April 24, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



649 



beauty, to its average followers, from 

 which springs an appreciation of art and 

 literature and music which rivals that pro- 

 duced in the most gifted product of the 

 literary colleges. "With wisdom and up- 

 rightness a nation can make its way 

 worthily, and beauty will follow in the 

 footsteps of the two, even if she be not 

 specially invited." 



Of all the intellectual faculties which we 

 cultivate through education, the most use- 

 ful is the faculty of sound and mature 

 judgment; and of all, this is the one most 

 often deficient. Here the laboratories of 

 applied science are strong in their in- 

 fluence for good. That man who follows 

 the laboratory courses in one of our well- 

 administered engineering colleges and goes 

 forth without. improvement in his faculty 

 of judgment and a quickening of his ex- 

 ecutive powers is an unworthy son of man. 

 The force of straight thinking can not be 

 over-estimated. 'Victory is for the people 

 who see things as they are without illusion, 

 who do not take phrases for facts,' and 

 straight thinking is one of the gifts derived 

 from the engineering laboratories. The 

 engineer's duties require that he shall 

 possess this most important of mental at- 

 tributes ; and fortunate it is for the profes- 

 sion, for it makes of every great engineer 

 a man of greatness. Do you question this 

 statements If you but enquire of the past 

 you will find it proved. Amongst no class 

 of men is found a broader sympathy with 

 humanity and a more liberal view of the 

 progress of the race than is exampled in 

 the lives and works of the great engineers, 

 and none have been better or nobler citi- 

 zens. 



Yet, withal, it must be a matter of con- 

 cern in the technological schools lest the 

 lines be drawn too close, and the students 

 become absorbed in an ungenerous, over- 

 earnest pursuit of details. Breadth of 

 view may be sacrificed unless our teachers 



be men of ripeness and power, and the 

 students learn through them that each 

 element in the life of the 'complete liver' 

 has of itself an intrinsic merit. This fear 

 of a belittled outlook for some of our stu- 

 dents, whose ambitions or mental aspira- 

 tions may have never been stirred in their 

 pre-eollege days, would be dissipated could 

 the personality of each teacher in the 

 schools of applied science include that rare 

 combination of mellow scholarship, clear 

 scientific perceptions and engineering com- 

 mon sense which we occasionally meet and 

 which a few colleges rejoice to retain in 

 their midst. 



The teaching force of an engineering 

 school should ideally be made up of en- 

 gineers—men who have seen some years 

 of successful practice (and preferably con- 

 tinue to hold some practice), who are held 

 in esteem for such by their brethren in 

 practice; but who have a joy in the quiet 

 life of the scholar which is traditionally 

 associated with the colleges, and who may 

 thus be contented when outside of the im- 

 mediate tide of engineering production. 

 Yet the teaching of engineering is a ques- 

 tion of pedagogy rather than of the en- 

 gineering profession, and it must be dealt 

 with with this clearly in view. Here is 

 one source of many profound imperfec- 

 tions in our existing schools. I venture 

 to say that it is the' exception rather than 

 the rule when a teacher in a school of ap- 

 plied science has given any consideration 

 to the tenets of psychology and pedagogy, 

 upon the due application of which de- 

 pends much of his success in properly im- 

 pressing his students. These teachers are 

 doubtless no greater offenders than their 

 brethren in the so-called colleges of liberal 

 arts, but in this is found no palliation for 

 the offense. Fortunately, a goodly pro- 

 portion of the older ones amongst the de- 

 voted men ' who are contributing their 

 blood and brains to the welfare of the 



