Nov 2, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



465 



Nevertheless, it was pleasant to look back and to re- 

 member that one saw the birth and development of so 

 many of the processes, the improvement of so many of 

 the machines, the invention of so many of the structures, 

 the use and construction of which was now the ordinary 

 business of the engineer. Nothing was so striking in 

 looking back on the history of engineering during the 

 last thirty or forty years as the growth in connection 

 with the practice and business of engineering of a body 

 of scientific principles forming a science of engineering. 

 The engineer had in part acquired and in part dis- 

 covered the scientific principles applicable to his daily 

 work. Purely scientific men, whose experience was 

 confined to the laboratory, were apt to forget that a 

 large part of the work of an engineer was nothing else 

 than experimenting on a very large scale, and, to tell 

 the truth, with very heavy penalties in most cases for 

 failure. Not seldom the engineer's researches extended 

 far beyond immediate practical interests, and were 

 carried out in a spirit as truth-loving as any laboratory 

 experiments. They still heard of an opposition of 

 science and practice. If, however, they would concede 

 the dependence of practical engineering on a body of 

 scientific principles forming a theory of engineering, he 

 would ask their attention first to the subject of technical 

 education. The derivation of the word engineer showed 

 that an engineer was recognised as a man who worked 

 with his brain, not with his hands. Of course, in the busi- 

 ness of engineering there were engaged a large body of 

 artisans whose value depended on their skill of hand, and 

 he had the greatest respect for the work they did. Most of 

 them had, no doubt, noticed two remarkable articles on 

 technical education, by Lord Armstrong and Sir Lyon 

 Playfair. Lord Armstrong wrote on the vague cry for 

 technical education, and showed an obvious distrust of 

 some things which were advocated in that name. Sir 

 Lyon Playfair replied that he failed to see to what exactly 

 Lord Armstrong objected, and that he was throwing cold 

 water on efforts beginning to bear useful fruit, and pro- 

 mising to have an influence of the widest kind on the 

 national welfare. It was clear that in Lord Armstrong's 

 article he was thinking almost exclusively of the educa- 

 tion of the artisan class, and concerning that class it was 

 further clear that Lord Armstrong was in no way 

 opposed to their general education ; but where Lord 

 Armstrong stopped, and became doubtful or hostile, was 

 at attempts to give in school the specific training in a 

 handicraft or trade which hitherto had been gained 

 directly in the shop. He thought Lord Armstrong 

 wished well to any increase of intelligence in workmen, 

 but doubted — and he (Professor Unwin) was disposed 

 to agree with him — that scientific traming would make 

 men better workmen. They who were engineers 

 could understand very well how impossible it was 

 to train the vast number of filters or boiler-makers or 

 other artisans connected with engineering anywhere 

 else than where large and heavy actual work was 

 going on. Sir Lyon Playfair, he thought, did not 

 fairly meet Lord Armstrong on this point, and did not 

 very distinctly keep clear general education and special 

 technical education, nor sufficiently mark the difference 

 between the means necessary for acquiring the skill of 

 hand of the craftsman, and those suitable for educating 

 the brain-workers who did the thinking and designing in 

 all constructive industry. For the young engineer Pro- 

 fessor Unwin thought that regular and systematic tech- 

 nical instruction in the strictest sense was needed, and 



it was through these that advanced scientific teaching 

 might come to have a real and powerful influence on the 

 maintenance of our mechanical superiority — and so on 

 the welfare of the country and of every classs in it. 

 However good a school for the workman, the shop was a 

 most imperfect school for the engineer. The value of 

 acquiring handicraft skill in the case of the engineer was 

 easily overrated, and the longtime spent in the workshop 

 involved in one direction a good deal of loss. During 

 years at the bench much of school knowledge of science 

 and mathematics disappeared. He thought that Lord Arm- 

 strong a little underrated the need of college training for 

 engineers. There were two ways in which a technical 

 college and the engineers in practice might work together 

 with mutual advantage. One was that they might, 

 without interfering with the apprenticeship system, give 

 facilities to apprentices to make use of the college, so that 

 the workshop training might be supplemented by scien- 

 tific training. The other was that they might give some 

 small advantages to young men who had had a technical 

 training at that difficult point in their career at which 

 they first entered on practical life. If in any way they 

 could attain a system by which the theoretical education 

 went on pari passu with the practical education, and that 

 without sensible interference with the ordinary appren- 

 ticeship, it would be a good thing. It appeared to him 

 that engineers might, without sensible harm to the rules 

 of the workshop, spare apprentices for one day a week 

 to attend a course of instruction in college. Evening in- 

 struction after shop hours was too scrappy and disjointed 

 to do much good. But instruction carried on systemati- 

 cally through one clear day a week would be much more 

 valuable. Professor Unwin then referred to a remarkable 

 paper by Mr. Thomson, one of the most distinguished of 

 American bridge builders, which seemed to throw doubt 

 on any reliance on theory in practical engineering, and 

 who, in support of his contention, stated that during the 

 past ten years 250 American iron bridges had completely 

 broken down. They must not take too literally Mr. 

 Thomson's view — meant, probably, half humorously — 

 that American bridges failed because they were built too 

 scientifically. As an example of what he thought were 

 right and wrong ways of theorising, he referred to the 

 question of the collapse of boiler-flues, and with the aid 

 of diagrams made some valuable and interesting remarks 

 from a technical point of view on that subject. 



Liverpool Science Students' Association. — At the 

 opening meeting, held on October 16th, Miss E. N. 

 Wood gave a resume of the botanical work of the summer 

 session. The President (Mr. Osmund W. Jeffs) then 

 delivered the annual address, which dealt mainly with 

 the geology of the Cheshire hills. 



St. John's Natural Science Society, Upper Hollo- 

 way. — On Tuesday, October 16th, a very interesting 

 lecture on " Leaves " was delivered to the members of 

 this society by Mr. J. McKerchar. The subject was 

 illustrated by means of diagrams, dried specimens, 

 growing plants, and by a series of excellent microscopic 

 preparations. 



The Microscopical Society of Glasgow. — At the 

 usual monthly meeting of this society, held on October 

 16th, Mr. C. Fred Pollock, M.D., gave a concise and 

 comprehensive description of the human skin, with its 

 various layers, glands, muscles, and appendages, such as 

 ■ hairs and nails. 



