larger registration in the fall. I know also from my own personal experience of the way these young men hunger for an opportunity to secure that knowledge which will enable them to advance themselves in the work in which they are engaged during the day, and I feel, with our President, that our universities and technical schools, especially those which are located in large cities, should do all in their power toward fostering this most important work.

PROFESSOR WHITE: I looked up some statistics on engineering education in Germany. First I took all the engineering schools in Illinois and found that there was one student to every twenty-eight hundred people in Illinois; I took the same data for Germany, where they have twelve or thirteen first-class polytechnic schools, and found one student for every thirty-three hundred. But for the twelve or thirteen first-class polytechnic schools in Germany there are four hundred second-class technical and trade schools, and that accounts for the difference.

PROFESSOR WILLISTON: Little Switzerland has been in the foreground in a great many movements and we are not surprised that she should be in the lead in the opportunities that she offers for technical education. In Zurich is to be found one of the very finest polytechnic schools in the world. I do not recall the number of students enrolled, but it is large. Switzerland, with a population only about equal to that of Massachusetts, has, besides her fine polytechnic school, a number of excellent technical schools of secondary grade and something over three hundred and ninety trade and elementary trade schools.

* 1263 in 1903-4. See Procs., Vol. XIV, p. 256.

DEAN TURNEAURE: In Wisconsin, cities of a certain class have this year been authorized by the legislature to establish and maintain trade schools through the boards of education, the boards being empowered to levy taxes for that purpose. This legislation was passed at the request of people from Milwaukee who were interested in a private trade school there and who were members of the board of education. The expectation is that the board will take over this private school and levy a tax up to a maximum of $100,000 a year to maintain this school. Many who are interested in this project are of German birth, and familiar with the trade schools in Germany. Another movement along the line of secondary schools and trade schools is the establishment by the State of a school for mining workmen and mechanics at Platteville, Wis. It is called the Wisconsin Mining Trade School. The course of instruction will be of a secondary character and is to be to some extent under the direction of the College of Engineering of the State University.

MR. WARNER: I have been running a trade school for many years-for profit. The greatest difficulty we have is that too few young men, or old men, have learned how to think all alone. Your school and your college will be a success when you teach a boy so that he can think independently and alone, when you so train his mind that, when given a hint of an idea away off in the fog, he can get it and bring it out into the light. I expect soon to see Departments of Diplomacy and Tact established in all our best educational institutions. Such departments are needed in the

theological seminaries as well as in the engineering colleges and universities. In going past the George Washington University in Washington recently I noticed over the entrance of one of their new buildings "College of Diplomacy and Law." I want to see diplomacy and tact, which is another name for the same thing, given such emphasis that the graduates when they go out into the world can properly meet men and exercise leadership wherever it is needed.

PRESIDENT JACKSON: I am very much interested to know that Columbia University has begun to improve her opportunities. She can do a lot of good in New York, and she cannot hurt Cooper Institute. It will rise under Dean Goetze, I am sure. All these institutions will change, if they are run with tact and diplomacy. Lehigh University is at fault if it does not take up the Bethlehem Steel Company's problem. The one fault of the governing boards of our engineering schools is that they do not have large enough faculties. And these faculties are so burdened with work that they cannot give their time to these pressing requirements. What I wish to say in closing is this, that while my thesis this evening is on the importance of the foreman schools and the secondary industrial schools, I do not want you to think that I consider that more important than the advanced engineering instruction and research. I believe the latter is almost as important to the nation and to the welfare of its industrial development as the education of these foremen and workmen.

THE COOPERATIVE COURSE IN ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI.

BY HERMAN SCHNEIDER,

Dean of the College of Engineering, Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Cincinnati.

About six years ago the writer began what might be called a pedagogic research into the problem of engineering education. After a time he sifted the problem down to three questions: (1) What requirements should the finished product of an engineering school fulfill? (2) Where and how shall we get the raw material to make the required finished product? (3) Through what processes shall we put the raw material in order to obtain the required finished product? This investigation has been carried on during these six years (and is still in progress) by visits to the largest manufacturing concerns in the Eastern and Middle States, in order to obtain from the employers of engineers their views on the subject. In a great many cases the men consulted were graduates of the best engineering institutions in the country.

About two years ago the results of the investigation, up to that time, were compiled and put into a formal paper which your speaker intended to present to this Society. He was reluctantly forced to certain conclusions by the inevitable logic of the facts gathered. But these conclusions were somewhat radical and revolutionary, and after a thorough consideration of the matter he had not the temerity to present the paper. It seemed to him that an actual demonstra

tion of a system of education which was the natural outgrowth of this investigation would perhaps be the best proof of the correctness of the opinions of the men whom he had consulted. Opportunity was offered for this experiment at the University of Cincinnati, and the cooperative course in engineering now in operation is the result.

This course is so planned that the students taking it work alternate weeks in the engineering college of the university and at the manufacturing shops of the city. Each class is divided into two sections alternating with each other, so that when one class is at the university the other one is at the shops. In this way the shops are always fully manned, and thus the manufacturers suffer no loss and practically no inconvenience by the system. There are two facts on which it is desired to place especial emphasis so that there may be no misunderstanding about this work. First, the entrance requirements for this course are precisely the same as for the regular four-year course. Secondly, the university instruction under the cooperative plan is just as complete, thorough, broad and cultural as the four-year course. As a matter of fact, it is broader and more cultural. Let there be no misunderstanding about this. The course is not a short-cut to a salary.

The length of the course is six years. During this period the students work alternate weeks in the shops of the city throughout the scholastic year and full time in the summer. They are given one week's vacation at Christmas and two or three weeks during the summer. The practical work at the shops is as