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and results show how multifarious are the demands upon the profession, and hence upon the schools. The school is brought into closer contact with the diverse conditions and problems of practice, and is becoming more closely identified with the profession.

But the school cannot control the conditions and opportunities of practice; it may in some degree anticipate them, and it must bring its ideals and teaching into conformity therewith. We do not deal altogether with ideal youth; few have ideal preparation and ideal capacity; the schools cannot all have ideal equipment or wholly ideal instructors; and even the ideal graduate would not find a world of ideal opportunities.

The situation presents some complexity; may we not also say perplexity? Are there not a few pertinent questions like the following:

May the equipment and teaching of the school be too complete, reaching too far beyond the average conditions and demands of practice, elaborating unduly details which are more exclusively in the domain of the practitioner?

Is the school sometimes attempting to cover too wide a field, assuming the work of a university while prescribing time and conditions sufficient only for a college course?

How far, and in what lines, is there a reasonable demand upon the schools for specialists?

We should not be agreed upon answers to such questions, even if they could be given. We are agreed, however, upon some first principles which always determine real progress, whether in the past or present.

First. Quality rather than quantity. The profession doubtless demands of the school that it shall at least

restrict overproduction by high standards of admission, by excluding all inferior capacity and by strict requirements of aptitude and high proficiency.

Second. Although the scope of the curriculum is now so greatly enlarged, the proper work of the school must ever be upon the foundations; upon those controlling principles, data, methods, manual operations, verifications and the common business transactions of engineering which underlie and sustain the broad superstructure of professional activity.

Third. The student should be made familiar with the best professional literature and all important sources of information; he must know how to make his knowledge and elementary skill effective in emergencies. For, after all the school can do, the man must continue to educate himself.

Finally, the school must give the man inspiration from the history, traditions, achievements and noble personalities of the profession, both past and present. By this means, and through the personal influence and example of his instructors, the student should grow into strength of character, firm integrity, and that high sense of professional honor which, amidst all temptations, will ever hold duty and truth far above any price.

DISCUSSION.

PROF. L. S. RANDOLPH said that he had listened with great interest to this paper, which gives a review to a considerable extent of engineering education, and it seemed to him to point the way for future progress. At first, the education was purely theoretical, then

further.

came its application in the school directly to concrete problems. It seemed desirable to carry the latter The problems should include not merely the determination of important parts, but also a consideration of the cost, for that measures the success of any engineering problem. The speaker was very much struck with the author's remarks on architecture, and the relation of engineering to architecture, and this brought to his mind a remark which was quoted as coming from a celebrated architect, that the architect of the future must be an engineer. To-day on all sides, large buildings are going up which would not stand if constructed under former methods. Their cost must be within reason, and heretofore the method has been for an architect to employ an engineer, as one architect expressed it, to attend to certain details. Within the last few months, mention had been made of a large building which was designed by the engineer, an architect being employed to do the decoration, as it was expressed. The speaker looked with a certain amount of dread on engineering specialization. His own experience and observation led him to believe that there is danger of going too far. The author calls attention to one of the strong points in technical education, that it fits a man not alone for his own profession, but for others. Take, for instance, farming. A friend of the speaker who has had a good deal to do with it, remarked the other day that one cause of failure with so many farmers is that they know so little of engineering. There are so very many diverse interests in which technical education applies, that it seems a pity to confine a man in a college course to

one particular line. He never knows what his work will be when he graduates. The speaker remembered very distinctly his own particular experience. He had become interested in chemistry while at college, and had given particular attention to it; going into a testing laboratory, expecting to do engineering work, he was very much surprised to find that his only duties were making chemical analyses, and for eighteen months he worked as a chemist. One never knows what work the young man may enter upon, and it seems important to avoid as much as possible any specialization which will keep the student from knowing the elements at least, of other lines of his profession.

SOME NOTES UPON CIVIL ENGINEERING EDUCATION WITH SPECIAL APPLICATION

TO JAPAN.

BY J. A. L. WADDELL,

Kansas City, Mo.

Much as the writer would like to write a paper upon "Engineering Education in Japan," which he was invited to do, lack of time has prevented his doing this. However, he is glad of the opportunity of making a short, informal address by dictation to his stenographer, upon the general subject of Civil Engineering Education, a subject in which, perhaps some already know, he formerly took the deepest interest. More than that, he can say truthfully that there is no subject, his own chosen specialty not excepted, in which he is more interested than in Civil Engineering Education. It is, in his opinion, the most important branch of our profession, for the reason that the development of all other branches is dependent upon it.

Unfortunately, for many years the practicing members of the profession have had a tendency to look down upon and sneer at the professors of civil engineering. Such a tendency exists more or less to-day, but by no means to such an extent as it did ten or fifteen years ago. Undoubtedly, the formation of this Society has had a great deal to do with the raising of its specialty in the eyes of brother engineers; and there is reason for hope that in years to come this Society will succeed in placing the professors at the head instead of at the foot of the engineering profession.

The time was when a man who could run a transit

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