126 



SCIENCE. 



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



fitted to lead to positions of an executive 

 nature in connection with industrial enter- 

 prises, and in the administration of public 

 works. Everywhere will be demanded 

 expert skill, sound judgment and broad 

 views, primarily because these will be 

 found to be economical. The entire class 

 of men that a recent writer has called 

 ^ mattoids,' the ill-trained, narrow and 

 egoistic, will be pushed out because their 

 service is costly. 



There are two tendencies in the present- 

 day engineering education that are, in my 

 judgment, opposed to the desirable result. 

 First, a tendency to crowd too much of the 

 foundation work back upon the preparatory 

 school, already overloaded. This Society's 

 Committee on Entrance Requirements has 

 advocated a standard which is high enough. 

 Second, the allowing of technical subjects 

 to crowd the fundamental general ones 

 from the college course, in a vain attempt 

 to do what from the very nature of the 

 case cannot be done, make an engineer by 

 college study. The result of this in some 

 institutions is further seen in too early a 

 differentiation between the various engi- 

 neering courses ; so that, for instance, the 

 •civil student knows nothing of applied elec- 

 tricity and the electrical student nothing of 

 surveying, while neither has a chance to 

 acquire a taste for literature. 



The whole problem is an involved and 

 ■complicated one, but there is a way out 

 that must be found if the engineer is to fill 

 the important place that awaits him. One 

 part of the solution will be probably found 

 in a refining of the methods of instruction, 

 so that better results may be reached in the 

 same time. In the end, however, the 

 writer thinks that there must come a deeper 

 sense that after all life is long, that it 

 should be taken with more of deliberation, 

 and that it is the end that is important, 

 rather than the beginning. The feverish 

 rush and haste to be earning must be re- 



placed by a recognition of the real necessity 

 for a full rounded-out preparation if the 

 largest and best service is to be given. 

 Then the student will be glad to spend the 

 one or two extra years in college that may 

 be demanded. The wise student now will 

 do this without its being required. 



The Chief Justice of my own State has 

 said, " The spirit of an age is that which 

 makes finally for the happiness of the race. 

 I have absolutely no fear as to the final end 

 of things, nor as to the steps and incidents 

 of evolutionary development. The aspira- 

 tions, the great universal possessions of a 

 people, can never move them to other ends 

 than their happiness and good. The spirit 

 of this age is commercial enterprise and 

 conquest, and as to it I have an unspeak- 

 able conviction that it will, as the spirits 

 of other ages have done, work itself into 

 forms and institutions of beauty and eternal 

 worth to men." 



It is largely through the engineer that 

 this is to be done. The finest result re- 

 quires the most skilful labor; the noblest 

 workman demands the most fitting training. 



Herein lies our responsibility ! 



Frank O. Marvin. 



Univeesity of Kansas. ^ 



PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY* 

 As I am to deliver in the course of the 

 next few days a series of lectures upon some 

 parts of physical chemistry in their details, 

 I should like to use this educational con- 

 ference as an occasion for presenting an 

 introduction to my lectures. 



I add at once that one of our best modern 

 historians, Ladenburg, in his * Development 

 of Chemistry in the Last Twenty Years,' 

 sustains that the more and more prominent 

 position of physical chemistry characterizes 

 the development of our whole chemical 



* An address given at the decennial celebration at 

 the University of Chicago, published in the University 

 Record. 



