which certain technical schools can raise their ideals and furnish an environment where men may develop broadly with a view to increasing their educational and professional efficiency and thus fit them for positions of executive responsibility? I believe that there are certain institutions financially able and so placed as to do this, and thus advance the standards of admission to the ranks of engineers and exalt the profession's dignity. The limitations upon such an undertaking are clearly recognized. High proficiency in engineering can never be reached without natural ability and long experience. The engineer forms no exception to the law that experience is an imperative necessity for every human being. A school can no more turn out completely developed and efficient engineers ready for leadership than it can produce lawyers and doctors expert at the day of their graduation.

The ideal plan which I shall outline in detail, is not offered as taking the place of ability or practical experience, but as supplementing them under particularly favorable conditions, as furnishing an environment where men can develop broadly for all the work of life, and become efficient for engineering positions of executive responsibility.

I believe that any one of the large private technological schools could with success train specially for leadership by inaugurating selective process, say, at the beginning of the third year and enrolling the favored ones for a course leading to a different degree and requiring an additional year. I should prefer, however, that the selection of the raw material came at the beginning of the second year provided the in

struction in the first year was individual in character and that it were possible to determine with considerable degree of accuracy just which students had shown the native ability for the higher course. The selective process should, however, begin earlier-with admission. Impressed by the rapidly increasing demand for trained leaders in every department of engineering, the Trustees of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn propose (provided there are sufficient funds available), to erect upon the traditions of that institution a school of engineering that shall make primarily for the highest efficiency. About one million dollars has been pledged by them, a sufficient indication that they believe in the work.

It will be a small school. With the number of its students limited at the most to three hundred, it will ensure to each the fullest personal development. Each will be dealt with as a separate problem. From the day of entrance he will in lecture room and laboratory come into immediate touch with professors of experience and eminent specialists.

It will not only be a small school but a school of picked men, assured of attaining high excellence. The merely average student will not be desired or admitted. It will attempt to address its teaching to the ablest. Instead of diffusing its energies in producing ten men for the ranks, it will concentrate every resource upon developing one thoroughly equipped officer. It will bend every effort to develop professional leaders. To accomplish such a purpose great care will be taken in selecting the choicest material. Weight will be attached to the candidate's personality.

Recommendations of his fitness will be investigated. This will not be difficult, for the large majority of the students will receive their preparation in the immediate neighborhood. The conditions for entrance will be unusually high, but they will also remain remarkably flexible. As the passing of certain examinations will not alone qualify for admission without evidence of the traits that make for leadership, so lack of preparation in one or several respects need not of itself disbar from entrance. Talent rather than conformity to absolute standards will be the passport. On the other hand, mere brilliance will not alone constitute the test of fitness for entrance. Genius, defined as talent for the taking of infinite pains, includes in its range many minds that move slowly, yet with power and precision. Since not only the conditions for admission but the rate of advancement will be largely an individual matter, men of marked native strength of resources, persistence, and capacity for growth will be received and encouraged, even though their course may outlast a year or two of the brilliant vanguard.

With its premium placed upon quality rather than size, this school will sift most thoroughly even such students as it finally accepts. Only a definite number will be admitted and one half of these may be cut off before the end of the first two years, and but one third graduated. The plan of admission and elimination of students is not unlike that of our Naval, and Military Academies. A similar procedure is followed by some of the French lycées. It is very doubtful if this could be done in any but an institution supported by private funds.

Careful attention will be given to the physical condition of students. Work in the gymnasium will be required throughout the course and there will be frequent physical examinations. The so-called outside college interests-the dramatic, literary, musical and debating societies, and the dances-will be fostered. The fraternities will be encouraged to build their chapter houses on or near the grounds to be provided for the college. Every endeavor will be made to increase the social opportunities of the students, to bring them in contact with the people of the community in a social way, to have them hear and meet men of large affairs. The membership of the professional societies will be made up, as they are now, of undergraduates, graduates and instructors and professors.

Quite as essential to the successful operation of this plan as the gifted student will be the gifted and inspiring teacher. The endowment proposed by the Trustees of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn will be adequate to secure for its faculty men of broad culture, high scholarship, and ripe teaching experience. By the limiting of the classes and the ample provision of such professors in each department, all, or nearly all, instructors may be dispensed with. Every student will enjoy direct association with the heads of the departments, a privilege usually accorded to the few. Moreover, the regular staff will be supplemented by expert engineers of national repute. These consulting professors from their wide experience and study of actual conditions will keep every course in alignment with the advancing margin of engineering practice.

In its courses of study, the school will provide for the professional training of civil, electrical, and mechanical engineers, and for the prosecution of scientific research and experiment in these departments. It will offer admirable facilities for the education of those upon whom will devolve the conduct of great commercial and industrial enterprises. While each course in its minimum requirements will be so exacting that only the gifted, ambitious, and persistent can hope to succeed, yet beyond such limits each will be elastic, admitting and encouraging breadth and freedom of personal development. The laboratory method will be greatly emphasized. Personal conference will supplement, if not replace, the impersonal lecture. Experienced and tactful teachers will strive to call out what is best in each student, rather than merely to offer him what is best in themselves. Such a method will do much to guarantee that thoroughness and capacity for independent thought and action so requisite to the leader. But these courses will be broad in culture as well as intensive. The sin of the technical school is narrowness. Here the fundamental sciences-mathematics, physics, chemistry-will be presented not merely with reference to their applications, but with regard for their intrinsic significance as essential elements of a general education. The modern languages will be studied, not alone as a means to acquaintance with the scientific work of other countries, but also as a linguistic and literary training. Especial stress will be laid upon acquiring the mastery of English as an instrument of thought. Through constant practice