less questioning as to the exact nature of things? Because we really do not find the world at all. Because the world comes to us only as sentience and apart from sentience it has no reality. Not that what is real is not a true other to our ideas about it, but it is only a true other in as much as it is the consistent outcome of these very ideas. So that when you say that you find truth or that you succeed in doing what you with purpose have determined upon, what you imply is, that your ideas develop themselves consistently and without internal contradiction. You may will to do many things the actual doing of which is beyond you just because if executed they would prove to be outside of this, your world, and not a consistent development of your life, but you may by a careful study of just the conditions that surround you and make your life just what it is, in some measure, at least, overcome the breach between your finite experience and the absolute experience which we seek to find in reality. In this way alone can you gain an understanding of the world that will enable you to find the best possible expression for your life. But reality is not to be found as the outcome of any one set of finite ideas, but as the complete fulfillment of all ideas that can produce a harmonious whole of experience.

This world of fulfilled purpose taken in its totality is present, at any instant, to our consciousness as what the psychologist calls the "felt background." That we acknowledge such a whole of feeling is clear, but in our every day life we are concerned chiefly in discerning what the structure of this whole world is other than the facts that now occupy our attention. All science is busy with this question. In its attempts

to describe this world science employs the process of observing facts between which it seeks to find still other facts which will form the bonding links required by thought, and that will unify the empirical world for us so that we shall find in it a more or less complete expression of our life-purpose. But we must remember that, as we thus discriminate between those facts that fulfill our present purpose and the rest of the world, what we find possesses no finality. We must not allow the apparent fixedness of the laws of nature to form the ground for the assertion that the world has any fixed structure to which science is the key. For reality is not the physical world apart from the conscious knowledge of this world, and any attempted description of reality that fails to acknowledge both the fact and the knowledge of the fact is never more than half the truth. The choice of a specialty in this endless work of description is purely a matter of personal taste, and "because of our human narrowness," says Professor Royce, "any one man has to confine himself to his specialty." Each is to find his facts. He is to look for the invariant characters that are common to each of these observed facts and also to the linkage of implied facts that serve to transform one fact into the other. In stating the nature of these invariants, the observer states a law which we say governs the facts observed.

I do not wish to be understood as disagreeing with Professor Royce as to the narrowness of the specialist's field. I merely observe that this narrowness is unfortunate because it tends to blind the specialist to this very narrowness. His tendency is to observe facts in a very one-sided way. He does not look allaround them as he should. I agree that the special

ist has to confine himself to his chosen field, but he must not forget that his field is as limitless as the world itself; and he must realize that the invariants in any transformation of facts may be quite different for different aspects of the facts themselves. To use a concrete example, the railroad engineer, if he is to be successful, must learn to look at his special problem not only as a problem in engineering, but also as a problem in transportation, a problem in finance and a problem in sociology; to mention only a few aspects of the facts between which he is to establish an interpolated series of related facts. Each view may cry for a separate solution, when he must be broad minded enough to weigh each solution properly. In fact his attitude to life is the fundamental thing. He must be free from bias. That he is an engineer must not overweigh the fact that he is also a student of traffic problems, a student of economics, and a student of the growth, distribution, and classes of population. And we find this true not only in this one example but also in every means of gaining a livelihood that we can suggest. The best man is always the broadest And this explains why in Europe the men who stand out as leaders of great enterprises are generally engineers. In America it is the engineer who does the bidding of the man who has founded his technical knowledge on a broad general education as a basis.

man.

Now all this seems quite evident from the standpoint of common sense. Surely no one questions that life is more than an eternal adjustment of conditions, yet there is no doubt that life also in a great measure makes just these conditions. The whole subject then sums itself into the following: No man can make the best of himself unless he knows and understands what

he himself means. His life is not something apart by itself. It is a fragment of a whole, but a fragment that is itself bound to every part of the whole. If the Life of the World is something different from the individual life then it matters not in the least what the individual does. His act cannot effect the final result. Such a world can be immoral with impunity, and can be the abode only of the fatalist. But if the acts of any one finite individual react in any way, for good or for evil upon the lives of his fellows, then it is vitally important that he should learn how to conduct himself wisely, not only as regards his own life and interests but also with reference to the world at large. The basic feature of every education then ought to be a study of the principles which experience shows us underlying the structure of the conscious world.

DISCUSSION.

PROFESSOR LANDRETH: This paper comprises a rare and almost new type in the literature of the promotion of engineering education. In the main and in the light of the striking but unfortunate over-specialization into which many of our engineering schools have drifted, the recommendations of the writer are timely and in the right direction. They might with almost equal propriety be extended to other subjects than philosophy.

Looked at from the standpoint of the needs of a learned profession of wide scope and still wider future possibilities, the engineering training given at present in many of our schools is clearly deficient in breadth of general culture and narrow even in technical lines. Two causes are responsible for this result: (1) The shortness of the course of study, being

rarely more than four years, and (2) the unwise effort to crowd into this time much training which is purely special in the futile effort to make efficient specialists without first preparing a broad foundation on which to build. Four years after high school is too short a time in which to complete the education of a man and the training of an engineer and the portion of time allotted to the engineering training is all needed for thorough foundation work in the fundamentals of the profession, and being too short at best for this important work should not be encroached upon for specialization. The welfare of the engineering profession, and therefore of society which it serves, would be better subserved by turning out men of broader and deeper fundamental preparation in both general and technical directions, even though, at the time of graduation, they possessed less special training and were less immediately useful as assistants. The author makes a strong appeal for the study of philosophy for engineers, but his paper is more than this; in reality it is largely a plea for the study of the humanities in general. Many of the arguments advanced would be equally strong in support of the importance of history, literature, æsthetics, sociology and economics, all of which are desirable if not essential to the training which every well-educated engineer should acquire. The "trade of living" is not learned from philosophy alone.

The recognition of the importance of this broader training in the engineer's preparation is a matter first to claim consideration and must precede any effort to provide for it. In the endeavor to provide for such broader training it does not appear desirable to increase the requirements for admission beyond those