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SCIENTIFIC NEW^S. 



[Nov. 1st, li 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION ABROAD. 



THE question of Technical Education has been stirring 

 the United States, and under the home rule system of 

 local or state government, with what may be termed 

 Imperial control on sharply defined lines at Washington, 

 the lead in such education may soon pass, if it has not 

 already passed, from Germany, sustained as it is by the 

 forces of emulation in the younger states and by those of 

 rivalry in the older. Information scattered over so wide a 

 field as the United States is necessarily troublesome to get 

 together, and it may be the case that the need for this 

 trouble accounts for the little that is known among ourselves 

 of what is actually taking place there. Then, when once 

 American inquiry has been set on foot, and returns have 

 been received, these latter will present more or less of a 

 mixing up of the work of technical schools with what 

 properly belongs to manual training. In time this con- 

 fusion will disappear, when doubtless the information will 

 be sought after eagerly as partaking of the attractive,, 

 general character of things American. The Empire State 

 of New York furnishes a mass of information both on 

 manual training and on technical schools. 



Perhaps the best example of the New York State manual 

 training system is afforded by the Worcester Free Institute. 

 This Institute came into existence in 1865 under the provisions 

 of a gift by Mr. John Boynton, and it has since been aided 

 by donations and endowments. Mr. Boynton's wishes were 

 set forth in the following words : — " The aim of the school 

 shall ever be the instruction of youth in those branches of 

 education, not usually taught in the public schools, which 

 are essential, and best adapted to train the young for prac- 

 tical life." In pursuance of these wishes the managers and 

 faculty adopted this as their rule of government : — " This 

 Institute offers a good education — based on the mathematics, 

 living languages, physical science, and drawing — and 

 sufficient practical familiarity with some applied science, to 

 secure the graduate a livelihood. It is specially designed to 

 meet the wants of those who seek to be prepared as me- 

 chanics, civil engineers, chemists, or designers, for the duties 

 of their respective professions." The Institute was opened 

 in the autumn of 1868, and the first class graduated in 

 1 87 1. Fourteen other classes have since graduated, giving 

 up to the close of last year a total of 313 graduates, 295 of 

 whom are now living. About 400 other students, who did 

 not graduate, have attended such classes as'they saw fit, and 

 have done good work then and since. Of the graduates, 

 fifty or more were residents of other States or foreign 

 countries ; and of 240, nearly 150 are at work in the State 

 of New York, " constituting most valuable and important 

 factors in our industrial pursuits." They are designers, 

 chemists, teachers, draughtsmen, engineers, foremen, and 

 superintendents. Of the number some have become 

 partners in important business and manufacturing estab- 

 hshments, and up to the present time, of the whole 

 number of graduates more than ninety per cent, are engaged 

 in work for which their training at the Institute specially 

 fitted them. The watchful interest here implied, as well as 

 the care shown in recording the lives of the graduates, are 

 noteworthy. Primarily the purpose of the Institute is the 

 free education of youth resident in Worcester County, who 

 desire to study on prescribed lines. Besides the free 

 scholars others are admitted on an annual payment of 150 

 dollars or ^30. In fact, so useful has the Worcester Free 

 Institute become that it has commanded the spontaneous 

 aid of some of the sister States. The legislature of the State 

 of Massachusetts, in acknowledgment of the benefit to the 

 Massachusetts manufacturing interests, made a special 

 Worcester grant of 50,000 dollars or ^10,000. Finally, 



as illustrating a single branch of instruction, that of 

 engineering, we may mention that an alliance exists with 

 the well-known Washburn machine shop, wherein the 

 student may stand at vice or lathe or other tool, so that 

 should he fail to secure a position as a consulting engineer 

 he would at least have qualified himself by theory and 

 practice for bread earning all his life in the capacity of a 

 skilled mechanic. 



Sibley College, New York State, is the mechanical and 

 practical science training department of Cornell University. 

 This University owes its name and existence to a munificent 

 endowment by Mr. Ezra Cornell. As a supplement to the 

 endowment, the University has a share in the benefit ac- 

 corded by Act of Congress to science teaching, whereby 

 public lands were granted to such States as should provide 

 at least one college — " to teach," with other subjects, " such 

 branches of learning as related to agriculture and the 

 mechanic arts." The State of New York received as its 

 share of the appropriation 990,000 acres of land, the income 

 from which it assigned to Cornell University. Then Mr. 

 Hiram Sibley has supplemented this by another endowment 

 for a college of the mechanic arts, which College has as- 

 sumed his name. Sibley College has a complete organisa- 

 tion, with workrooms, machinery, and machine shops. It is 

 superintended by a director, assisted by professors, who give 

 instruction in the working of wood and metals. The final out- 

 come for the student is a qualification for the coveted degree 

 of mechanical engineer ; the course of study bringing into 

 practical use the appliances of modern mechanical science 

 in their latest forms. Part of the general course is instruc- 

 tion in the drawing-rooms. The drawing is in freehand for 

 two terms, after which follows the mechanical course, with 

 descriptive geometry. The workshop training is manual. 

 This begins with a series of exercises in wood-working, 

 which are intended to give the student familiarity with wood 

 tools ; and, as a whole, the exercises are expected " to 

 enable the industrious, conscientious, and painstaking 

 student " easily and exactly to perform the varied opera- 

 tions of the carpenter, the joiner, and the pattern-maker. 

 He is actually put to work on structures, joints, patterns, 

 core boxes, and other work in wood. Instruction in the 

 same way follows in the machine-shop, the foundry, and the 

 blacksmith's shop. After practice comes theory. This is 

 communicated in the mechanical laboratory, where there is 

 professional instruction of the highest order, with the use of 

 scientific apparatus, which is provided without regard to 

 cost. For the present, suffice it to state that Sibley College 

 has been founded for the mechanic arts, that it is the wish 

 of the trustees of Cornell University that, in addition to 

 being a school of arts and trades, it should be a college of 

 engineering, wherein may be developed as rapidly, exten- 

 sively, and thoroughly as may be required, complete courses 

 of instruction for placing the American student in the fore- 

 front as a worker in applied science. 



Competition on Alloys. — The Prussian Society for the 

 Promotion of Industry has recently offered a prize of about 

 _;,^iSo for the most exhaustive critical comparison of all kinds 

 of existing bronze, tombac, and brass alloys, used or recom- 

 mended for machinery ; giving their chief properties with 

 regard to resistance, ductility, friction at different tempera- 

 tures, malleability, electric conductivity, behaviour with acids, 

 hydrogen and carbon sulphides, chlorine, and other strongly 

 corrosive substances met with in practice. The same society 

 also offers a gold medal and ^250 for the best work on 

 light and heat radiation of burning gases. The time limit 

 in the former case is the end of 1887 ; in the latter, the end 

 of 1888. 



