uation, become workmen by learning to work. If they require certain technical or manual experience to take charge of certain works, let them acquire it in the proper place. The workshop is the proper place to produce an artisan.

PROFESSOR STORM BULL referred to the statement previously made by himself that they had no shopwork in German technical schools. It is true that they hardly do any shopwork. The speaker did not call attention to this because he approves of it, for the contrary was the case. But it was almost put in that light in the paper. The speaker certainly approves of shopwork. He approves of laboratory work in mechanical engineering in the various lines in which it is taken up in Germany. Of course it is difficult to decide upon the limit. In the University of Wisconsin he was inclined to think they went too far in the line of shopwork. He had tried to have it cut down, but had been unable to do as much as he wanted to. There are required about nine hundred hours of shopwork during the whole course of four years. That would be the equivalent of something more than twenty weeks. That is altogether too much. At one time it was the custom to design a piece of apparatus like a small steam engine, or something of that kind, in the drafting room, and then go into the shop, make the patterns, mould and cast, and do everything necessary to finish the piece of machinery. That is a very valuable experience. The students who have graduated have said so later on. But it takes too much time. It crowds out of the course other things which ought to be attended to. If twenty

weeks is too much, it is hard to decide how much should be allowed; possibly ten weeks altogether might be enough, but the man who has charge of that kind of work is the one to settle it. Of course, the object of shopwork is not to make mechanics, and that is the reason why, in the University of Wisconsin, the rule is to refuse admission to applicants who come simply to learn shopwork, by saying that they must take three full studies besides. If they can carry three full studies, that is, three hours a day, and then take the shopwork, they are allowed to enter the University. Otherwise, not.

PROFESSOR W. M. TowLE stated that there was a wide difference in the amount of time given to shopwork in the colleges. It varies from two hundred to nearly two thousand hours. Some of this work is what is called manual training, part of it is carried to such an extent that it becomes training for the artisan. For an engineering student, the speaker would give something more than manual training, but considerably less than what would make an artisan.

The student should learn the use the various tools and acquire some dexterity in handling them, and become acquainted with the different processes of manufacturing and handling material.

In his work as a designer and manager, he will need to understand how work is handled in the shop, how the patterns are made, how it will be molded and cast, and how it will be worked in the machine shop. If he understands these things he will avoid difficult forms of construction as far as possible, and perhaps be able to modify the design so that it can be made

easier and cheaper. An engineer should know what tools will be required in building a machine, so as to know whether it can be handled in the shop, or will have to be changed to fit the tools on hand, or be built elsewhere.

To give a student an insight into these things, he should have about eight hundred hours of shop practice in carpentry, wood-turning, pattern-making, foundry work, forging and machine-tool work. He should learn the use of the hand and machine tools, and how work should be done. While he is learning the use of tools, most of the work should be in the form of exercises after the Russian system modified to suit our requirements. After he has learned to handle the tools he should be given something to make that is of practical use, for this will keep up his interest in his work.

If the work is to be done wholly by students, it should be something of which the parts are small and can be finished in a short time. The speaker does not consider it advisable to build large work unless there are workmen to help on the larger parts, for it takes too much of the student's time at one thing, and he does not get the variety of work that he should have.

PROFESSOR J. J. FLATHER said he was struck with one or two points in Professor Schuerman's paper. One in particular reminded him of what some may have seen in one of the magazines lately about teaching engineering by "looking on." Professor Schuerman suggested that a good deal could be learned by observation, cutting down the actual number of hours of

manual training, putting more into lectures and observation of the machines and the processes of construction in the manufacture of the machines. While the speaker believed in manual training as far as it may be of value to the engineer in teaching him the elements of his profession, there is still a great deal of value in the process of observation. At the Lehigh University, with which he was connected for several years, there is a very thorough system of shop visits which is an excellent training for the engineer. The men who undertake that systematic course of observation begin in the Sophomore year, and by going through the leading establishments of the city and neighborhood, become familiar with the parts and proportions of machinery and the use of tools. In the first term of their junior year, they make a systematic visit every afternoon, from half past twelve to five o'clock, observing and noting the processes in the blacksmith shop, machine shop, foundry and pattern-room, and the men learn a good deal of engineering that cannot be taught in the college machine shop. They learn how to handle larger pieces of work than are common to the average college shop. They learn something about the time necessary to do work of that kind. There is no question about the value of this work from the standpoint of machine design. After they have had that training, when it comes time for them to carry out original designs, their work in "looking on" counts; and the experience has been that those men have an excellent idea of engi neering construction,-this refers to mechanical engineers-of the adaptability of the metals for the differ

ent parts of the machine, and of the size of parts without referring to a formula; if they use a formula and make a mistake in the decimal place, they realize it. In all these ways they have an advantage over the men who have simply been in the college machine shop, and the speaker's experience has been that these men obtain a better idea of engineering construction and engineering work than the same men would have if they simply had practice in a workshop. Probably it is the locality, the surroundings, that make it more favorable at Lehigh than it could be at any other place. At Purdue University there is a college workshop, and this is supplemented by a systematic course in observation modeled upon the same lines, but not as complete as the one which has been described as in use at the Lehigh University.