

 a profound knowledge of natural laws and 

 of the means for utilizing natural forces 

 for the advantage of man and the advance- 

 ment of civilization. In other words, it is 

 the business of engineering schools to pro- 

 duce, not finished engineers, but young men 

 with a great capacity for becoming engi- 

 neers, the goal being attained by the gradu- 

 ates only after years of development in the 

 school of life. 



2. The problem facing the engineering 

 schools is more particularly a problem of 

 pedagogy rather than a problem of the 

 engineering profession. The problem is 

 how to properly train the students' powers 

 to the stated purposes. It must be grappled 

 with all the directness and force of the engi- 

 neers' best efforts, but it can not be solved 



as solely relating to the engineering pro- 

 fession. 



Turning now toward electrical engineer- 

 ing, it is to be observed that electrical engi- 

 neering demands industrial engineers — men 

 with an industrial training of the highest 

 type, competent to conceive, organize and 

 direct extended industrial enterprises of 

 broadly varied character. These men must 

 be keen, straightforward thinkers, who see 

 things as they are and who are not to be 

 misled by fancies; they must have an ex- 

 tended, and even profound, knowledge of 

 natural laws (more particularly of those 

 relating to energy and its transformations), 

 and an extended knowledge of the useful 

 applications of these laws; and they must 

 be acquainted with business methods, the 

 affairs of the business world, and with the 

 ways of our fellow-men. 



Some of our colleagues may ask "What 

 is electrical engineering, that it demands 

 these things of its followers?" I will an- 

 swer. Electrical engineering is that branch 

 of the profession which deals with the gen- 

 eration of power, primarily from fuel or 

 water, its conversion into electrical power 

 which may be transmitted and distributed 

 at will for the service of the industrialist 

 and the householder, and, for its fullest 

 service, electrical engineering must embrace 

 the principles and fundamental practises 

 underlying all the great industries and 

 activities which it serves, and it must not 

 shirk the controlling problems of illumina- 

 tion. Electrical engineering is now master 

 of the methods of national and international 

 rapid intercommunication, of local trans- 

 portation, of ready transmission of water or 

 steam power to a distance, of a safe and 

 convenient method of artificial illumina- 

 tion, and its service in the industries is con- 

 stantly enlarging, but is already probably 

 incalculable. This is a vast field of sci- 

 ence in the industries, which brings under 



