506 
the engineering course. In it the work 
should be arranged with regular sets of 
graded exercises covering the measure- 
ment, proper records and working out the 
results of tests on all the materials and pro- 
cesses treated in the theoretical work of the 
student as well as whatever he is likely to 
encounter in practice or inspection. It is 
only by prolonged drill in testing that he 
¢am acquire the necessary basis for that 
professional and practical judgment which 
will make his opinion of value. While thus 
insisting on testing laboratories as the best 
and most important recent development of 
our engineering colleges as well as one of 
the most costly parts of them, it is needful 
to insist at the same time and with still 
greater emphasis on the paramount im- 
portance of the theoretic instruction in the 
mathematical, mechanical and scientific 
principles which should furnish the core of 
every engineering course. This it is which 
engineering colleges must teach and trades 
schools may entirely omit. Engineering 
colleges may leave out shops and labora- 
tories, and some do so; they may omit cul- 
ture studies, and have very imperfect in- 
struction in drawing and design, without 
forfeiting the claim to give engineering 
courses of considerable value; but no engi- 
neering college can afford, at the risk of im- 
perilling its reputation and usefulness, to 
neglect or slight, for any length of time, to 
pueé forth its best efforts to thoroughly in- 
doctrinate its students in as complete and 
extended a theoretical treatment of the en- 
gineering subjects it teaches as the time at 
its disposal and the preparation of its stu- 
dents will permit. Drawing and designing, 
shop practice and testing, general culture 
and professional information, all are sub- 
sidiary and auxiliary to this one thing. 
Engineering courses at first began with 
little else in them of importance to the pro- 
fession than this, and by it they have 
proved themselves indispensable to it. It 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Von. VI. No. 144. 
is a mistake too frequently made by prac- 
titioners, deeply immersed in the details of 
their profession, to suppose that the most 
important and fruitful field of instruction is 
not just here. 
Practice, experience, judgment will come 
in time to the young engineer even if he 
should not have it before graduation, but 
study and theory he will not usually thus 
attain to. That must be had before gradua- 
tion or the engineering college has little 
excuse for existence. 
This being granted, the fact still remains 
that the ultimate success of the engineer 
as a professional man depends upon his char- 
acter and force as a man among men, upon 
his culture, upon his integrity, upon his tact 
and social power. In other professions 
such qualities receive continuous culture in 
the practice of the profession. It is far 
less so with the engineer. Here, then, is an 
argument for broad preliminary culture 
before entering upon engineering study, 
but it likewise points to something with 
which the engineering colleges have thus 
far not busied themselves to any appreci- 
able extent, but which in the future cannot 
be neglected in justice to the position which 
the profession is called to occupy. Every 
engineering student has the right to careful 
instruction in a recognized code of profes- 
sional ethics which shall instruct his con- 
science and fortify his will, and give him a 
satisfying consciousness of duty done to his 
professional brethren, to the public and to 
the judge of all the earth. 
Until such instruction shall take its 
place in our engineering courses the public 
can never rely upon organized professional 
Opinion to restrain unprofessional conduct, 
nor can individual members of the profes- 
sion be sustained in courses of right action 
against the demands of corporations and 
combinations of capital. It remains, then, 
for engineering colleges to help organize the 
profession and to furnish the basis of such 
