engineers and officers of the various Westinghouse Companies to meet the need for social recreation, mutual benefit and improvement, and the proper dissemination of electrical engineering knowledge. The various activities are managed by the apprentices through committees. The reception committee has direction of all social affairs, such as dances, smokers, receptions, musicals, and the like. The library committee is in charge of the library, reading, writing and lounging rooms. The lecture committee provides for lectures of a technical and general nature by the engineers and officers of the Westinghouse Companies, and by prominent visiting engineers. The section committee is in charge of the small inter-clubs. These clubs are limited in membership and were organized for the discussion of particular apparatus, such as direct-current and alternating-current controlling apparatus, alternating-current and direct-current generating and receptive apparatus, railway engineering and construction, protective apparatus, and the like. Each section is in charge of a leader and a recording secretary, chosen from among the members of that particular section, and a technical adviser from the older engineers of the department which has to do with the design of the apparatus to be studied. The limited membership causes better and more regular attendance, more enthusiasm through closer personal acquaintance, and better results in the choice of men for regular employment with the company.

The excursion committee provides for visits to the numerous industrial plants in and about Pittsburg.

This organization is quite similar to that of the sections, having a leader and secretary for each excursion party, which is limited to twelve, insuring better guide service and closer and more careful attention.

Our requirements are that the engineering apprentice shall continue on the work until he shall have prepared himself for filling satisfactorily a regular position in some department of the company's service, and when assigned a regular position before the expiration of the full apprenticeship service, compensation will be given commensurate with the ability displayed.

Of those who have left the course, fifty per cent. are now with the company. The others have various positions with operating and electrical supply companies, as consulting engineers, or as instructors.

Those with the company are distributed as follows:

THE ENGINEERING COLLEGE AND THE

ELECTRIC MANUFACTURING

COMPANY.

BY CHAS. F. SCOTT,

Consulting Engineer, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing

Company.

The notable point of contact between the engineering college and the electric company is the engineering graduate. He is the product of the college and the raw material which is to enter into the human organization underlying the electric industry. What, then, constitutes the ideal graduate? What is expected of him and what training will best enable him to meet the requirements and the opportunities which will confront him?

The attitudes of both the college and the manufacturing company toward the graduate have changed greatly. Engineering laboratories and new methods of instruction show that the colleges are active and alert in appreciating the new needs. On the other hand, the manufacturing companies do not repulse the efforts of the technical man to find a job nor do they expect the graduate to be a ready-made engineer. They provide systematic courses for supplemental training, to which they welcome college men. Probably in no other field has there been such a growing demand for engineering graduates as in the electrical profession. This demand has been a great stimulus to engineering education and it puts to a severe test the efficiency of the schools which are to furnish these men.

What, then, are the departments of work for which college men are wanted? The popular answer a few years ago was: for inventing and designing. Such an answer to-day is wholly inadequate. There is scarcely a department in the large companies, whose forces number tens of thousands of men and whose business aggregates millions of dollars per month, in which there is not opportunity for the man with engineering training. The principal fields of work are the design and development of apparatus, the testing both of commercial and of new or experimental apparatus, investigations regarding materials and manufacturing processes, the inspection of materials and apparatus, manufacturing, the installation and erection of apparatus on the customer's premises, conducting the office work and correspondence between the works and the customer, which usually requires a broad engineering knowledge and good business ability; commercial engineering, or the specific application of apparatus, selling, and the various positions requiring executive ability, preferably with a knowledge of engineering matters. It is primarily to secure the personnel for the rank and file and for the leadership in these various departments that the company provides a large number of college men in a training course from which it may draw. It also furnishes men for various operating and engineering positions. This course, moreover, has not been established for sentimental reasons, simply as a part of an ideal educational system, but as a matter of necessity. The men need this experience and training and the new point of view which it gives before they are useful,

and the company adopts this means of getting its supply of men.

I have interviewed a number of my associates in different departments, proposing questions substantially as follows: What are the deficiencies of the college graduates? What is it that prevents the success of many of them? What could be done in the technical school to obviate these faults?

The first reply that one man made was: "There are as many answers as there are apprentices." While the replies which have been given to me vary in particulars, in certain features they agree. First of all, one thing is emphasized by its absence. No one has mentioned any lack of theoretical or technical knowledge. Only one man mentioned this point and he said that the schools give the men more theoretical equipment than they need. On the other hand, all agree that there is a deficiency in other things. One says that there is a general mediocrity and lack of ability to do large things; another, that there is a lack of initiative and ability to carry a thing through independently; another that the faculty of attending to details is not developed; another says that the lack of diplomacy and facility in getting along with other people is a leading fault; and another, that most men do not take a real interest and are not willing to stay with one thing long enough to really get something out of it, but are continually wanting something different as soon as the novelty has worn off. Most of the men are in too great a hurry.

Several referred to instances in which young men have declined to take minor work, although their supe