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drawing and mapping; a course in stereotomy is essential to the civil engineer, and is advised for all courses. For mechanical and electrical engineers, an extended course in the graphical construction of gearing of all kinds and a thorough course in machine drawing. Some knowledge of photography is desirable and of "blue-printing" necessary, for all. After this the stupent may be considered equipped for his strictly senior work and left to employ his skill on his thesis drawings and professional sketches.

In the fierce modern rivalry for advancement to positions of usefulness and eminence, the young contestant with a successful future before him, must go into action with faculties alert and every necessary accomplishment well in hand,-a mind thoroughly schooled to precision of thought, with refined powers of perception, and an established habit of readiness, and of scrupulous exactness in execution. To these ends, the courses here very inadequately outlined. directly tend. Further than this, the young engineer, striving for a foot-hold in his professional career, will often find his opportunity in being able to offer immediate and tangible proofs of a clear head and a skillful hand in the contents of his portfolio, which establish his claim to attention more promptly than his letters of recommendation. To the unknown genius lacking that magic power-influence-this visible demonstration of industry and ability may be, indeed often is, his passport into the arena, which once entered, will, with resolution and courage, prove a field of victory.

DISCUSSION.

THE CHAIRMAN presented the paper for discussion and called on Professor Ward Baldwin, of Cincinnati, to discuss it.

PROFESSOR BALDWIN had hoped that some one who had more experience in teaching drawing than he had would be called upon to discuss the paper first. A point made by the author, in fact all of the points made by him were of great interest. The speaker's experience had been more as a practical draughtsman. In teaching drawing in his own experience the most serious problem had been how to secure from the student accuracy, promptness, and neatness. He had tried several plans, and the one that had seemed to produce the best results had been to require each student to prepare a drawing and bring that to the lecture room, and to have an open discussion of the subject-matter of the drawing and the method in which it had been treated by the different students. The result of that method had been that the amount of work secured from the student had been materially increased. The stated time for presenting these drawings had led to more diligence on the part of those that were apt to be dilatory, and the result of the comparison of these drawings before the whole class had led to a certain amount of competition between the students to secure excellence. The result had been particularly noticeable in the work in graphical statics. The students were required to make their drawings and then scale the stresses from them, and tabulate them, and present their results in the class and make a com

parison. After a few such comparisons, the first of which had developed a good many large discrepancies, the drawings had agreed remarkably well, showing that the students had made considerable progress in their skill in producing accurate results. One of the most interesting questions in his mind had been to decide what ground would be the most useful for the students in civil engineering to cover in their free-hand work, the purpose not being to cultivate so much their artistic skill as their ability to represent their ideas of structure clearly on paper. It had been an open question with him whether it were best to use models for this kind of instruction entirely, or even largely; whether it would not produce better results to use models but little, and rather lead the students to select their own models and employ the general principles which they had learned from lectures and sketching in the class, to produce drawings largely from memory of model constructions. That is the plan which he had followed with his students, and while he was well pleased with the results, he should like very much to hear on this subject from others.

PROFESSOR H. W. SPANGLER had hoped to hear this question approached from the side of drawing pure and simple, that is, exclusive of its application beyond the point which, in his mind, was covered by the title. That is, he understood that the teaching of drawing had nothing to do with graphical statics. He did not see that the teaching of arithmetic had anything to do with the mechanics of materials. He looked at drawing from a very narrow standpoint, perhaps too

narrow, but what he was most interested in was the question of free-hand drawing. That, to his mind, was a decidedly serious question, as he had not been able to satisfy himself, and had no assistants who were able to satisfy him that the conditions of affairs which exist under his control are the best. That it is a serious one, those who have charge of this work realize when it is stated that to-day the free-hand drawing taught to mechanical students is limited strictly to the free-hand drawing necessary to make working sketches that are afterwards to be worked up. He did not believe this was right. He was satisfied that it should be much broader than this, but just where to draw the line he did not know, and he should like to have somebody who has had experience enough in this free-hand drawing, that is, somebody who is engineer enough to use his free-hand drawing outside of the college work, to solve this problem. That is, he did not want to teach free-hand drawing because it is a good thing to do, but because it is a good thing for an engineer to know. He would like to know just how far it is practical to carry free-hand drawing instruction. It is well known that when one talks with men who are not engineers he must do a certain amount of free-hand drawing. Now, business men as a class are sharp, and a picture conveys a pretty clear idea. Is it desirable that we should go beyond this with our students? One goes into his laboratory and selects a machine and the students sketch it, and the sketches are worked up afterwards. It is a very narrow course, but he did not see his way out of it; that is, he did not believe it was

worth the time to give an extended course in free-hand drawing, and he does not know how to give a small course. There are times when a man must do freehand sketching, but he was satisfied that a man who can make working drawings can make free-hand sketches. He would like to hear from somebody who has been through this mill, as to just how much freehand drawing is of value to engineering students, exclusive of the work that is necessary to give an understanding of the mechanical drawings.

MR. FRANK M. DUNLAP, M. Am. Soc. M. E., asked if an outsider might be permitted to say a word from the standpoint of the practicing engineer? He remembered his experience in college in the matter of free-hand drawing. He was taught drawing very largely from colored plates, and he was induced to shade his work up from those plates with the pencil, roughly to be sure, but to an extent which he at that time thought to be unnecessary. He had had some little experience in the shop before entering the college. He found now that when he goes to talk, as the gentleman had said, to a person who is not an engineer, he found that his pencil talked faster than his tongue did. He never shaded up anything in making sketches; he confined himself largely to outline diagrams and he thought that the gentleman's process with his students a very good one. He thought that what idea of shading and shadows they get from their ordinary course in drawing will give them enough of the matter of form to enable them to put in what little they need beyond, and a more extended course in

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