a coil of wire and a magnet, writing down on the blackboard a description of the experiment as it was performed. Then this description was simplified successively by representing certain whole sentences by letters, and eventually the proper formula replaced the entire writing. Thus the men learned that mathematics was a shorthand expression for a description of what they had observed in the experiment. That this system of teaching mathematics was effective was shown by the readiness with which problems requiring some little original thinking were worked out.

The method was, of course, not original with these lectures, as it is merely an extension of the modern method of teaching arithmetic and the elementary mathematics employed in our common schools.

While I am on the subject let me recount to you a story about one of the men attending this course. He is an assistant engineer in the works of the American Glucose Co. As I remember, his age is twenty-five. It was noticed that he always carried books about with him, and one day the instructor who had become greatly interested in the man's cleverness and bright questions, asked him what he was reading. It was a history of philosophy. The student stated that he had studied philosophy, logic, and psychology since he was eighteen years old, because, he said, "it gives one such an insight into things, makes one satisfied to live the best one can, and teaches me that the things worth doing are the things that can never be fully accomplished in this life.”

He is indeed a man to be envied.

PROFESSOR C. F. ALLEN: I wish to say a word with reference to the statement that the engineering college is first an educational institution and second a

trade school. I object to the idea that is conveyed to my mind by that statement and I would say that I believe the college is a distinctly educational institution. To my notion what the engineering college stands for is that theory cannot be properly taught except in connection with its applications. And it is from that standpoint almost exclusively, it seems to me, that the practical work of the engineering college is justified.

PROFESSOR NORRIS: My idea is that a technical school is properly an educational institution. Of course we have to devote more or less time to tradeschool work, but our students come to learn a profession and not a trade. Teachers of engineering believe that we should, in teaching technology, have its educational value prominently before us.

PROFESSOR F. B. WILLIAMS: I think Professor Swain is correct and that we ought to begin early in mathematics and take time to teach it. There is danger in introducing the "rule of thumb," before men get out of college. They can learn these short methods after graduation. We should insist upon the students working things out logically with a clear understanding of the principles used, for they are too apt to try first one way and then another just to get the answer to a problem. The idea of "engineering mathematics" is a good one, but it involves a thorough teaching of mathematics. The teacher should have a thorough mathematical training and a thorough engineering training; and then when the theory is taken up and developed, he will be able to make a practical application of it.

PROFESSOR CRANDALL: In support of the idea that it is not necessary for the teacher of mathematics to

have an engineering training, I would say that one of the very best teachers of mathematics to engineers that I know of is a man whose education was academic, and his degree was that of bachelor of arts.

PROFESSOR C. F. ALLEN: It seems to me that that paper proceeds on the assumption that our engineering colleges graduate engineers. I think that most of us believe that we graduate young men who have a good foundation for becoming engineers. To my mind, the paper proceeds on the basis that the engineering college does graduate essentially engineers, a thing which I do not believe in at all and I think most of us do not believe in.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRIAL

EDUCATION.

BY CALVIN M. WOODWARD,

Chairman of the Committee.

The Committee on Industrial Education has no formal report to present at this time, but expects to make a formal report at the next meeting of the society. There is a very general discussion now going on in educational and industrial circles in regard to the establishment and operation of trade schools. A committee, of which the Hon. Carroll D. Wright was chairman, met during the summer of 1905 and discussed the whole question of industrial education in its relation to the mechanical trades. Although the committee met in Massachusetts, the discussion is not confined to New England, but has spread to the west. Your committee will have something to say about the matter at the next meeting of the society.

DISCUSSION.

PROFESSOR SWAIN: I should like to ask Professor Woodward for some information with reference to the work of the committee. It was my understanding that further work of the committee was postponed in order to await the publication of a report by the United States Commissioner of Education, giving the results of an investigation then in progress. I should like to inquire if that report has been completed or published, as it has not come to my attention.

PROFESSOR WOODWARD: By arrangement with the association, three addresses were presented. Our

committee intends to present a report as soon as it has something good and new, but we do not care to publish just a few statistics. We desire to outline a scheme for the industrial education which is based on manual or elementary technical education. That is what we hope to present at the next meeting.

PROFESSOR TYLER: It may be of interest to the members of the society to know that the report of the recent Massachusetts Commission on Industrial Education, of which President Carroll D. Wright was chairman, deals very thoroughly with conditions in Massachusetts. The legislature has since taken steps in accordance with the recommendations of this report toward the working out of a comprehensive plan for industrial education.

PROFESSOR WALDO: Professor Thurston's last paper was published in our proceedings after his decease and related to different kinds of education. A careful reading of it would show that Professor Thurston was not entirely in harmony with some of the notions presented early in this session.