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progress of technical education that has taken place within the last thirty years in Germany." "They have all along recognized the bearing of science upon industry." "Germany has ten technical universities, viz., at Aachen, Hanover, Berlin, Danzig, Dresden, Brunswick, Munich, Karlsruhe, Darmstadt, and Stuttgart." "The number of students at all these ten universities now exceeds 17,000." "The aim of the German technical universities is to afford a higher training for the technical calling, and to cultivate those arts and sciences which belong to the field of technical instruction."

"The fees for lectures and laboratory work will not exceed £15 to £17 10s."

"The Minister of Education in Prussia has introduced a plan for selecting men as professors who have distinguished themselves as practical engineers, and who combine a solid foundation of the knowledge of the theory of their work with sufficient practical experience."

Mr. Vanderlip in Scribner's Magazine, Vol. 37, 1905, says, "The theory of education in Germany has been that it should be the work of the government schools to turn out the most efficient economic units, while the task of the captains of industry was to organize these units into the most effective economic corps possible." "Germany is a land of small salaries, and we are supposed to be ready to pay more than any country for the desirable services of any man. I was surprised, therefore, to learn that we could not attract some of the great professors of industrial chemistry to our own institutions, because we could not pay salaries that would approach the salaries which they received in Germany." "A pro

fessor of industrial chemistry in one of the great technical schools will not only be regarded as a leader in scientific circles, but he will occupy an intimate and most remunerative relation towards industrial enterprises. I was told that the professor of industrial chemistry in the technical high school of Charlottenburg received a salary of $25,000 a year." "The higher remuneration in Germany is possible because of the intimate relation which has been built up between the schools and the great industries. The problems which came before the managers of these industries are laid before the technical schools, and the schools are well paid for solutions of these problems. Then, in turn, industry flourishes because of the superior methods which these technical experts invent."

In studying the German system we can note with most advantage the close relation between the schools, the industries and the profession, the professor being a specialist able to direct design and research in accordance with the best in practice.

Waddell's well-known address on Higher Education for Civil Engineers, published in his Professional Papers, contains some valuable suggestions. He thinks that the time is not far distant when the firstclass course in civil engineering will occupy five years.

For the post-graduate course he would have a comparatively small corps of permanent professors and have most of the instruction given by practicing engineers who were the best known and most competent in the profession. Original investigation by both the professors and the students should be provided for and encouraged in every way and the results pub

lished by the institution. These investigations should tend to improve engineering practice or lead to valuable discoveries in technical science. A large and complete testing laboratory should be in use as part of the curriculum, while designing should be the method of instruction as far as practicable. He would have the graduate school separate from the undergraduate.

In conclusion it may be said that the present demand is for men better trained in the undergraduate or four-year course, men with broader general education and high ideals who are well grounded in mathematics, economics and the sciences as applied to engineering. Technical skill is also demanded, but capacity for development is the essential requisite.

The experience of Col. Prout as expressed in an address at the reunion of the Cornell civil engineers last year is significant. He says that "it is my constant observation of four engineering works, employing about 20,000 men, that the engineers reach the limit of their usefulness from defects of character, rather than from want of technical attainments. Our greatest difficulty is to find courage, candor, imagination, large vision and high ambition. I do not know which of these qualities is most often lacking, or which is most essential. The lack of courage and candor comes most often to my notice, but the lack of imagination and of broad outlook produces the most serious disasters."

In meeting this demand for undergraduate work many of our schools have secured an instructing force and an equipment suitable for investigation and graduate work. The number of students, graduate and undergraduate, doing advanced work is relatively

small, but it is on the increase. The number engaged in research work in the universities with which many of the schools are connected is also on the increase. At three of the leading German engineering schools, 29 per cent. of all the civil engineering students attending the summer session last year were taking advanced work and 32 per cent. of those in mechanical and electrical engineering.

This leads to the belief that the demand must steadily increase here.

The method of instruction by design and research under the direction of specialists who are consulting engineers of high standing in practice, as advocated by Waddell, is difficult of execution even when the consulting engineer is relieved of most of the detailed work of instruction by a resident assistant. The successful consulting engineer who is at the same time a good teacher and who is willing to scatter his forces between the two is rare.

The writer believes that the engineering professor should be first of all a teacher. He should also be an engineer. Many of our most successful teachers even for advanced work are familiar with the needs of practice and the border line of engineering knowledge through engineering literature, contact with engineers and research work at the school, rather than from actual practice in recent years. Many of our successful teachers are however consulting engineers.

THE TRAINING OF A CHEMICAL ENGINEER.

BY HENRY P. TALBOT,

Professor of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Chemical engineering is probably the latest, and seemingly the least well-defined of the various phases of the engineering profession. The civil, the mechanical, the mining, the electrical, and the sanitary engineer, each occupies a recognized position, and the scope of his profession is quite definitely delimited in the public mind. But the query is not uncommonly propounded, "Just what is a chemical engineer?" and the answer is not easily put in a concise form.

The chemical engineer may be defined as a person with a thorough, fundamental knowledge of chemistry, theoretical and applied, who also possesses such a knowledge of engineering theory and practice as to be able to transform the reaction of the notebook and the laboratory into a commercial plant, capable of operation on a technical scale and at a financial profit. His profession, as distinct from that of the chemist on the one hand, or the engineer on the other, is in part an outgrowth of the largely increased investment of capital in plants of great size and productive capacity, which has created a demand for men to fill the various positions involving superintendence and responsibility who have such an insight into the domain of both engineer and chemist that they can give general direction to the work and understand what may be properly required of each, and can render the results obtained in the laboratory effective

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