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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 343. 



life, but which are influenced greatly by 

 the years of student training and there- 

 fore fit subjects for discussion here. Far 

 be it from the purpose of this paper to at- 

 tempt a definition of culture or a setting 

 forth of its elements in any completeness ; 

 rather the emphasizing of some things that 

 relate to it, especially with reference to the 

 education of young engineers. 



First : The man of culture must be a 

 thinking and reflecting being. There must 

 be not only the ability, but the habit ; and 

 this is no easy thing to acquire. Modern 

 American life is full of hurry, full of affairs 

 that demand instant attention, and one 

 matter follows another with rapid succes- 

 sion. We get news from Pekin to-day, 

 from Havana to-morrow and from the Phil- 

 ippines within a few hours. We build rail- 

 ways, erect bridges and fill large orders 

 for locomotives for foreign shipment in such 

 short space of time as to astonish the world. 

 Men seek short cuts to fortune. In the 

 popular opinion, the men who act quickly, 

 the men of decision, are those who succeed. 

 But there is a danger here. For, back of 

 the action, behind the sharp decision, must 

 lie a mature judgment, and how else is this 

 to be formed except as a result of deliberate 

 reflection. However quickly one may 

 reach a conclusion, its correctness or faulti- 

 ness will depend not on intuition, but on 

 the degree of true comprehension. The de- 

 cisive act which is also right rests on a 

 process of thinking and judging that has 

 been long fostered, until it has become a 

 habit, until there are established certain 

 standards by which things are to be meas- 

 ured. 



The early steps of this training are neces- 

 sarily slow, and we, as teachers of engineers, 

 must recognize this and not yield to the 

 temptation to crowd our students over too 

 much ground on the one hand, or, on the 

 other, to lead them through short cuts across 

 country by empirical paths that may give 



them ease and quickness of travel, but little 

 or no reason why the path is chosen. Let 

 them go the long road. I do not by any 

 means wish our teaching to be non-practical 

 — rather more practical in the best sense ; 

 but first, last and all the time, let students 

 be trained to do their own thinking and to 

 form their own judgments ; to test the 

 statements of others by the workings of 

 their own mental processes. 



Second : There is another element of 

 culture that comes in here, an ethical one, 

 that of forming right judgments. Men may 

 have the appearance of culture without its 

 true spirit, which is essentially honest. 

 This is especially important, as culture 

 seeks to make a man's life satisfactory to 

 himself when measured by his own con- 

 science, as well as successful in the field of 

 affairs. So his standards must be based on 

 sound principles of right and wrong ; and 

 it is only when these are so placed that his 

 life becomes one of freedom, freedom from 

 the bondage that wrong thinking and act- 

 ing always bring. A class room is no place 

 to preach a sermon, but there can be there 

 imparted a respect for truth and perfect 

 honesty. A teacher's attitude should al- 

 ways be open and frank, that of a sincere 

 seeker after truth. He should never dodge 

 an honest question, and be ever ready to 

 say ' I do not know ' if he does not. There 

 is an incalculable power that ' makes for 

 righteousness ' and the happiness of the 

 after life of the student in the true teacher's 

 conduct of even such a material subject as 

 mechanics. 



Back behind the subject with its subdi- 

 visions, its formulae and rules, lies some- 

 thing larger, a sort of spiritual quality that 

 binds it to all other subjects, to the universe 

 as a whole, and makes it a part of the truth 

 of God's realm. The student that gets hold 

 of this significance learns much more than 

 facility in the manipulations of processes or 

 the application of principles. He gets some- 



