April 24, 1903. J 



SCIENCE. 



651 



some hard blows to his self-regard and his 

 esteem for his teaching. He may pour 

 stim^^lating thoughts over his students day 

 after day for weeks, and finally find that 

 few have taken root. He may even be 

 brought to that state of desperate depres- 

 sion that is illustrated in one of Tur- 

 geniev's novels when its hero, Dmitri 

 Rudin, failed to succeed in his post at the 

 university. The engineering teacher- 

 provided he is sure of his time and method 

 — may take heart by remembering this: 

 that if every stimulating thought presented 

 to his students, whether relating to profes- 

 sional applications of theoretical principles 

 or directly to the development of initiative, 

 self-reliance and executive powers — if every 

 stimulating thought took root in every stu- 

 dent's mind, those minds would become 

 over-burdened cyclone centers of thought; 

 and if one real thought takes root from 

 time to time in each student's mind the 

 teacher may be truly satisfied. 



I have already suggested that the ques- 

 tion of professional instruction in the en- 

 gineering schools is entangled with the 

 problem of leading the students through a 

 course of preparatory science looking to- 

 wards the professional studies. The med- 

 ical schools may and largely do escape this 

 responsibility by requiring their students 

 to pursue a liberal college course before 

 embracing the professional courses. The 

 existing plan of the medical schools is ill- 

 advised when viewed from the engineer's 

 standpoint, but we hope that some inviting 

 plan may yet result from the proposals 

 made by several great university presidents 

 in respect to coordinating the liberal and 

 professional college courses. We would 

 gladly welcome the old-time college course 

 and the old-time preparatory course, espe- 

 cially as far as they made men of vigorous 

 thought who could spell and cipher; and 

 we now gladly receive and encourage all 



students who have been willing and able 

 to complete an academic college course be- 

 fore entering upon their technological 

 studies. 



Broadly, however, until there arises such 

 an advantageous plan of coordination which 

 may be adopted with advantage to our 

 students and to the profession, the en- 

 gineering schools will continue, as hereto-, 

 fore, to instruct their students for four 

 years immediately following the high-school 

 course — the first two years being largely 

 filled with mathematics, chemistry, modern 

 languages, drawing and other subjects 

 leading to the professional studies of the 

 engineer. These students come freely to 

 the college at an age between seventeen and 

 twenty, equally immature in mind and 

 body — and one part must not be trained 

 at the sacrifice of the other. "It is not 

 sufficient to make his mind strong; his 

 muscles must also be strengthened; the 

 mind is over-borne if it be not seconded." 



Montaigne puts it very gracefully: "It 

 is not a mind, it is not a body which we 

 erect, but it is a man, and we must not 

 make two parts of him." A prime re- 

 quisite to success in life 'is to be a good 

 animal,' and the engineering schools must 

 look after the bodily and social welfare of 

 these entering students in a way that is not 

 required of the medical school with its 

 course largely recruited from the liberal 

 college. These students should be en- 

 couraged to enter into the various interests 

 of the life around them, especially of the 

 college life, including its social affairs and 

 its athletics and gjminastics. The extra 

 responsibility which thus rests upon the 

 teacher in the engineering schools equally 

 increases the effect of the infiuence with 

 which his personality affects his students. 

 The latter is a recompense that every lover 

 of teaching will willingly make sacrifices 

 to obtain. 



