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enables a man to have a thousand phases like a diamond and enables him to reach and control many varieties of interests and sympathies. Then again, in this country, the freedom that permits any man to do anything he pleases unless somebody else is injured by it and takes the trouble to go to law, enables John Doe or Richard Roe to put a shingle on his door calling himself a "Civil Engineer," and no one says anything against it. No policeman goes to him and has him put in jail, as he ought to be, for trying to live under false pretenses. That leads the speaker to think that possibly the influence of the Society, with more argument and endeavor, might perhaps cause the Legislatures of the various States to pass laws forbidding people from practicing the profession unless they have been educated as engineers or else have been in some way licensed by a body that offers suitable guarantees. As it is now, the lawyer who collects his bills, whether he wins or fails, cannot practice without a license. The same obtains with the physician, with the advantage that the physician enjoys the privilege of burying his mistakes, whilst the engineer is generrally buried by them. If it were possible to pass such a bill, a law should be enacted that would prevent incompetent men from taking into their hands the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who entrust themselves to the engineer daily on engineering works, railroads, public buildings, bridges and vessels on the high seas. There is now as much danger to society at large by the lack of education on the part of engineers as there is from the lack of education on the part of physicians or lawyers.

PROFESSOR C. F. ALLEN spoke of a case which came under his immediate notice, of one engineer who had the right idea of such matters. As Locating Engineer of a railroad this man received $250 a month. As the work progressed he was informed that the company would be very glad to retain him as Chief Engineer at the same salary. The road was an important one and he told them what the speaker believed was right, that the salary was insufficient for the position; and this engineer refused point blank to accept the situation at that salary. The question was asked if he would remain for a time as Locating Engineer at the same salary and this he said he would do; the salary was, for this position, sufficient. In other words, the man fully appreciated the dignity of the position. He was in every way a splendid fellow. Earlier in his career, while waiting for certain important work to develop in Colorado, he was willing to take his shovel and work upon a toll-road that was under construction, although he was able to loan to the contractor money to continue his work. This man was not above working with a shovel and yet was unwilling to lower the dignity of the profession in accepting at an improperly low salary, a position which was offered him in the light of a promotion. The speaker's classes have generally, in fact every year, been informed of that case.

THE STUDY OF MODERN LANGUAGES IN EN

GINEERING COURSES.

BY THOMAS M. DROWN,

President of the Lehigh University, South Bethlehem, Pa.

Modern languages are a part of the professional equipment of the engineer. He must read German and French with ease or he will not be able to keep abreast of the progress of his profession. It is, therefore, a question of the first importance how, in the crowded curriculum of an engineering school, these languages should be taught so as to secure the greatest practical result in the time assigned to them.

To this question it may, perhaps, be answered that the engineering school is no place for the study of languages, that the students should be prepared with a good reading knowledge of German and French when they enter. This disposes of the subject in a summary and highly desirable way, but in the present condition of preparatory schools and college entrance requirements we have to deal with students who, though they may have an elementary knowledge of these languages, are unable to read technical literature with fluency.

It is true that one at least of the prominent technical schools of the country requires German and French for entrance and does not include them in its courses of instruction. But I think it will be generally admitted that the instruction in the preparatory schools in these languages must be supplemented by instruction or practice in the engineering school if the student is to feel himself at home with foreign engineering periodicals.

The study of modern languages in engineering schools has two objects, first, the one we are now considering, namely, the acquisition of a reading knowledge of the languages which will enable the engineer to get quickly, and at first hand, information from foreign sources, and second, the acquisition of a general knowledge of these languages and their literature.

I do not propose in this paper to enter into the discussion of how much or how little of general culture studies should have a place in the engineering curriculum. I have in another place* expressed my conviction that English, history and political and economic science, as well as the modern languages, should have their permanent places in the courses of instruction in engineering schools, for the reason that young men enter these schools, not as graduate students, but at the same age at which they enter college and with the same preparation. If the engineering schools provide for them merely the branches essential for the engineer, architect or chemist, the young man is graduated with a one-sided training in which the humanities are absent. Until the engineering schools can draw their supply from college graduates, or at least from students who have spent two years in academic studies, I hold that it is the duty of educators in technical schools to see to it that the young men under their charge get something more out of their course than mathematics, mechanics, physics or chemistry.

But the question now before us is whether there is any way by which the student can quickly learn

* "The Educational Value of Engineering Studies," an address delivered on Founders' Day at Lehigh University, October 10, 1895.

to read foreign books and journals on technical subjects with ease and accuracy. My experience has shown me that this can be done if the student appreciates thoroughly that a knowledge of modern languages is a necessary part of his equipment as an engineer or chemist. One of the difficulties that a teacher in a technical school has to contend with is the obstinate resistance the student opposes to the introduction of anything into his course of instruction for which he does not see immediate use in his profession.

In order that the culture studies above mentioned may be successfully taught in technical schools it is necessary to have teachers of these branches who shall possess both the inspiration and the tact to interest students. But in the case of the modern languages it is only necessary to introduce the student to the wealth of professional knowledge locked up in foreign periodicals in order to stimulate him to earnest effort to possess himself of the key.

My practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I was for many years connected with the chemical department, was to take as a reading book for the class in chemistry in the Junior year a well-known German periodical of analytical chem istry after the class had had one year of preparation in German grammar and in simple reading exercises. The students were generally appalled at the idea that they were expected to read a work of this character after (as they thought) so slight a preparation, and they were astonished to find in the course of a few weeks that the exercise had lost all terror for them. After a few hours in the class room,

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