it, and yet perhaps authors are wise in evading the attempt, as certainly a satisfactory definition is difficult to find. If, with Phillip Gilbert Hammerton, we say that "drawing is a motion which leaves significant marks," we find ourselves embarrassed by the comprehensiveness of a definition which confessedly includes writing and may easily include many things and acts entirely foreign to the generally accepted conception raised by the term. Let us consider as acceptable, if you please, the following definition from the "Century" dictionary, where drawing is defined to be, "The act of forming or tracing lines, as with a pen, pencil point, etc. Specifically, in the fine arts, the act or method of representing objects on a surface. Strictly, by means of lines, but by extension, by means of lines combined with shades or with shading, or with color, or even by means of shading or colors without lines; properly, a method of representation in which delineation of form predominates over considerations of color." In other words, drawing is either the act or the method of obtaining the projection of form upon a surface.

There appears to be a serious confusion as to just what should be embraced under the term drawing. If it is an act or a method of representation, should it, or should it not, include the mental processes which precede but lead to the act? Thus, for example, in many of our engineering schools to-day, descriptive geometry, which is a purely mathematical study, is included under this head, while drawing, strictly speaking, is employed in this study only as the means of representing the mental operations and illustrating

the result in the solution of the problem in question. It would seem almost, if not quite, as logical to include algebra under the title of penmanship, as to regard the study of projections as a department of drawing, and yet, beyond a doubt, the treatment of this topic of "drawing for engineering students" would be conspicuously incomplete were it to omit the consideration of so important a department of the work. Not desiring to be at variance with what seems to be an established classification, we must therefore conceive drawing to be both an art and a science. An art as dealing with the manual practice of the delineation of form; a science in dealing with problems concerning abstract geometrical relation and position in space.

Evidently the skillful handling of the pencil, and the adroit manipulation of instruments is one thing; while the knowledge of mathematical form, the clear-cut conceptions of position and relation, that which, if you please, we may call intellectual insight into space, and which comes only from the careful study of the science of projections, is an entirely different thing. This also differs in turn from that concentration of attention, that power of visual memory, and the quick and accurate observation, which are such striking and valuable educational results of practice in the art. The writer's conception, then, of the most important ends to be kept in view, the vital objects to be attained by the courses and exercises in drawing for engineering students, are three in number.

First. The training and enlargement of what has been called the scientific imagination.

Second. The cultivation of the powers of observa

tion and of visual memory.

Third. The attainment of skill in representation. Attention will be called to these three objects somewhat in detail, and they will be taken in their inverse order.

Skillful representation, manual dexterity in the use of pencil or instruments is generally the inexperienced student's idea of success in the draughting room, considered by him as one of the passports to professional preferment, and the end and aim of his earlier efforts. This is all very well in so far as it goes, and should not be discouraged unless indulged at too great an expense of time and labor. But before very long the student discovers, perhaps in an uncertain way, that he is dealing with a form of language, a peculiar kind of thought representation, and that mere nicety of execution, delicacy of line and finish have precisely the same value here that they have in the written language, and no more. That it is an idea that he is representing and not a picture that he is making. In short, that it is an exact scientific record of facts with which he has to do, and not an artistic production only, after which he is striving.

Although mere beauty of finish is the least essential property of a technical drawing, there are certain closely allied qualities with which it will not do to dispense. While, beyond all doubt, the first and great requirement of a drawing is that it shall be correct and clearly legible, nevertheless, to be the work

of an accomplished draughtsman it should present that sharpness and clearness of execution, a certain appearance of strength and precision which at once inspires one with the conviction that the maker is intelligent, alert, and worthy of confidence.

As a matter of fact, no technical drawing is above suspicion, or unclouded in its claim to credibility, which betrays by weakness of handling, any infirmity in training for his work on the part of the draughtsman, or even a lack of knowledge in so simple and yet essential a matter as the correct formation of letters and figures. Thus, while a reasonable devotion to the purely artistic appearance of the work in a professional drawing is to be commended, a student oftentimes, to whom has been given some slight measure of the artistic temperament, produces his work at too great an outlay of his capital in time and effort, on over-refinement of execution. At the same time no labor whatever should be spared in the achievement of clearness, accuracy and legibility. And this word "legibility" impels a word on the subject of lettering. To the successful draughtsman, considered simply as such, few parts of his training are more important, and few receive less attention. Merely from the lack of instruction, practice, and in most cases, an easily cultivated taste, a student after long and honest labor successfully accomplished, proceeds at once to shake our confidence in his mental capacity by disfiguring his work with lettering and with numerals of such wretched character that instead of adding an attractive and prepossessing feature to the drawing, reflecting the intelligence of a spirited work

man, they actually jeopardize its true meaning and bring condemnation both to the drawing and to its author.

What has thus far been said relates largely to results obtained by training the hand: of the greatest practical value to the draughtsman, beyond a doubt, but by no means indispensable even to one who may become a distinguished engineer. The higher value of the study and practice of drawing—including in this term projections and graphics-is the education and expansion of certain faculties, without the possession of which, in vigorous activity and generous degree, the attainment of eminent success in any of the branches of the engineering profession is at least doubtful, while the one in whom these capabilities are trained to their full functional capacity will possess striking advantages over his uncultivated rival.

Among the faculties upon which the real study of the delineation of form exercises a strong and most happy influence, are to be mentioned attention, observation, memory, and what we may call the power of geometrical analysis, the ability, so to speak, of quickly reducing form to its lowest terms, or simplest relations. Free-hand drawing, that is drawing with the hand unaided by instruments, and guided only by the eye, must be regarded as one of the most satisfactory means for the cultivation of the above mentioned faculties. That the ability to make an accurate and rapid sketch of an object, a true and legible record of observed facts, is of value to the engineer, is too entirely obvious to call for assertion. But this "art of