THOMAS U. TAYLOR—NEED OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 
11 
adopt methods in dealing with count}^ bridges that do not obtain in other 
business affairs. In erecting public buildings a design by some well 
known architect is adopted, and after this is adopted bids are invited 
upon a specific structure. It would be just as reasonable to ask for bids 
to erect a court house one hundred feet square, with a certain number of 
rooms, with no other specifications, as to ask for bids for a bridge to span 
a certain creek. Again, it would be as reasonable to buy a horse simply 
because he is sixteen hands high and weighs one thousand pounds, as to 
buy a bridge of one hundred feet span and sixteen feet in width. Let 
our commissioners have their bridges designed by competent bridge en¬ 
gineers, with a complete set of drawings, and after these are obtained, in¬ 
vite bids for the erection of this particular bridge, according to specifi¬ 
cations and under the supervision of the designer, or of a good engineer. 
The ordinary bridge drummer or agent is about as capable of designing 
a good bridge as a saw-and-hammer carpenter is of designing our State 
capitol at Austin. 
It is a patent fact that a larger per cent of students go north to study 
engineering than any other professional course, and for the simple reason 
that we do not, at the University of Texas, dignify our engineering 
course by making it co-ordinate with the law department. 
I claim that the State, as a matter of safety to itself, must offer higher 
education in law, and medicine, and engineering. When trained men go 
out from our law department, and when their influence is felt in the 
counsels of the State, we will not witness two co-ordinate branches of 
our higher courts giving diametrically opposite decisions as to the valad- 
ity of a common law marriage. When engineering is placed on a footing 
of co-ordinate importance with law and medicine, and when students, in 
inspecting our catalogue, can see that we dignify that profession that 
must be the pioneer in all industrial enterprises, then the current of 
Northern-bound engineering students will stop, and not before. 
Discussion by Chas. Corner, engineer of the State Railroad Commis¬ 
sion, and Dr. G. B. Halsted, President of the Academy. 
Mr. Charles Corner, associate member, Institute Civil Engineers, said: 
“I don’t know that there is much more to say on the subject. The 
Nineteenth century development is made largely what it is by civil 
engineering. It is unfortunate that engineering education is not more 
encouraged. Our highways and our bridges are faulty. If we have to 
put up a water supply, or develop the resources of the State, there is 
hardly any one able to take the work in hand. We must train our youth, 
and protect them.” 
Dr. Halsted: “Civil engineering was a branch of my own school. 
There was no such department when I came here.. I was elected Pro¬ 
fessor of Pure and Applied Mathematics. I pushed at once for the 
