714 



SCIENCE. 



I'S. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 466. 



students' life in college largely neiitralizes 

 the advantage flowing from the instruction 

 in the fundamentals heretofore described. 

 The students are yet to be taught many 

 things relating to engineering life. They 

 must learn something regarding the forms 

 and formalities relating to the affairs of 

 business life. They must learn the char- 

 acteristics and uses of materials, their cor- 

 rect application to the building of actual 

 structures, the meaning of kinematics and 

 the processes of designing and using real 

 machinery. They must also learn to rea- 

 son regarding the special principles of 

 hydraulics and thermodynamics, and the 

 way in which they enter into the design, 

 construction and operation of machines, 

 and the manner in which they modify the 

 usefulness of machines and the efficiencies 

 of numerous industrial operations. Again, 

 they must learn to reason clearly and 

 rationally in regard to the specific prin- 

 ciples relating to applied electricity, in- 

 cluding its widely diverse factors, and the 

 way in which these principles enter into 

 every-day practise. And they should learn 

 something of the history of the development 

 of engineering and of the lives of its great 

 men, for the stirring of proper ambitions. 

 The electrical engineering department 

 should be divided into not less than four 

 subdivisions, comprising respectively: Ap- 

 plied electromagnetism, which includes the 

 principles relating to electromagnetic ma- 

 chinery and apparatus; the theory and 

 practice of alternating and variable cur- 

 rents, which include the principles relating 

 to all those numeroiis phenomena which 

 accompany variable current flow; applied 

 electrochemistry and electrometalltirgy ; 

 and electrical installations, which includes 

 the applications in engineering practice of 

 the numerous principles to the design, con- 

 struction, operation and testing of com- 

 plete installations and the component parts 

 thereof. 



The teaching force of the department 

 should afford a competent expei't engineer 

 for the head of each of these subdivisions, 

 and such additional well-trained force as 

 may be necessary to adequately carr,v on 

 class-room and laboratory instruction for 

 the particular ninubers of undergraduate 

 and advanced students which attend the 

 college. The head of such a department 

 should spend much of his time in super- 

 vising the teaching in class-room and labo- 

 ratory which is performed by his various 

 subordinates. 



But through all of this professional in- 

 struction of the latter part of the course, 

 it is still lonnciples, principles, principles, 

 and rational jnethods of reasoning which 

 must be taught, if full .justice is done the 

 students, until each student becomes a man 

 of open mind, keen observation, analytical 

 thinking and accurate powers of inference. 

 This instruction should be kept close to the 

 tenets of good practise, and the senses of 

 the student should be constantly stimulated 

 by illustrations and problems drawn from 

 practice. The drill in reasoning can un- 

 doubtedly be best gained through rational 

 instruction in the useful applications of 

 scientific principles and laws ; and no criti- 

 cism can be justly passed even by the most 

 conservative educational circles because the 

 graduate is enabled to earn his living as a 

 result of this training; but the purely de- 

 scriptive should ordinarily be avoided ex- 

 cept in a few cases where it has a specific 

 function in improving the understanding 

 of an application of principles or is 

 adopted as a desirable auxiliary to stimu- 

 late the sustained interest of the students 

 and thus add vitality to the teaching. In- 

 deed, except for the purposes here defined, 

 the introduction of the purely descriptive 

 into the electrical engineering course wastes 

 the students' time and injures their train- 

 ing, thus abridging their prospects of ulti- 

 mate breadth and power. 



