I became thoroughly convinced that the method of instruction by lectures should be abandoned as soon as it was possible to secure a passable text-book or to prepare the lectures in mimeographic form.

There is one possible advantage in connection with lecture notes taken by the student, however, which is that the instructor who reads them over will obtain from them a great amount of very surprising information regarding the subject he has been treating.

PROFESSOR NORRIS: The lecture is a necessary evil in a great many cases, and keeping in mind the principle that the student must be forced to work to get hold of a subject, the only excuse for the lecture is when it consists in giving instruction for performing some mental or mechanical processes.

PROFESSOR JACOBY: In connection with this paper, the speaker wishes to call the attention of the society to the advantages of having students deliver short lectures. This method has been adopted for a part of the course in Masonry and Foundations in the College of Civil Engineering of Cornell University. The best work on that course consists of files of engineering periodicals. The amount of space covered by such articles is very large. They are well illustrated as a rule and it seems desirable that students should become acquainted with these sources of information and by having the instructor classify and arrange the references beforehand, the students may be afforded sufficient time to study the references given to him, and to prepare illustrations on sheets of manila paper. With the aid of such illustrations, he can conveniently give the results of his study to the class. Experience shows that very excellent results can thus be secured.

There are so many good details published for most foundation structures that one student can be given one part of the structure for consideration and another a different part so that on a given day they can present a thorough discussion of the various details, while the instructor calls attention to the principles which are involved in the constructions illustrated. It is of service also to most students by helping them to give proper expression to their ideas, such power being recognized as of much value to every engineer.

It is important to emphasize the point that the course must be thoroughly worked out beforehand by the professor, arranging the topics very carefully and recording them upon cards, so that they may be conveniently assigned to the students.

PROFESSOR C. F. ALLEN: I have found that students who are given a chance to lecture to the class as Professor Jacoby suggests, often lecture as well as the instructor, and in this I have no intention of reflecting on the quality of the instructor's work, but rather to properly commend the work of the students.

PROFESSOR JACOBY: It is really interesting to see what splendid work can be done by some men, their reports being clear, systematic, and well arranged. In such cases the students usually applaud them heartily when they finish their reports.

PROFESSOR J. P. JACKSON: Professor Jacoby's remarks agree with the spirit of my paper and the other speakers, with the exception of Professor Merriman, are in fair accord with it. I have such a high regard for Professor Merriman's text-books, which I consider unusually good, and which, as he well knows, are absolutely incomparable with notes taken by students, that I think he must have intended to be humorous.

WHY NOT TEACH ABOUT MEN, THE MOST IMPORTANT AND DIFFICULT TOOLS

AN ENGINEER USES?

BY JOHN F. HAYFORD,

Inspector of Geodetic Work and Chief of Computing Division,
Coast and Geodetic Survey.

It is acknowledged at the outset that engineering courses are already crowded.

The proposed course, indicated in the question "Why not teach about men?" should be put into the curriculum of each college of engineering because the success of the engineer and therefore his usefulness to the community depends largely upon his knowledge of men; because the subject matter of the course cannot be secured quickly or easily by mere experience; because there are teachable fundamental principles to be followed in using men; and because of the high cultural value of such a course.

To say the success of an engineer depends largely upon his knowledge of men is no disparagement of his engineering knowledge. Engineering knowledge, that is, knowledge of the forces of nature and of the strength and properties of materials, is of course absolutely essential to the success of the engineer. It is his especial business to acquire and use this particular kind of knowledge. But he acquires and uses his engineering knowledge largely through other men. Therefore, the soundness of his engineering knowledge and the effectiveness with which he uses it depends largely upon his knowledge of men.

To have engineering knowledge does not in itself

make an engineer successful or useful in the world. He must also have and use the power to pass that knowledge on to other men's minds. This convincing power on the part of a given man depends largely upon his understanding of the man to be convinced.

The engineer cannot escape dealing with men, as well as with materials and forces. You teach the student of engineering how to test materials, about the properties of materials, and the most effective way to use materials. Is it sensible, is it fair to the student of engineering, never to say a word to him about the best methods of determining a man's strength by watching his behavior under the many tests to which he is continually being subjected, never to say a word about the peculiar characteristics of various types of men, and never to call his attention to the relation of these peculiar characteristics to the most effective way of utilizing the services of these men?

But you may say, and with truth, that the strength of a man available to hold him in place and at his peculiar work under the petty and oft-repeated stresses of every day, and under the great stresses of extraordinary occasions, is a rather indefinite thing as compared with the strength of a piece of steel. The characteristics of each class of material are comparatively definite, and easily ascertained, as compared with the peculiar characteristics of different men. In short, you may say, man is so complex an organism, so difficult to understand, and the relations of his peculiarities to his efficiency are so indefinite that it is not important to teach our students about men. Each man must learn for himself, by experience, to understand other men. Each must depend largely upon intuition in this matter.

This is an easy, obvious conclusion. It is the usual conclusion, at which many men stop their thinking on the subject. Nevertheless, it is an incorrect conclusion, based upon a small part only of the available facts-not on all of them.

For example, it is also true that the output of different men, even in such work as routine computing by fixed methods, varies in the tenths, not simply in the hundredths; that in positions in which the use of judgment in regard to forces and materials is necessary, the variation in the output of different men varies still more; and that, in positions where judgment in regard to men must be exercised, of two men who are at first sight equals, the real output of one will frequently be twice or even ten times as great as the other. In fact the cases are not extremely rare in which the output of a man in an administrative position is less than zero, in which he is a positive damage to the organization of which he is a part. Because men are so extremely variable, even an approximate estimate of the capabilities of a given man is valuable, and it is important that the principles avail. able for making even this approximate estimate should be recognized, studied, and taught to the student of engineering.

From the mere fact that it is extremely important that the engineer should understand men, it does not necessarily follow that the student of engineering should be taught about men.

If the subject matter of the proposed course can be quickly and easily gained by experience, the course should not be put into the curriculum.

There are many young engineers who are handicapped from the very start because of their ignorance