Education

The author points out that a college course should turn out men who have acquired habits of clear thinking, concentration, perception, observation, and decision. These men should have some knowledge of the details of the subject on which they plan to specialize in later life, but this knowledge is purely incidental and is acquired in illustrating the broad principles which are useful in all phases of engineering education. It doesn´t really matter much on what a young man thinks he will specialize when he leaves school, if he has clearly in mind that the purpose of education is to train his mind to enable him to acquire as much fundamental knowledge as possible, and also to acquire an incidental knowledge of the specific applications of such fundamental knowledge. The obvious point to the paper is that mental training is the principal thing, assuming, as a matter of course that physical and moral training are sufficient to physically support an active mind. The man has well begun his education who has acquired the inclination and the ability for self study and development, and who graduates with the thought that he has merely begun a lifetime of self education. His college education has served its purpose if it has given him a good start. The author suggests that the instructors in our colleges should be given an opportunity thoroughly to acquaint themselves with the industry for which they are training men by spending one year out of three in industry, the other two years to be spent in teaching.