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NATURAL SCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH REVELATION AND CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS.

The instruction in this department is given by means of lectures and recitations. No text-books are prescribed, but books of reference are recommended. Oral and written exercises are regularly required in the class

room.

Each year a course of lectures is given to the several classes in the seminary. In these courses the ground of Christian apologetics is covered in a general way. In all the courses attention is directed to the scientific aspects of the various topics under discussion; and during the senior year special attention is given to the relations of natural science and revelation.

1. Junior year. The nature, scope, spirit, and aim of apologetics; the theory of knowledge, and the relations of knowledge and belief: the nature of the religious consciousness and theistic belief; the various theories to explain the origin of religion; theistic arguments in detail, and their precise import; antitheistic theories: Atheism, agnosticism, positivism, materialism, and materialistic evolution, pantheism and idealistic evolution, deism, socialism, secularism. Other topics required from time to time in defense of Christianity will be taken up.

2. Middle year.-Comparative religion: Islam, religions of Egypt, Canaan, Phoenicia, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Persia, India, China, Japan, Western Europe, and savage tribes. The supernatural in its historical manifestation. Revelation as historical: Higher criticism and false historical theories of the Scriptures. The Miracle: Its historical evidence and import. The Christ of history: Discussion of false historical views of Christ and the Gospel narratives. The supernatural in a kingdom: The church historically considered. The evidences in general, external, internal, and experimental.

3. Senior year. The connection of science with revelation: Several preliminary ques tions considered. The field of scientific inquiry will be reviewed and results compared with the Scriptures at various points of contact. Physics: Matter and force briefly considered. Biology: Nature and origin of life. Origin of species by the theory of descent: Anhropology, relation of man to the brute creation, the races of men, the unity and antiquity of the race, man's primitive condition, the pre-Adamite theory. Geology: Specially in its bearing on Genesis. The Deluge: Astronomy and chronology as they relate to the Bible, creation and evolution.

At New Haven a university professorship of music has been created, which is for the divinity school as well as for other departments of Yale. In fact music, elocution, and physical culture appear to have been assuming considerable proportions as concurrent theological studies or exercises.

LAW.

Through a committee, the National Bar Association has for nearly a year been making an investigation of the condition of instruction in jurisprudence, not only in America, but the world over. By the agency of this Bureau a circular of inquiry has been distributed, the answers to which are now receiving the attention of the committee. In a few days their report will be given to the public, and there is therefore no necessity of instituting for the law schools such a far less pretentious and thorough study as has here been made for the schools of medicine and theology.

[NOTE.-As these pages go through the press it can be definately stated that the final report of the committee will appear as a part of the annual repor of this Bureau for the school year 1890-91, and also, at an earlier date, in phamplet form. The report as thus presented will contain the results of the very thorough study which the committee made of the methods in vogue in a number of our representive schools of law, and a supplementary series of essays dealing with the study of jurisprudence in European schools, the curricula (in tabular form of the American schools of law, and with the study of law in collegiate institutions and commercial schools.]

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES OF APPLIED SCIENCE.

REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION.

The colleges and departments endowed with the national land grant of 1862 may be divided into two classes when taken with reference to their requirements of admission. One class-not quite half of the whole number-is composed of those who require nothing more than proficiency in the studies of the grammar grade of the public schools, while the other class requires in addition the elements of algebra and geometry. In several cases, however, algebra to quadratic equations and plane geometry are deemed sufficient, while in one case, to algebra and geometry completed is added trigonometry. Botany, chemistry, or physics is required in several schools and in one Latin and in another French. As about half of the schools have preparatory departments, it would see that any deficiency on the part of the candidate might there be made good before he entered upon his course in the collegiate department. The arrangement of the University of Minnesota in this respect is unique; it has a preparatory department, but even that is an agricultural course. In the catalogue for 1891-92 the reasons for the institution of two agricultural courses are given with considerable force, as follows:

"Observation and experience have shown that all the facilities afforded by the regular colleges of the country for agricultural education have failed to attract any large number of farmers sons. The requirements for admission are such as to compel the boy to leave home for one or two years to secure such preparation, and this, together with the four years necessary to complete a full course, entails an expenditure of time and money which comparatively few can afford, and the education thus received, while valuable in itself, fails in many respects to furnish the training and knowledge needed by young men for the practical duties of the farm. In order to meet this want the board of regents of the university has established a "school of agriculture" with a full equipment of buildings and instructors on the experiment farm, where students live, work, and study during the three years devoted to this department. * Students will be received without examination in subjects on which they can furnish the certificates of high schools or of county superintendents."

* *

Graduates of the School of Agriculture are admitted to the college. In the catalogue above cited the number of students in the College of Agriculture is given as 5, all freshmen; in the School of Agriculture, 104. In two or three institutions a shorter course is provided, generally of two years, which serves the purpose of the school of agriculture of the Minnesota University.

Turning now to the technological schools not endowed with land grant the same subjects are required as in the case of the schools endowed with the land grant. At the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard, the John C. Green School of Princeton, the Chandler Scientific School of Dartmouth, the Towne Scientific School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Polytechnic School of Washington University, and the Lehigh University, it is no surprising that the requirements in mathematics should be uniformly high; but the distinguishing feature between the school attached to a school of belles lettres and the isolated institution for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts is the demand for literary culture, as shown by the requirement of a foreign language by the departments of colleges and universities. The Sheffield School of Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show the same characteristic as the nonendowed departments just named. Cornell, endowed with the national land grant, does not require a foreign language in the preliminary examination unless the candidate enters for a degree.

There is a requirement of the Lawrence Scientific School that merits attention. In physics the candidate is examined "either in (1) astronomy (Lockyer's elementary lessons) and physics (Avery's elements of natural philosophy or Gage's elements of physics); or (2) a course of experiments in the subjects of mechanics, sound, light, h at, and electricity, not less than forty in number, actually performed at school by the pupil. These experiments may be selected from A. M. Worthington's Physical Laboratory Practice or from the 'New Physics,' by John Trowbridge, or from any similar laboratory manual."

Literary astronomy and physics call for no particular mention, but a course of forty experiments in the subjects of mechanics, sound, light. heat, and electricity, actually performed at the school by the pupil, is an important innovation. The principal difficulty in the way of this kind of instruction has been very ably expressed by Prof. Trowbridge, of Harvard, in the preface to his "New Physics," as follows:

"The teacher may grant the comparatively small result which is obtained from the study of physics by the method of lectures and recitations; but he will immediately ask, 'How can we obtain the time for laboratory work in physicscrowded as we are with so many studies?' Moreover, the subject of physics is unlike that of chemistry or botany. In these subjects the cost of the apparatus and material is comparatively small."

It would be interesting to know how many of those applying for admission to Harvard have availed themselves of this election, but efforts to ascertain the fact have failed.'

In almost every school there is a "formal" examination for admission.

The selection of the beneficiary varies considerably among the institutions endowed with the land grant. In some cases it is the county judge, court, or superintendent that selects the pupil, in others the appointment is in the hands of the members of the legislature, and sometimes the selection is made by means of a competitive examination. In the Georgia School of Technology there is a scholarship for every member of the House of Representatives, filled by competitive examination. The State board of education fills the scholarship at the Worcester Free Institute, and the city school board of Philadelphia the 31 city scholarships of the Towne Scientific School of the University of Pennsylvania.

I.

COURSE IN CIVIL ENGINEERING.

Perhaps the only thing that is absolutely agreed upon as an essential for the successful practice of the profession of civil engineering is a general culture of the mind. For it seems to be thought that this general culture will give the ability of forming general ideas and of speculating upon things, the prerequisites of a scientific method.2

The conception of Gen. Thayer in founding the postgraduate school of Dartmouth College, which bears his name, as to what this general culture should be was more technical. He required for admission knowledge of mathematics that could only be obtained at a college or a high class technological school, and the pupil when once entered upon the course of study has his attention confined to surveying in general," "construction in general," and special applications. (See Table A.)

The civil engineering course of other American high-class technological schools is arranged upon an entirely different plan, being, in a word, a compromise. Instead of the two years of concentrated work on this specialty as at the Thayer school, the compromise course is lengthened to four years, its admission requirements are lowered to admit the high school graduate, and the first two years of the course are partly given to laying a foundation for general culture and partly for a specialty.

Turning to Europe a different condition of affairs is shown. In Germany there are 10 technical universities, called generically the Technishe Hochschuleň. Admission to these technical universities is obtained under the same condition as that to the literary institutions called universities, the possession of the Reifezeugniss of a gymnasium or of a realgymnasium. An examination of the programme of the civil engineering course of the Technical University of Hanover given in Table B will show that nothing of a literary nature is there taught, for the general culture of the intellect is supposed to have been accomplished by the course in the gymnasium and to be certified to by the certificate of maturity or Reifezeugniss, which gives the student admittance to the university. What that general culture is will be shown by the courses of the Gymnasien, which are given beside the civil engineering course of the technical university. It is perhaps too much to say that the course of these Gymnasien is equal to the course of our colleges; but the programmes that follow fully explain themselves. (Table B.)

1At a recent meeting the Association of Colleges in New England "invited the attention of the public" to the advisability of making the following change in the programme of the New England grammar schools:

2. The introduction of elementary physics into the later years of the programme as a substantial subject to be taught by the experimental or laboratory method and to include exact weighing and measuring by the pupils themselves."

2 Discussions on technical education at the Washington meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and at a joint meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Institute of Mining Engineers.

ED 90-60

The course of civil engineering in France is best illustrated by the programme of the celebrated "School of Bridges and Roads" (Tab.e C). With that logic or which the French are noted the instruction of an engineer is a series of interdependent courses in three different schools. The first of these, the lyc e, corresponds to the German gymnasium as an institution of culture, thagh in its internal arrangements it bears a pretty close resemblance to our colleges that have a corse in the ancient languages, a Latin scientific course, and also an English scientific course. On the contrary in the German college or gymnasium one, and only one, curriculum is followed, in the realgymnasium, or gymnasium without Greek there is also only one course, and in the realschule, which Las neither La in or Greek, the same unity prevails. Thus the Germans have a separate school for each separate curriculum. But in France the gymnasium and the rea schule are contained in the same institution, the course corresponding to the gymnasium is called l'enseignement classique, and that corresponding to ther a schule is called l'enseignement special, while to supply the place filled by the rea gymnasium in the German system the enseignement classique has, after the completion of the third class, an enseignement scientifique dans les classes de mathématiques (instruction in science in the mathematical classes). Mathematics has ever been considered in France as fully entitled to be called a science as physics is, though in translating the programme the writer has adopted the fashion of English programmes. Thus in France in the same school, the lycée, there are three concurrent curriculums. But it is only the mathematical classes that are to be considered here.

Now, it is customary for those students who intend to enter upon a course of instruction under a Faculty of Sciences or upon the course of the military school at St. Cyr, to take the first two years of Division of Science, called, respectively, the preparatory and the elementary class of science. Having finished the studies of these two years, the degree of Bachelor of Science is conferred.1 But for those who desire to enter the school for preparing teachers for the lycée (École Normale Supérieure), or those who desire to enter the quasi military École Polytechnique, a more extended knowledge of mathematics is required, which is given in a class called special mathematics. The Ecole Polytechnique is the second course in the education of the French engineer, but its course is concerned with unapplied science. "The course forms a great physicomathematical encyclopædia, the instruction there given is a general instruction destined to develop the scientific mind and to furnisa each pupil with the tool that later on will serve him when engaged in personal work. In a word, the school neither produces engineers nor officers. Its role is at once more elevated and more modest; it wholly consists in preparing students for special schools whose business is to make engineers and officers. It is at the artillery school, at the naval school, etc., during two years, and at the schools of bridges and roads, and of mines during three years, that technical instruction is given."* Table C will show the character of the programmes of several French schools which form a course of instruction:

TABLE A.-AMERICA.

AN EXAMPLE OF A HIGH-GRADE COMPOSITE COURSE IN CIVIL ENGINEERING.

REQUISITES OF ADMISSION.

Short English composition and correction of ungrammatical language, geography, history of United States, arithmetic, algebra, Wentworth's Elements, plane geometry, French or German grammar, and translation of easy prose.

COURSE.

FIRST YEAR.

Common to all regular courses.

First term.-Solid geometry, algebra, general chemistry, chemical laboratory, rhetoric and English composition, French (or German), mechanical drawing, free-hand drawing, military

drill.

Second term-Plane and spherical trigonometry, general chemistry, chemical laboratory, political history since 1815, French (or German), mechanical drawing, free hand drawing, military drill.

This arrangement, especially as relating to the diplomas granted on the completion of the courses of the Lycée, was somewhat modified by the decree of August, 1890, 2 Revue Scientifique, 1st vol. of 1887, p. 781.

SECOND YEAR.

First term.-Surveying and plotting, topographical drawing, descriptive geometry, descriptive astronomy, analytic geometry, physics, political economy, German.

Second term.-Surveying and plotting, differential calcul us, physics, physical geography, English literature, German, mineralogy.

THIRD YEAR.

First term.-Railroad and highway engineering with field work and drawing, stereotomy, advanced surveying, integral calculus, general statics, physics (heat), physical laboratory, structural geology, German, English composition.

Second term.-Railroad and highway engineering with field work and drawing, advanced surveying, elements of construction, elementary design, spherical and practical astronomy, phys ical laboratory, historical geology, German, strength of materials, kinematics, and dynainics.

FOURTH YEAR (PURELY PROFESSIONAL).

First term.-Theory of structures, bridges and roofs, hydraulics, strength of materials, theory of elasticity, metallurgy of iron, elements of geodesy. Options: 1. Sanitary engineering, bridge design, hydraulic measurements and sanitary field work; 2. Railroad engineering, railroad management, bridge design; 3. Least squares, geodesy, physical laboratory, hydraulic

measurements.

Second term.-Theory of structures, bridges and roofs, English composition, business law, thesis work. Options: 1. Hydraulic engineering, machinery and motors, bridge and sanitary design, public hygiene; 2. Railroad engineering, machinery and motors, bridge design; 3. Hydraulic engineering, geodesy and map projection, design, differential equations.

THE CURRICULUM OF THE THAYER SCHOOL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING.

REQUISITES OF ADMISSION.

Candidates for admission must pass a thorough examination in the following subjects: (1) English grammar; (2) geography; (3) history of the United States; (4) arithemetic: (5) bookkeeping, only the simpler principles and methods of single and double entry; (6) algebra, Bourdon; (7) geometry, Legendre; (8) trigonometry and mensuration; (9) compass surveying, Murray; (10) descriptive geometry, including shades, shadows, perspective, Church, and isometrical drawing. Warren; (11) analytic geometry, Bowser or Church; (12) calculus, Rice and Johnson or Bowser; (13) analytic mechanics, Wood's elementary; (14) chemistry, any good elementary work including brief treatment of organic chemistry, e. g., Barker's; (15) physics, Ganot; (16) astronomy, Newcomb and Holden; (17) physical geography and meteorology.

COURSE.

SURVEYING IN GENERAL.

A.-Instruments and fundamental operations.-Construction and adjustments of all essential instruments used in the field and office. Principles and practice of location and measurement of lines and of the measurement of angles.

B.-Surveying and location.-Of lines and areas; leveling; triangulation; topography, includ ing hydrography; mining surveying; city surveying; geodesy, including practical astronomy (as to location of meridian and determination of latitude, azimuth, and time), outline of principles and methods; office work; computing, adjustment, and comparison of observations, plotting, and estimating.

CONSTRUCTION IN GENERAL.

C.-Mechanics and general applications.-(a) Mathematical theory of motion; (b) physical science of motion in general; (c) statics and dynamics of rigid bodies; (d) statics of fluids; (e) dynamics of fluids: (f) principles of graphical statics; (g) elements of mechanism. D-Nature of materials.—(1) Physical and chemical properties, by general description and analysis, of all materials used for construction, including a suitable course on mineralogy; (2) mechanical properties, considered analytically and experimentally.

E-Fundamental applications of materials.—(1) Special forms of materials and structural elements, including stonecutting, carpentry, ironwork, workshop appliances, etc.; (2) masonry and foundations-nomenclature, prínciples, methods, and appliances; theory of retaining walls and arches; (3) estimates, specifications, and contracts.

SPECIAL APPLICATIONS.

F.-Bridges and roofs.—Trusses, arches, and suspension bridges; mathematical and graphical analysis of stresses; general study of construction and preservation; tours; designing. G.-Rockwork, tunneling, and mining.-Outlines of geology; explosive agents and blasting, theory and practice; special appliances and methods in subterraneous works. H-Highways and railways.-Surveys, construction, maintenance, and operation-leading principles and practical details. I-Hydraulic engineering.-Principles and data of hydraulics; collection, storage, and distribution of water; Hydraulic motors-theory, construction, and operation.

J.-Heat and heat engines.-Principles of thermodynamics; fuels and their combustion; steamheat engines-construction and operation of typical forms; application of laws.

K.-Sanitary engineering.-Drainage and sewerage-systems and appliances, governing principles, heating and ventilation.

L.-Rivers and harbors.-Principles relating to improvement; surveys and observations; constructions in different cases; methods and means of procedure.

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