DECEiinKR 4, 1003.] 



SCIENCE. 



715 



The typical courses in electrical engineer- 

 ing which are to-day advertised in college 

 catalogues belong to three classes or com- 

 binations thereof. Only the third of these 

 may be acknowledged to fairly meet the 

 proper ideals in such a course. It is to be 

 remembered that I speak of professional 

 engineering. No one possesses a fuller 

 sympathy with the ideals of schools for 

 training men for the mechanical trades 

 short of engineering and bordering thereon, 

 but these schools are not considered in my 

 present discussion. 



First, are courses iu which predominate 

 the old time instruction in physics with 

 far more to do with the ilhistration of the 

 beauties of nature than with the great un- 

 derlying natural laws. The teaching of 

 mathematics, mechanics and like ground- 

 work studies is not ordinarily well super- 

 vised in colleges that maintain such courses 

 in electi-ical engineering, because the ad- 

 ministrative authorities are out of touch 

 with the industrial world and mistakenly 

 put the superficial and spectacular in sci- 

 ence into the place of that sound instruction 

 only through which an engineering course 

 maj' be rightly maintained. It is needless 

 to add that the average graduate from 

 courses of this type is ordinarily of less 

 value in engineering than the average 

 graduate from an old-time classical course 

 where at least thoroughness is a require- 

 ment ; and electrical engineering courses of 

 this type are rapidly disappearing through 

 a merging into one of the following types. 



Second, are courses in which the ground- 

 work studies (English, mathematics, chem- 

 istry, physics, mechanics) are perhaps rea- 

 sonably well taught through the earlier 

 years, but in which the latter part of the 

 course is diverted to the training of inex- 

 perienced students for immediate 'jobs' 

 where the students may find some responsi- 

 bility and proportionate pay immediately 

 after graduation. These courses do not 



teach engineering in the sound sense. 

 They are likely to injure the future of 

 promising students by occupying time in 

 teaching them handicrafts in college which 

 they could better learn in the factory or 

 field, or in teaching empirical methods of 

 practise which change almost before they 

 can be put to useful account by the grad- 

 uates. 



The students in these courses frequently 

 gain the impression that the highest type 

 of engineering practice is no more than an 

 advanced artisanship, and that a graduate 

 from the electrical engineering course is 

 the equivalent of a journeyman. The 

 most serious injury flows from this, 

 through the undesirable narrowing of 

 ideals and ambitions. This unfortunate 

 result occurs the more readily because the 

 popular usage of the word engineer makes 

 it denote either an engine driver (a man of 

 purelj- manual calling) or a man skilled in 

 the principles and professional practice of 

 engineering. 



Third, are courses following the ideals 

 which I have herein earlier described. In- 

 competent students who enter these courses 

 are soon discouraged and drop out. Those 

 whose calling is to ai-tisanship go elsewhere 

 either to a different school or directly to 

 an apprenticeship. Those who complete 

 the course, as a rule, are competent men ; 

 but they are not likely to enter im- 

 mediately into positions of much responsi- 

 bility, but rather to go into the so-ealled 

 'cadet' positions or 'student' positions of 

 great industrial enterprises, for the pur- 

 pose of gaining that experience in the 

 crafts which may enable them to make the 

 most extended use of their training in 

 principles. Here they gradually 'find 

 themselves' and ultimately reach the in- 

 fluence in the industrial world for which 

 their caliber and training fit them. These 

 men, if properly taught, have clean-cut 

 ambitious and hieh ideals as well as the 



