Technical school

“ The data furnished by graduates as to their earnings during successive years after leaving school supply still more convincing evidence to the effect that the technical school graduate seldom remains in manual work more than two or three years. The complete course gives them an equipment of practical and theoretical knowledge that speedily takes them out of the handwork class. The technical high schools are primarily training schools for future civil, electrical, and mechanical engineers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For young men destined for the technical trades and professions, there are open, after they have passed the maturity examination at the secondary school, two special institutions, where they complete their technical training—the Technical High School of Stockholm, and the Chalmers Technical Institute at Gothenburg, besides elementary technical schools at other places. ”

“ It must be said also that the training-school for domestic servants must be a failure as long as it is out of harmony with the tendencies in all other fields of education and industry. Technical schools are everywhere springing up, and the demand for them is constantly increasing. But the technical school teaches general and fundamental principles, the wood carver learns drawing, the plumber chemistry, the architect mathematics, and the engineer mechanics. In each trade or profession the first step is the principle underlying it, and the second the practical application of the principle. ”

“ On leaving the secondary school, the American Higher technical training in United States. student may go at once into business: or he may proceed with a four years' course of general instruction; or he may enter a professional or technical school. Some students prolong their education by taking the general course before proceeding to the technical institution. As in the lower, so in the higher grades of instruction, the distinction between general and technical education is not very clearly defined. ”

“ It is that the University School should itself be a centre of inspiration for the engineering profession; that it should be a place where original experimental work is always being carried on, where inventions are tried out, and where engineering firms may come for help in carrying out tests and experiments to advance technical knowledge, and particularly to assist in the solution of engineering problems of special importance to the State.
All the large modern engineering and manufacturing corporations have realized the value of scientific research. ”

“ This type of technical high school has since developed rapidly in this country, has rendered an important educational service, and is a peculiarly American creation. In Europe the manual-training idea has been confined to the elementary school, and no institution exists there which parallels these costly and well-equipped American technical secondary schools. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ During the nineteenth century new institutions for the cultivation of science in application to practical and technological purposes have developed from technical schools of a more elementary character. While known Technische Hochschulen. as ‘technical high schools’ (Technische Hochschulen) , they are institutions of higher learning, and exist side by side with the universities. They include schools of 381 engineering, mining, forestry, agriculture, veterinary medicine, and commerce. ”

“ Approximately one-third of students continuing in secondary education attend the polytechnic school. The stated purpose of this kind of school is "to provide pupils with wider scientific education and more intensive polytechnical training, through practical production experience closely linked with general education and technical subjects, and to prepare them for active working and intellectual life or for their continued studies at higher levels. ”

“ We do not class technical training with so-called manual training or handwork of the elementary schools. In our present study however, we shall find that while in the main we are dealing with the technical training of boys from fourteen to eighteen years of age,—comparable in a measure to our high or secondary school courses, we shall also include the industrial, vocational, or trade training of men and boys alike, as well as work in the more simplified forms of handicraft, as carried on in the lower or elementary school. ”

“ In the third place, every modern nation requires a trained body of scientific workers for the after carrying on of her industrial and technical arts. Hence we need a type of school which by making the physical sciences their chief object of study prepare the way for the future training of the student in the application of scientific knowledge to the furtherance of the industrial and technical arts. ”

“ There is, moreover, a domain in which special technical training is proper. It is the domain of the industrial school, for giving a certain theoretical knowledge of persons who will be engaged for life in the mechanic arts. ”

“ Schools in which this training is provided are known as technical schools. In its widest sense, technical education General theory.embraces all kinds of instruction that have direct reference to the career a person is following or preparing to follow; but it is usual and convenient to restrict the term to the special training which helps to qualify a person to engage in some branch of productive industry, and the instruction so provided is generally known as “technological instruction.” ”

“ There will be ample time to practice manual skill and to develop the mechanical arts. Large, splendidly equipped polytechnical schools will make it easy for both young and old to learn an occupation. Chemical and physical laboratories, in keeping with the standards of these sciences, will be erected, and capable teachers will be on hand. ”

“ As formal teaching and training grow in extent, there is the danger of creating an undesirable split between the experience gained in more direct associations and what is acquired in school. This danger was never greater than at the present time, on account of the rapid growth in the last few centuries of knowledge and technical modes of skill. ”

“ It will be seen, therefore, that in nearly all European countries, instruction in engineering in all its branches and in chemical technology has become a recognized part of a university course, and that the faculty of applied science has been so enlarged as to provide technical education of the highest grade.
Some of the best schools for the higher technical instruction—for the training of masters and of those who are to occupy the position of managers in engineering; and industrial works — are found in the United States. ”

“ In the race of nations, therefore, we shall find it hard to overtake the sixty years that we have lost. To-morrow, then let us undertake with all our energy our neglected task; the urgency is twofold—a small proportion of our youth has received elementary education, but no technical education: for that portion let us at once [Pg 220] organize technical schools in every small town, technical colleges in every large town and a technical university in the metropolis. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The resulting year and a fraction gained for further study would be expended in part upon pure science and mathematics, but largely upon history, economics and literature. The objections to such a curriculum are mostly in the nature of practical difficulties in its inception. The competition for students between technical schools is sufficient to forbid any except the largest and financially most secure from announcing to prospective students five years to accomplish a degree for which the purely technical requirements represent but four years' work. ”

“ With the exception of mining, the courses of training in these sections are very much the same, and consist of a technical course in a college or a university, followed by a practical training as a pupil in a works. The prior technical education is now being insisted upon by most of the large engineering firms, and, in many of the best works, special courses of instruction are given to apprentices as part of their training by the most experienced engineers of the company. ”

“ The professional or trade teaching, which is supplementary to primary or secondary education, is more practical and less easily distinguishable by the ordinary observer from the training of the factory or workshop. This tendency is shown in all grades of technical education. The technical institutes established in London and in the large English manufacturing towns, attended mainly by evening students, are provided not only with expensive laboratory apparatus for the teaching of applied science, but also with tools and machines for the teaching of technology ”

“ The technical college will, moreover, be compelled to employ instructors who can so teach the technical subject that it shall not only give the knowledge and training desired, but shall also yield sound culture, become truly liberalizing and vision-giving. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The truth is that methods of construction, details of practice, mechanical appliances, prices of materials and labor, change so rapidly that it is useless to teach many such matters. However important such items are to the practicing engineer, they are of little or no use to the student; for later, when he does have need of them, methods, machines, and prices have changed so much that the information he acquired in college will probably be worse than useless. Technical details are learned of necessity in practice, and more easily then than in college ”

“ The commercial and executive side of the work cannot be taught; it must be absorbed by actual participation in the industry. Nor is it impossible to rise to great eminence in the profession without university training, as witness some of our greatest engineers. The university can do much; it can give a broad basis of knowledge and mental training, and can inculcate moral feeling, which entitles men to lead their fellows. It can teach the technical fundamentals of the multifold sciences which the engineer should know and must apply. ”