Engineering school

“ It became a tradition in Engineering that the only school worth anything was the school of practical experience. Even long after the sciences of Mechanics and Hydraulics had become well established courses at Universities, such studies were neglected by engineers whose hard practical training tended to give them little sympathy with the abstruse and often impractical and unreal problems commonly discussed by the mathematicians. ”

“ The student’s time in the fourth year, is divided between strictly technical work in college and an attempt to co-ordinate with this the cooperative industrial work in industry. In this manner, the practical side of his profession is emphasized. The technical work in school consists of applying the principles developed in the previous year to definite engineering problems. This is done by a study of power plants, turbines, internal combustion engines, heating and ventilation and structural design. ”

“ The Queensland University began with Schools in Arts, Science, and Engineering, and none in Medicine nor Law. So did the University of Western Australia. Even the Institution of Civil Engineers, a body of practical professional men, for long holding very conservative views with regard to methods of training of Engineers, has for some years recommended a minimum course of three years at the Engineering School of a University, the recommendation being unanimously adopted by the committee appointed to report upon the subject. ”

“ The engineering laboratories are used by students of all the engineering departments, that is to say, by a large majority of the students in the school. The benefit derived by this actual contact with materials and with machines of commercial size, under proper instruction, is believed to be very great.
The department of mechanical engineering, one of the original departments, is now the largest in the school, having a force of instruction of five professors and twelve instructors and assistants. ”

“ And so it has come about that although Engineering Schools at Universities are still for the most part less than fifty years old, they are now associated with almost all Universities. In many the Engineering School is, numerically at any rate r the strongest school of all. ”

“ In all of these instances the cost of the operation is a first consideration,, and it is obvious that it is only by actual experience in the handling of large numbers of men and big quantities of materials that any man can become competent. Clearly this kind of experience is not to be got at a University. University lectures may -assist by setting out certain general guiding principles, but proficiency in such work is only to be obtained by actually doing it. If this were all that a University could do it would not be worth while to have an Engineering School at all. ”

“ This education is found, either in Ecole Centrale, mainly providing private enterprise with engineers, and Polytechnique, mainly providing the State with engineers. Specialist engineers, in construction, chemistry, electronics, electricity etc. are produced by a few dozens prestigious engineering or commercial schools which admit the students who have completed 2 or 3 years of preparatory school and successfully competed for the more popular schools. The special schools Taine talks about are the precursors of a great many of the schools available in France today. ”

“ It undoubtedly is better for the High School boy to go to a technical school for his course in civil engineering; yet with a foundation of mathematics and a sufficient amount of determination, the High School boy may go direct to the engineer's office and pick up his profession. ”

“ This is one reason why consolidation of the technical school with the university, if the tendency toward specialization in the latter continues, can not bring about economy in instruction. Justification for such consolidation must be sought elsewhere, as shown above. Not only engineering students, but all students pursuing special studies in a university need general courses, and though it may not be possible for us to become a nation of engineers, it is eminently desirable that all educated persons should have at least some general knowledge of engineering. ”

“ The engineer must, therefore, learn, as soon and as thoroughly as possible, enough of the details of every art and trade, subsidiary to his own department of engineering, to enable him to direct, with intelligence and confidence, every operation that contributes to the success of his work. The school of engineering should therefore be so organized that the young engineer may be taught the elements of every trade which is likely to find important application in his professional work. ”

“ The profession itself, almost, will take care of him afterward.
However, not all of our engineers have gone upward by the overalls route. Nor is13 it at all necessary to do this in order to attain to success. The high-school graduate, entering a college of engineering, has an equal chance. Some maintain that he has a better chance. Certain it is that he is better qualified to cope with the heavier theoretical problems which come up every day in the average engineer's work. There is a place for him, side by side with the practical man, and his knowledge will be everywhere respected and sought. ”

“ If it be a concern manufacturing steam-turbines, say, the young engineer in time becomes expert and a specialist in steam-turbines. So, too, with graduates in mining engineering, in electrical engineering, in civil engineering, although the opportunities for specialization in any of these latter branches are not so good as in the mechanical field. However, entering upon a certain kind of work, the student usually follows this work to the end of his days, which is probably what engineering schools expect. All strive to educate only in the principles of each of the major branches. ”

“ Since then Engineering Schools have been established at one University after another, until to-day even Cambridge has its Engineering laboratories and a Mechanical Science Tripos, and Oxford its Department of Engineering Science. ”

“ The University of Cambridge has a school of engineering with well-equipped laboratories for the teaching of pure and applied sciences. The universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow recognized at an early date, as part of a university course, the teaching of science in its application to engineering; and at University College, Dundee, there is a good school for the teaching of the technology of spinning and weaving, more particularly with reference to the manufacture of jute and linen. ”

“ In England there is a growing tendency to associate technical with secondary education. The central technical college of the City Higher technical instruction in Britain. and Guilds of London Institute, was an institution established exclusively for the purpose of providing the highest grade of engineering education. In this respect it compared more nearly than any other institution with the technical high schools of Germany. The Royal School of Mines, connected with the Royal College of Science, was a similar institution, providing the highest teaching for mining engineers. ”

“ The young engineer must proceed slowly in everything he undertakes; when brought to a halt through difficulties he should instantly appeal to one or another of his associates or superiors; he must be absolutely frank in all his dealings with these associates and superiors. In this regard, also, it might be said that the young graduate, following a habit become almost second nature with him in his school-days, must keep a note-book covering his activities throughout each working-day, a book wherein he will jot down everything of value to him which comes up in the day's work. ”

“ The chief distinction consists in the arrangement of courses of instruction in the several departments, in the admission of students having a non-classical preliminary training, and in the absence of certain faculties found in the university and the addition of others. It is not correct to say that the technical high school is a professional school as distinguished from the university; for the faculties of law, medicine and theology give to the university as distinctly a professional character as the faculty of engineering gives to the technical high school. ”

“ At the same time, however, the technicums provide general education that corresponds to some extent with the program of the polytechnic school.
These schools, more than the polytechnic schools, are directly related to trends in the economy. Technicums are designed to produce supervisors and skilled workers who will satisfy the needs of the economy. The course of study varies from three to four years. Although some general subjects are taught, emphasis is on the acquisition of specialized knowledge in such fields as agriculture and engineering. ”

“ We may state at the outset that no University or Technical School in the world can furnish the complete training for an engineer. The scientific laboratories of a University cannot possibly give the same kind of experience as that obtained in practical workshops or on the construction of large works. It is not sufficient for a man to know how to test cement and gravel in order that he may determine in what proportions to mix them so as to obtain thedensest possible concrete ”

“ As one recalls how slender were the opportunities in those days for training in engineering studies and observes the large number of excellent engineering schools in our country, one may say that in no branch of education has there been more rapid and helpful development than in that of engineering in all its applications.
The Grand Trunk road from Montreal to Boston was opened while I was in the office. ”

“ When we come to the construction of a curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in business, economics, or commerce, we have the problems of the engineering schools. Just how far will specialization be carried, in what sequence will the foundational subjects and the specialties be taken up, and to what extent will other more general subjects not directly contributing to a technical end be admitted? In most institutions of good standards the degree is regarded as representing not only technical proficiency in business but also some acquaintance with science, politics, and letters in general. ”

“ What corresponds in American universities to the faculty of applied science is conducted by the “Ecole Polytechnique” which was founded in 1874. A department of architecture was added in 1908. This school has been annexed to the faculty of arts since 1887. It has been generously subsidized by the provincial government and the principal railway companies. It prepares students for the several branches of civil and industrial engineering, such as public roads, railways, mechanical and mining engineering, bridge-building and metal construction. ”

“ This making of a choice is a momentous thing in a prospective engineer's life. It should be approached with all caution, and with due regard for the nature of the life he would lead after graduating from school. If he have a penchant for outdoor life, then the32 choice, in a way, is easy. He should select mining or civil engineering as his particular vocation. If he be of those who prefer to remain more or less indoors in the practice of his profession, mechanical or electrical engineering should be his choice. ”

“ The development in England came a little later. Good engineering schools have since been developed in connection with the new municipal universities, while good engineering colleges have also been created at Oxford and Cambridge, as well as at the Scottish and Irish universities.
THE NEW IMPULSES TO DEVELOPMENT. During the first six decades of the nineteenth century, France, the German States, and the United States were slowly moving toward the creation of special schools for technical education. After about 1860 the movement increased with great rapidity. ”

“ The fact is recognized by teachers of these subjects in purely technical schools, that because the student is to be a specialist in some line of engineering, he can not at the same time be a specialist in ancient and modern languages, in history, economics and the pure sciences. From the engineer's standpoint, as regards the acquirement of this supplementary general training, there is much to be said in favor of the autonomy of technical schools. ”

“ The only collegiate training one of the most distinguished American engineers of the last generation had was a general literary course followed by a law course. Further, [Pg 510] a considerable number have successfully practiced engineering, after only a general college education, and this in recent years when engineering curricula have become widely differentiated. Examples in other lines of business could be cited to show that a knowledge of technical details is not the most important element in a preparation for a profession or for business. ”

“ The innumerable applications of scientific discovery to practical engineering, and especially the rapid growth of Electrical Engineering, have made it absolutely necessary that a modern engineer worthy of the name should have some knowledge of science. The older method of training for the young engineer was that he should be articled to an engineer in practice, and, apart from the training he received in office and works, he got no scientific training unless he were enthusiastic enough to attend evening classes in some technical institution. ”

“ Systematic instruction in the departments of mechanical engineering, such as is now obtainable by almost any young man determined to secure it, not only has much to do with our progress at the moment, but it is this phase of education, in our state colleges particularly, which is settling the tendency of the flow of the rising tide for the immediate future, and probably for all coming time. ”