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growth we will have it in schools that have already become somewhat large, I presume we cannot altogether dispute that.

After reading the paper somewhat carelessly, one is almost led to believe that it is the duty, if you wish to have success, to send your boy to a large school. I was afraid those connected with the small schools might feel some disinclination to take issue in this matter and perhaps it would be worth while for me to question the statement in the form in which it is liable to be taken. If you wish to say that the engineering schools are becoming large and that therefore the problem of handling such schools is becoming a more general problem, and that we must all the way along face the question of teaching engineering in schools of considerable size, therefore it is a matter for discussion as to how it shall be done; that is, of course, quite true. But I distinctly think it worth while to say that in my opinion the smaller school has a definite field of usefulness and that we should not assume too readily that the large school is the place to go for a technical education; we should resist getting that point of view too firmly implanted in our minds. I have become rather critical in looking at this particular matter and the impression which the paper made upon my mind at first was something in the direction of the idea that I have been trying to dispel.

SECRETARY KETCHUM: I have a discussion by Professor Magruder.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM T. MAGRUDER (by letter): I would add a fourth advantage due to large classes. As they require a larger teaching force, the students come into

contact with a larger number of instructors, and learn of them as engineers something of their points of view of the profession, and also gain experience in dealing with them as men.

The writer would object to a "group of, say, forty students under the sole charge of an assistant professor," for the reason that, first, the group is too large for any one man to handle successfully in recitation, in laboratory work and in problems in design; and second, the student will not receive as broad training as he would if he came into contact with three different minds, each a specialist in recitation work, or in laboratory work or in design. He believes that three specialists are to be preferred to one general instructor.

THE PROGRESS AND INFLUENCE OF TECHNICAL

EDUCATION.

BY VICTOR C. ALDERSON,

President Colorado School of Mines.

With the new century opening before us, with potent influences in sociological, industrial and political matters exerting themselves, it is wise for us, as educators, to take a view of the educational field and discover, if we can, what part of the field has already been sufficiently cultivated and in what part there lies the greatest harvest for the future. The education of the cloister is gone forever; the classics still retain their influence in selected quarters; but scientific education, as a demand of the age, has advanced with amazing rapidity. The latest phase, however, is the application of science to industry, and the schools are being called upon to do their part in advancing civilization, by training young men to more useful lives in industrial and commercial pursuits.

THE PERIOD BEFORE 1851.

During the half century before 1851 scientific study was so meager and withal so theoretical that it had not reached the masses. The names of bright students and able investigators did appear, but the realm of available science was small compared with the almost boundless realm of to-day. The broad work of applying science had not begun, so that the status of technical education was extremely low, not only in England but in

other European countries, and in the United States. The present high grade Technische Hochschulen-or technical universities-of Germany and Austria, like the Berlin school founded in 1799, the Vienna school in 1851, that at Karlsruhe founded in 1825, the Munich school in 1827, Dresden in 1828, Stuttgart in 1829, and Darmstadt in 1836, were then only elementary industrial, trade, or building schools. The same was true of the present Imperial Technical Institute of St. Petersburg (1828) and the Institute of Riga (1832). The Imperial Technical Institute of Moscow was founded in 1832 in order to give the inmates of a foundling asylum a trade education. In Paris there was the Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chausses (1794). In the United States there existed only the Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, and the Lawrence and Sheffield Scientific Schools founded respectively in 1846 and 1847. In 1821 agriculture was taught in the Lyceum at Gardiner, Maine, and in 1824 a school of agriculture was opened at Derby, Connecticut. In Sweden, the Polytechnic Institute of Stockholm (1825) and the Chalmers Industrial School at Goteborg (1811) were both in the trade school stage. The latter, indeed, was originally an adjunct to an orphan asylum. The Technical Institute at Copenhagen, Denmark, founded by private enterprise as a trade school, had just begun its work. Nowhere was there a single high grade technical school, and in the few schools existing the technical instruction was exceedly meager.

THE LONDON EXHIBITION OF 1851.

Modern technical education is a direct result of the London Exhibition of 1851. Here, for the first time in history, an opportunity was given on a large scale to compare and contrast the industrial products of all nations. With this epoch-making object lesson real progress in technical education began. At that time no one saw its far-reaching effects more clearly than Albert, the Prince Consort. He was statesman enough to see that a nation deficient in natural resources might, by a high cultivation of science, become a keen rival of a country more favorably endowed by nature but neglectful of scientific attainments. Had he lived longer he would have seen his ideas fully realized in the industrial success of Germany and Switzerland. Recognizing, however, even then the value to England of trained engineers, artisans, scientists and artists, he suggested that the profits of the exhibition, $900,000, increased by a Parliamentary grant of $750,000 to $1,650,000, be expended in providing a permanent home for an institution to be devoted to spreading a knowledge of science and art. His suggestion was adopted and the money was expended in purchasing the Kensington estate which was for forty-seven years the home of the Department of Science and Art, and now is the home of the Central Technical College, the Royal College of Science, and the University of London. Consequent upon the efforts of the Prince Consort and those associated with him, the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington was founded in 1853. By its work the history of industrial England has been profoundly affected. It was a pioneer in the great

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