actual profession, is the leading vocation of every man, is a profession to be studied, perfected and strategically planned with interested thoroughness and far-seeing care. This right view of life can be instilled not only by giving the college youth ever wider choice of work, initiative in working and responsibility for the quality of his work (while holding him to a rational and ordered sequence of development), but also by teaching him such things and in such a way as to make him increasingly aware of a man's power over circumstance and of the multiform opportunity which every individual has to shape his

own career.

Another chief use of the education given in a scientific school should be to expand a young man's vision, to teach him the difference between the small and the great things of life, to train him to see the world from a clear mountain-peak of intellectual tolerance rather than from a foggy valley of personal prejudices. This breadth and catholicity can be inspired by building all his professional and technical training upon basic truths and principles, by framing his courses of study upon those still fundamental, historical, philosophical and linguistic subjects which (quite too exclusively) made up the college course of half a century ago, and, most of all, by seeking every opportunity to impress upon each student the fact that what makes for leadership and power in professional life is not familiarity with technical details and an extraordinary memory for formulæ, but ability to view questions in a large way, to handle subordinates easily and justly, and to meet equals and superiors tactfully and upon the broad platform of many human as well as professional interests.

A student will not have secured seriousness and breadth, however, if, on graduation, be believes that his professional training is to be used wholly to satisfy his personal-and very proper-ambition for power and wealth. He must also have been made to realize that, being an extraordinary debtor to society, he owes an immense debt of future service to the community; he should also have learned that the main business of an educated man is to grow into wide usefulness by practising the "gregarious" virtues, by placing his abilities as far as possible at the service of his neighborhood and state, by increasing the five talents of his collegiate training into the many times ten talents of personal and social efficiency. To this end his technical and his non-technical teaching should have emphasized those subtle, unselfish moral qualities which lie at the foundation of professional ethics, engineering honor, and true devotion to the good of the state.

Whatever may be the sequence of studies, the ramification of "electives," or the emphasis upon this topic or upon that, the student should never be allowed to become so confused by these details as to lose sight of what he goes to a school of applied science for. In the student's own mind he goes primarily to obtain certain information, some technical skill and a measure of scientific jargon which will enable him to secure and to hold a remunerative professional position. If this mental attitude is not rectified, or is encouraged by placing too much emphasis upon technical information, "knacks," formulae and phrases, the youth will devote himself zealously, even enthusiastically, but none the less fatally, to things which, without the higher aims, are but the chaff of educa

tion. The strongest evidence of a freshman's need of training is that he does not know how to appraise those tasks which he must or may do, that he does not understand what the world is going to demand of him as the price of real professional success.

To educate him, therefore, in the right meaning of education, the school of applied science must not content itself with giving him that technical information which, to his untrained mind, is all that he requires; it must hold before him and must teach him to understand the value and importance of those higher standards by which his work as a man and as an engineer will be judged by his future employers, by his coming associates and by the world at large. He cannot foresee, therefore he must deliberately be made to appreciate, that behind and underneath his technical information and scientific skill he should possess at least three other things: seriousness of view, breadth of mind and a sense of civic responsibility. With the first he will learn how to measure and control his own life; with the second he will learn how to estimate the lives of others; with the third he will learn how to place himself and all he does into right perspective with the whole order of society; and with all three together he will be ready to meet and conquer practically every one of those problems-moral, social or technical, with which his life is certain to be filled.

To keep these large purposes and true aims of education before themselves and their students is extremely difficult for the teaching staff, engrossed as they must necessarily be in the thousand details of teaching and discipline, and hounded as they are from without and within to equip their students (like automobiles) with every latest device for technical speed

and efficiency. That the faculties of most schools of technology have been able to preserve the wider view is cause for wonder and congratulation. With the greater specialization and haste of modern life, however, they will find this to be increasingly difficult unless they receive organized and unflagging help from those who stand far enough from the details of teaching to see that teaching in proper perspective and to measure its real results. The two bodies near enough to the school of applied science to understand its internal methods and aims and yet far enough away from it to gauge its final influence upon young men and its ultimate effect upon the industrial and social structure, are, of course, the trustees and the alumni. In every way possible they should identify themselves with their college and its undergraduates, and, while refraining from interference with the details of courses or of teaching, should keep clearly before the students those real aims and ends of all higher education which their experience of life should have made them plainly see. Just how they are to do this is not within the present scope even to suggest; moreover no two colleges of science would approach the problem in similar ways. But that these high standards must be held before the undergraduates of all such colleges and that the trustees and alumni must give conspicuous help in doing so are, I think, self-evident truths in higher education.

BLANK FORMS FOR USE IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING INSTRUCTION.

BY HENRY H. NORRIS,

Professor of Electrical Engineering, Cornell University.

The purpose of this paper is to set forth the facts regarding the use of mechanical means such as blank forms in connection with courses in electrical engineering. The state of affairs is practically the same in connection with other branches of engineering, but attention will be largely confined to this one branch in order to make the results more concrete. That the subject is worthy of study is evident from the fact that there is a great variety of opinion as to the wisdom of using such forms and the forms thus actually in use are of many different types. In presenting this topic to the society the writer has in mind the possibility of such an interchange of opinion and experience in connection with the discussion that the way may possibly be opened for preparing sets of standard blank forms which can be used in classes taught by our members. These forms are expensive to produce, especially in small quantities, and they require a great deal of care and thought to arrange in the most orderly and logical manner. Hence, if the use of blank forms is desirable and if some of these forms could be made standard, it would be entirely practicable for the society to undertake such work if it were thought wise.

In studying this subject two facts are clearly brought out. First, that any kind of instruction is primarily for the purpose of developing the ability