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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 281 



military to a civil one was disclosed in the sundry civil appropria- 

 tion bill reported in the House last Saturday. It provides for the 

 appointment of a civil force of 1 1 1 persons in the office of the Chief 

 Signal Officer, with an aggregate compensation of $114,500 a year, 

 and this force it is proposed to substitute for the present military 

 one of 150 men, and so save an expense of $70,748 a year. 



THE EFFICIENCY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 

 SCHOOLS." 



When the alumni of a school of engineering meet in annual re- 

 union and conference, it is but natural to select for discussion a 

 subject the serious deliberation of which will, to some extent at 

 least, advance alike the interests of engineering practice and of the 

 technical school itself. The technical graduate, who loves his pro- 

 fession and his alma mater, must deem it a wish of his heart to 

 further in every way the harmony between the training and the 

 practice of the engineer, to raise the efficiency of both the practice 

 and the school to the highest attainable standard. 



Happily, it is a fact that each day the value and importance of 

 the technical school are becoming better appreciated, and that at this 

 time none are readier to acknowledge the benefits conferred by 

 systematic training in such schools than the leading engineers, who, 

 without such preparation, have by their individual, unaided efforts, 

 risen to deserved prominence and fame. Such general appreciation 

 is recognized in the spoken and written word of the foremost men 

 in the profession, in the fact that they send their sons and advise 

 young men seeking to become mechanical engineers to attend these 

 schools, and in the marked preference shown in the employment of 

 the technically trained engineers. That these are facts is a cause 

 for congratulation, a testimony to the value of systematic study, 

 and an evidence of at least an average efficiency on the part of the 

 leading schools of mechanical engineering. It is a great advance 

 upon the time, not so long ago, when it was presumed that the 

 main thing — and the first thing — the technical graduate had to do 

 was to unlearn almost every thing he had acquired in the schools. 



While we should be duly grateful that the status at the present 

 day is such as we have pictured it, we must not conclude hastily 

 that the technical school is fulfilling its entire mission, or, if I may 

 so term it, attaining an efficiency of one. I am well aware that this 

 would be asking too much ; for what device, scheme, or appliance 

 can show up this efficiency .' At the same time the technical school 

 should approach this limiting value of the perfect device as nearly as 

 possible, and we should study the sources of loss, so as to reduce 

 the losses to a minimum. 



Such is naturally the main object of the serious work of alumni 

 meetings, and the president's address should at least serve as an 

 incentive to direct special thought on the part of the membership to 

 these particulars. 



From this point of view, the inquiry has suggested itself to me as 

 worthy of our consideration, has the instruction in scho()ls of me- 

 chanical engineering, within the past twelve years, progressed so as 

 to conform to the increasing needs called for by the engineering 

 advances secured within the same time .' 



In a paper read last month before the American Society of Me- 

 chanical Engineers, one of the members, who has practically con- 

 tributed to the progress of the printing-press, presents ' A Plea for 

 the Printing-Press in Mechanical Engineering Schools.' It is an 

 honest plea, courteously uttered, and with an evident desire in no 

 way to disparage the value of the training secured in engineering 

 schools. The writer maintains, that while the printing-press shares, 

 perhaps, alike with the steam-engine the fame as a great civilizer, 

 no attention is given to it in any specific way in the leading engi- 

 neering schools ; that no books relating to it are studied or referred 

 to, no lectures delivered detailing its mechanism ; that its factories 

 are not inspected by the students ; and that no sample machines 

 adorn the schools' laboratories of engineering. All this is inferred 

 by the writer from a perusal of the catalogues. Usually, judgment 

 as to the course of studies pursued, if based solely on the cata- 

 logues themselves, is a dangerous procedure, apt to lead to fatal 



^ Presidential address delivered by Alfred R. Wolff, M.E., before the Alumni As- 

 sociation of the Stevens Institute of Technology, June 13, 1888. 



errors ; but in this case no mistake is made, for it is a fact that the 

 printing-press receives but little if any attention in the engineering 

 schools. 



Had our friend, the writer, been interested to draw the picture of 

 neglect of subjects discussed still further, he would have soon discov- 

 ered that small attention, if any, is paid in the course pursued in 

 engineering schools to type setting and distributing machines, paper- 

 making machinery, envelope-machines, sewing and stitching ma- 

 chines, which are allied closely with the printing-press as civilizing 

 agents. And if he looked over the many practical industrial engineer- 

 ing fields, he would have had to come to the conclusion, that, as a 

 whole, but little if any attention is paid to hat-making, cloth-finish- 

 ing, brick-making, and agricultural machinery, and the like, and 

 that even the looms of various nature come in for the most cursory 

 attention. 



Had this been done, the amount of neglect discovered would have- 

 been so appalling that he would logically have been forced to one 

 of two conclusions, — either that his point of view and solution^ 

 were not the proper ones ; or that mechanical engineering schools 

 are essentially a failure, and not in one whit entitled to the credit 

 which he really liberally bestows, when having but the one practi- 

 cal omission in mind, and not the many others, no less important 

 ones, only a few of which we have enumerated. 



Had the latter conclusion, condemning the schools as a failure, 

 been reached, it would, in my judgment, have been a totally erro- 

 neous one. 



Still the fact remains that within the past twelve years (and I 

 only name this period because it is the term in which, since grad- 

 uating from Stevens, I have followed more closely and played 

 my humble part in the current of events) the progress made in 

 most of the individual engineering and mechanical pursuits has- 

 been tremendous, while entirely new industries have called for new 

 engineering appliances, and, vice versa, new inventions have devel- 

 oped new industries. 



What should be the relation of the course of study pursued in 

 the schools of mechanical engineering to these ever-increasing im- 

 portant industrial engineering applications } 



Should every new, important mechanical device, especially if it 

 brings with it new fields of practical employment and labor for the 

 engineer, immediately find its place as a study in the engineering 

 school ? 



If this be so, the school of mechanical engineering will have to- 

 extend its term of study to an indefinite extent ; and ere long it will 

 come to pass that the young student, entering as a beardless youth, 

 will graduate from the school as a gray-haired man in the decline 

 of life : for, surely, if every important machine is to be the subject 

 of special study in the technical school, a lifetime will only suffice 

 to cover the ground. And the result .' 



The result would be that the engineering schools would be of no 

 use to the world ; for the world's engineering work would be being 

 done by outsiders, while the gray-haired students, plodding along, 

 would be kept busy studying this very work, and not be active 

 agents in its development. 



I have purposely drawn this picture from an extreme point of 

 view, for such method often enables us to discover what the funda- 

 mental truth underlying the problem really is. I think, in this 

 case, the truth is apparent at once. 



It is the mission of the technical school to inculcate the princi- 

 ples of engineering, to train and mature the powers of observation 

 and mechanical judgment, and, after teaching the laws of physics 

 and mechanics, to give the ability to apply these Jaws to problems 

 arising in machinery and the industrial arts. The special machines 

 and appliances dwelt upon in the school should serve this one pur- 

 pose : a knowledge of them should not be the end, but the means. 

 Because we can best inculcate and supplement a correct under- 

 standing of the physical laws, and a knowledge of how to apply 

 them to the design of machinery, by studj'ing the successful appli- 

 cations made, therefore such study should form an important fac- 

 tor in the course of the technical school. 



These engines, motors, machines, factories, and engineering 

 works should serve as the constant tests and checks of the stu- 

 dent's efforts at individual design. When the student has once ac- 

 quired the ability to put physical principles and experimental data 



