Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/451

Rh If the engineering student is to acquire that general cultural training the lack of which is often made a reproach to him, and if the technical school is to find its full development in the university and not as a separate institution, then the university must make provision for this much needed instruction, unless it can be provided for all students elsewhere. It will and should lead to the giving of courses differing in character and differing in method of presentation from those now offered to the specialist, but they may be none the less both useful and inspiring.

It is necessary for the specialist to know the methods of study of his specialty; it is necessary for the general student to know the results of such study. Therefore, to be both useful and inspiring, such courses must be given by men who are past masters in their line of work.

This will be held by many to be a plea in favor of superficiality, and if getting a general view of another line of work is superficiality, why it is a superficiality of which many specialists might well be guilty. The objectors to this kind of general knowledge lose sight of the fact that no one who is thoroughly grounded in his own line of work is likely to be damaged intellectually by such general information. Conscious of the limitations of his knowledge in his own field after years of study, he is not likely to assume that he has mastered another field as the result of a general lecture course in that subject. The chances are, however, that the effect will be to broaden his views, to enlarge his sympathetic understanding of the work of the specialist and to create an atmosphere of mutual respect and consideration for one another's line of work. In order to give such courses there must be an increase in the teaching force in the various lines of work in our universities. Certainly the work of the specialist, upon which progress in any given field depends, must not be stinted for the sake of the seeker after general knowledge. 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. Surely he can not be held to be truly educated who is ignorant of the conditions which surround him, of the methods by which his daily intellectual and physical needs are met. This training is not for the purpose of making more half-baked experts, prepared to pass snap judgments on matters beyond their ken, but for the purpose of teaching them the importance of solving the problems of manufacture, distribution and transportation correctly. These problems