Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/449

Rh it is of the highest importance that every man realize that the noble duties of citizenship devolve upon him, that he has responsibilities other than those of merely providing the daily bread for himself and his. We have a community of interests only as long as we have common points of contact; we have the latter only as we have a broad common subsidiary training.

Admitting that the high school course of the embryo engineer should be rounded out with additional work in language, science, history and economics, the question arises where shall this knowledge be acquired?

For the training of our engineers we have, broadly speaking, two types of schools in this country—technical schools pure and simple, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and others, and engineering departments either in our colleges of engineering and mechanic arts, or in our universities. I group the last two named, because in both of them some of the general culture studies mentioned as necessary for the broadening of the engineer's training are presented merely from the standpoint of the specialist.

In the schools of the first type there is a recognition of the fact that the general culture courses must be adapted to the needs of the technical student. There is a frank acknowledgment that these broadening studies may be made to serve a useful purpose, even when they are not an end to themselves, and that this does not detract from their value. 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. This, too, is the view at which the German Society of Engineers has arrived. As in this country, there has been a very large increase in the number of students in the technical courses in Germany. So large has this increase been that for a time at least foreign students in mechanical engineering were barred at Berlin. Existing institutions are still so crowded that the establishment of new technical schools is contemplated. The suggestion was made, that in those places where universities existed and technical schools were needed, the latter might well be incorporated in the university. At a meeting held in Munich in September, 1904, which was attended by representative teachers from the technical schools, the universities, the preparatory schools and by engineers of standing in practise, the following resolution was submitted: "It is not desirable in place of establishing new technical high schools, to add technical