neering design, metallurgical design, machine design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, laboratory practice both in mechanical and electrical engineering, ore dressing, etc.

The speaker would be pleased to learn of the practice and customs of other institutions, and how their instructors handle shop practice. Also whether or not the work has been found to be of vital interest and of real use to the students.

PROFESSOR L. S. RANDOLPH thought the subject one of a good deal of interest. He was at present engaged in gradually changing the course. His own experience in such work was acquired where rather more time was given than the author specifies. The speaker gave ten hours a day every day in a week for about three years. But in taking charge of the shop course there were given at first, three hours a day for three days in a week throughout four years, but machine work was soon dropped out of the Senior year, then from the Sophomore year, so that now it covers only two years. There is a course in wood working, where the men are instructed in turning, making joints, dove-tails, and the like, that takes about nine hours a week for half a year. The rest of that year is given up to forge and foundry work, the forge and foundry together taking nine hours a week for the half year. That accounts for the Freshman year. In the Junior year comes the machine work, and here there has been difficulty in getting from the students the proper amount of work. The course is carried on, not so much to impart manual dexterity, as to familiarize the student with the different operations. In machine

work, they have turning, planing and boring, with different metals, cast iron, brass, and wrought iron, as well as milling and the use of different simple machines, shapers and the like. It is proposed also to bring in the subject of emery grinding and to introduce certain processes, such as the making of bits, turning out a hole and fitting a bolt into it, to show what can be done in such ways. The idea is simply to develop those processes which the engineer needs. As to the amount required, the speaker had never found that he got any too much; nearly all had been of use to him; while it is not necessary for the engineer to have dexterity, he ought to know when a man is doing work well, and many technical graduates who have had good shop courses are able to do that. They can often tell a competent mechanic across the shop, tell from the way he holds his chisel or sets a tool in a machine; many of them pick it up very quickly when they go into the shops after graduation to acquire further experience in that line. It is quite difficult to draw the line closely as to where manual training should end. It is advisable to give a man a pretty thorough course while avoiding any attempt to give him manual dexterity. Few of the students have enough occasion for manual dexterity to warrant the time necessary for it, but everyone should do enough to familiarize himself with all the different processes in use in shopwork so that he can tell when a piece of work is well done. In moulding, which is a new thing this year and serves for illustration, two or three of the men had a great deal of difficulty in getting sound castings; the castings came out full of blow

holes and this was due to improper venting in every case. That particular thing is now well impressed on those men and all of them seem to understand it. One of the most troublesome things in the foundry is the lack of proper venting in the blow holes; the work was carried that far, not to give the man any dexterity, but simply to let him fully understand the principle.

PROFESSOR J. GALBRAITH said that he was a representative of an engineering college in which no instruction was given in shopwork. From his experience he felt satisfied that the tendency in the past had been to attribute altogether too much importance to shopwork in the school training of engineering students. Of course his opinion of the value of training in shopwork must be judged with the knowledge of the fact that he had no experience in giving instruction of this kind. In the School of Practical Science, the four years of a student's time are fully occupied in work, no portion of which in the speaker's opinion could be replaced with advantage by shopwork. The proper field of the engineering college is the teaching of theory; the great advance which has been made of late years in engineering education is due to improved methods of teaching theory. It is now thoroughly recognized that instruction in theory cannot be satisfactorily given without the aid of practical work in the drafting room, laboratories and field. Concurrently with this kind of instruction, the college should give as far as possible, such practical training as may be necessary to render a student immediately useful to his employers on entering upon the practical work of the profession. If, after these objects have been prop

erly provided for in a four years' course, there still remains time to be filled up and money to be spent, the question of introducing instruction in shopwork may be entertained. It may be granted that a better general knowledge of the use of tools may be acquired in a given time in a school where a systematic course of instruction is provided, than in an ordinary shop; the question is whether the time may not be more usefully employed. It is necessary for success in his profession that the engineer acquire a knowledge of a large number of trades, but that knowledge is certainly not the knowledge possessed by the tradesman. Since shopwork holds its place in the curriculum not so much for its practical as for its educational value, it becomes a question whether the time which is now spent on three or four trades, might not better be spent on the single trade of pattern-making. Instruction in pattern-making cannot be given without forcing the student to make himself acquainted with a large portion of the work of a manufacturing establishment, in addition to learning the use of his tools. and the manipulation of his material.

PROFESSOR THOMAS GRAY said that the amount of time devoted to practical work, in some estimates, seems exceedingly small from the point of view of the amount of time which is necessary to make an artisan. There has been a good deal of talk about making expert workmen, or giving some idea as to how to use tools. Six or seven hours a week for one year would represent about three full weeks of practical work. Imagine making an artisan in three weeks. The amount of time which Professor Galbraith speaks of as

being necessary for the degree in Toronto, is enormously greater than is considered necessary in any of the schools with which the speaker is acquainted. The shop practice given in any of the technical colleges seems not of very great consequence looked upon from the artisan point of view. It is not practicable to produce workmen in any one of the subjects. But there is another point of view from which to examine the subject. In the beginning of teaching machine design, for instance, it is a great help for the student to know what difficulties will be presented by the thing he has drawn, when he tries to make a pattern for it; to know when things are difficult to make and when they are easy. In the same way, in a machine shop, it is a great help to a man afterwards to have seen a number of things made, to have helped make them, to have made a small piece of them, to have had his attention drawn to the different parts made by others, and to have had pointed out to him the parts that are difficult to make and to be told that a certain part might have been made in another way, or altered in such a way that it could be made much more easily ; that kind of thing cannot be done in school lectures. It is possible to do a great deal of good to an engineering student in that way without attempting to produce a workman. There is not any question probably among the authorities of the best schools with regard to the question of artisan training. The educational part of the matter is the one to be kept always in view; do just as much of manual training as is of assistance in connection with that part, but beyond that let the students, if they want to become workmen after grad