The courses in Hydraulics and Sanitary Engineering are given during term-time, with the assistance of a hydraulic laboratory and of many good examples of city practice in the neighborhood. The hydraulic laboratory is intended to afford practice in water measurement for the undergraduate, and to allow graduate students to carry on special work in connection with orifices, nozzles, weirs, water-pipes, and turbines. The tanks and pumps are located in the Old Gymnasium, which has been fitted up as an Engineering Laboratory. The machines, five in number, for testing materials of all kinds, have been in use during the past year, and students are required to do a certain amount of experimenting in connection with their text-books and lectures. Instruction in bridge building and masonry construction is given during the Senior year. An important addition to the outfit of the School is a set of machines for testing road materials. This machinery is used in connection with the Massachusetts Road Commission.

The courses in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering are likewise well provided for, being carried out on lines similar to those for Civil Engineering. The workshop methods are given at the Rindge Manual Training School, and the experimental courses in connection with the steam-engine and mechanical engineering, in the Old Gymnasium. The electrical machinery is located in an addition to the Scientific School building, where the practical instruction is given.

The course in Mining Engineering is not yet fully provided for, as it was instituted only one year ago.

In changing the courses to suit modern requirements, it has seemed inadvisable to specialize too much. Few students know beforehand what positions will be open to them after graduation. It often happens that young men who have taken degrees in one branch find their best openings in another direction. At the present time many are rushing into Electrical Engineering, because there appear to be unlimited possibilities in the future of electricity; yet in four years the state of the market may be such that they will find nothing to do, particularly if their education has been too special.

Another reason for keeping the work to the main principles at the base of applied science is the short time at the disposal of most students. Law, medicine, and the ministry invariably give

more time; and men going into those professions are content to devote four years to academic education of a general nature, and from three to four additional years entirely to professional work. It may be said that a large part of the professional training of an engineer is obtained after leaving school; but the fact remains that a period of four years is too short a time to obtain an education and a profession. Students enter the technical schools with enough mathematics and language to begin the process of cramming, which permits very little time for academic studies, such as most of them need. They are often deficient in their own language, and many of them graduate without being able to write English correctly, or even to express themselves clearly on professional subjects. So far as contact with the literary department of a large university is concerned, there is a strong tendency to correct the above deficiency, even though the men do not take many courses in language. The mere fact of living four years at an impressionable age with men who take the literary courses exclusively is a wholesome stimulus. The interests outside of their technical work must have a broadening effect.

Another important consideration which enters into the framing of a course for engineers is the treatment of Mathematics and Physics. Engineering in the abstract is a branch of both sciences; but the principal question that meets one in carrying out any problem in construction is the economic question. One of the main elements of success is a thorough knowledge of materials, and their combinations into the most economical forms. The formulæ to be applied in determining the strength of our modern structures and machines may be worked out by the mathematician, but there is always a factor or coefficient determined by experiThis experience must begin in the schools, in order that men may appreciate as early as possible the value of gaining knowledge after graduation in such a form that it can be used. The great danger to the engineer, therefore, in the exclusive study of mathematics, lies in the tendency to work out everything from the ideal standpoint, and to neglect the more important practical coefficient.

ence.

The same may be said of Physics. The study of physical science is of the greatest value, yet there is constant temptation to follow methods too refined for the workshop. The occupation

of the physicist is mainly with extremely accurate methods of studying the laws of nature, while that of the engineer lies with very fair approximation to the results worked out in the laboratory. For this reason the engineering student is often the terror of the physicist. Usually he has little time to spend over small experiments. Occasionally our schools develop a man whose talent and capacity for work will enable him to study and to retain the higher branches of Mathematics and Physics, and at the same time to grasp their practical application to the needs of modern life.

While the courses, as planned in the Lawrence Scientific School, require four years, the work is very much crowded, and only a man well prepared at entrance can hope to get through them in a satisfactory manner. This must, from the necessities of the case, be true of any school that takes men from the high schools and gives them an education in Engineering in four years, unless the standard of admission be raised materially or the requirements for the profession be lowered. The latter alternative should not be considered, and the former would be impracticable, with the present equipment of the fitting schools. The first two years must be largely preparatory and educational, and the last mainly professional. It is the first half of the course that becomes so troublesome to frame, because the studies must be a combination of academic and technical subjects. Some of the important educational features have to be left out entirely. A great benefit, both to the men and to the profession at large, would follow the adoption of a five-years' course. This could be worked out on several lines, two of which seem to require no break in the present system and very little change in the secondary schools. The first, and possibly that which offers exceptional advantages to the student, would be to substitute three years in the College for the first two years, as now given, to be followed by two years of entirely professional work in the Scientific School organized as a professional school. The course in College should be general in its nature, with a strong leaning to Mathematics and Physics. Certain elementary subjects such as Mechanical Drawing, Surveying, and Workshop Methods should be taken, if possible, as extras, or as summer work, so that the student might go into his fourth year fully prepared to take subjects properly professional. The last two years, taken entirely under the direction of the Engineering Department,

could then be devoted to the profession. In order to offer some inducement for this extra work, if inducement be required, the student might receive the degree of A. B., after completing his three years in the College, or after an additional year's registration in the Scientific School. His entrance examination should not necessarily require Latin; ability to speak or to write any modern language in addition to English, or exceptional attainments in Mathematics, History, or Literature, should be accepted as the equivalent of Latin for those who expect to spend five years for their degree in applied science. This plan, in a slightly modified form, has already been carried out by a number of men who have obtained both degrees in five years. This class of men usually go into Engineering because they have a taste for it. The academic period serves as a term of probation, in which a young man has time to consider his tastes and career, and he arrives in the professional school older and better able to take the required subjects. The students divide themselves, as in other professions, into three classes: 1st. Those who have strong talent for Engineering. 2d. Those who have preference for something else, but drift into it from force of circumstances or by parental wish. 3d. Those who have fair ability in anything they undertake. Time would be saved to the two last-named classes by three years spent in the College, with the additional opportunities to adjust themselves to their surroundings, and to think about their real tastes.

The second method of completing the course in five years would keep the men in the Scientific School during the entire period. They could enter under the present requirements, and take four years of undergraduate work for the degree of B. S. without professional significance, followed by one year to obtain the degree of B. S. in Engineering. The present four-years' course could, in that case, be cut down, by dropping the more advanced professional subjects, which would be given in the fifth year, and replacing them in part by others of a more general nature.

Ira N. Hollis.

Socrates in the Yard.

FROM A GRADUATE'S WINDOW.

SITTING by the Window one autumn afternoon, I saw a strange figure standing at a corner of the Yard. Although dressed in antique apparel, he attracted no attention from the passing students, nor did he observe them, so intent was he in gazing at the Fogg Art Museum. "That must be Socrates, or his ghost," I said to myself; "just as Professor Felton described him to us forty years ago. Man or ghost, he shall not lack a welcome!"

So I hurried down and greeted him in my rusty Greek.

"We shades speak all languages, friend," he replied, with a cordial smile; "but though you were mute, I should read your hospitality in your face. You marvel to see me here. Know that this is not my first visit. For even in Elysium I often hanker after a sight of the dear Earth and her living men, and I slip away hither to see how it fares with them, and to become earlier acquainted with the souls who shall be my companions there."

I asked him to come back to the Window with me, which he did so naturally, and with so much friendliness, that I forgot the strangeness of the adventure, and forgot to question whether he were substance or shade. Whatever his garb, his manner was wholly contemporary.

"I am struck by many changes since my last visit," said he, as soon as we were seated. "Tell me, pray, to whom that mausoleum yonder has been erected. Have you imitated the Persian barbarians in building over the perishable carcass of one man such a mole of enduring stone? Or is some giant's huge frame there sepulchred?"

"Nay," I replied, "that is no mausoleum, but a museum of the Fine Arts."

Socrates laughed incredulously.

"By Apollo," quoth he, "I can scarce believe it. Are your Fine Arts dead, that you entomb them in so sombre a habitation? Here is, indeed, a paradox, which I would have you explain." "That I will cheerfully, if I can," said I.

"Say, then," he continued, "whether the Fine Arts should inculcate a knowledge and love of the Beautiful or of the Ugly.”