press, etc., which will illustrate to the boys how jigs and fixtures can be used in modern manufacture where a number of machines are turned out at one time. This procedure should serve to keep the shops going at all times regardless of the other lines of order work which might be on hand.

2. The school should also take repair work for small concerns. It can buy up second hand machinery and repair it. This sort of work gives a splendid opportunity to turn out all-round workmen. It will serve to illustrate re-babbitting, re-surfacing, making of patterns from broken parts, making of castings directly from the iron form, etc.

3. Doing order work in the making of jigs and fixtures for various manufacturing concerns. This special order work can be done by older and brighter boys who understand the reading of drawings and the laying out of the work. It will give them an opportunity to use their ingenuity in discriminating between that work on the jig which must be done very accurately and that which can be slighted without damage to the commercial efficiency of the jig. It will teach the boys how to figure on the cost of jobs, etc.

And finally, the making of patterns and castings for special orders of outside firms.

There is not a city of any size which has the machine trade industries which cannot have such a school provided there are enough resident manufacturers who have an interest in the American boy as well as an interest in the future of American industry, and provided these manufacturers and public-spirited

men will put their hands down into their jeans and give the money necessary to start the school.

I suppose the school can never be completely selfsupporting although some men who think they know what they are talking about (and two of them have tried it) say that it can be made self-supporting. Personally I think it would be well to allow a little financial lee-way. It is not necessary to wait until these interested men can gather up money enough for a fine building. All that is necessary is to lease for a term of years a building suited to the purpose. There are manufacturers of iron working machinery in the country who will be glad to contribute liberally to the equipment. There is enough second-hand machinery in various scrap heaps which can be repaired to use as part of the shop equipment. It is not necessary to have a power plant in the building and thus the cost of an expensive portion of ordinary school equipment can be saved. Electric power will be sufficient for practical purposes the first few years.

I have estimated that a yearly expense of $22,000 will give instruction to 200 boys in the day school and 275 boys in the night school. This sum includes administrative and teaching force, rent, heat and light.

In conclusion, you will note that in this paper I have concerned myself with the importance of training the ranks of labor through systematic instruction for purposes both economic and industrial. I have also endeavored to present a definite plan making for this end. Surely the element of efficient labor entering into the cost of production is as worthy of serious attention as are the two other elements of material and equipment.

COURSES IN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING.

BY HUGO DIEMER,
Consulting Engineer.

From a purely technical point of view, the work of the mechanical engineer is limited to the designing and construction of efficient machinery. From the point of view of world-economy his work includes the making of machinery in such a manner that the highest quality of output can be built cheaply enough to put it into the widest possible use, and the processes of designing, manufacturing and testing should all be carried on in such a manner as to result in the greatest possible economy and profit to all of the human factors connected with the enterprise, namely the designers, the workmen in the shop, the stockholders in the business, and the people who buy the product.

Any manufactured commodity before being put on the market must pass through the three distinct processes of designing, making and testing. Hitherto courses for educating mechanical engineers have concerned themselves primarily with the processes of designing and testing. The existing courses are admirably adapted to fit men for these processes. -Our manufacturing industries have now passed beyond the pioneer stage, and while there is a continued proportional annual increased demand for men equipped to design and to test, there is a much greater demand for men equipped to deal successfully with the processes of making. The relative economic value of

these three processes may be illustrated by taking as an example the work of a company manufacturing mining locomotives. The pay-roll of the designing department in a well-known company engaged in this business was $20,000 per annum; that of its testing department was $5,000 per annum. In the making of the article, exclusive of the aforementioned departments, there was spent in labor alone $400,000 per annum. The amount of money spent in making the machinery was twenty times as great as the amount expended in designing, and eighty times as great as the amount spent in testing. There were five hundred men employed in the making, as against twenty-five men engaged in the designing and five men engaged in the testing. Out of the five hundred men employed in the making there were seventy-five engaged in supervisional and clerical work connected with the production department, and in no way connected with the commercial accounts, commercial correspondence or sales. These figures are given as a typical illustration of the relative number of people affected and the relative amounts of money involved in production as compared with designing and testing. We are unconsciously limiting the field of the graduate engineer by imaginary barrier lines when we do not prepare him for the productive processes.

Directly below the managing officials of a manufacturing plant ranks the works' manager, who is also frequently designated by the title of chief engineer or superintendent. He needs to be a man with practical experience, a production expert with knowledge of executive matters. It frequently happens

that in the absence of his superiors he is called upon to manage the establishment, directing the cooperation of the departments, ruling on emergency questions that arise and involve the integrity and policy of the company; 'a technical man, he yet has a broad outlook on the affairs of the concern, which enables him to direct the workings of the whole plant.

Such a man is a type of the highest development of the mechanical engineer. Considering the great number of school-trained technical men in modern industry, it would seem that eligible candidates for this position would be numerous. On the contrary, the great majority of men occupying these executive positions are not at present school-trained technical men. Technical graduates becoming engrossed in one specialized branch of their profession, fail to realize its relation to other departments of production, pushing to the extreme ideas of their own, which wise management would temper to fit the needs of other departments.

I think it is a conservative estimate to say that not twenty-five per cent. of the graduates of engineering colleges achieve the degree of success which they might. One difficulty is that while at school they have prejudices unconsciously instilled into them which prevent their entering production departments in manufacturing. Some of the students, to be sure, go to the other extreme and take work as actual mechanics. From the standpoint of the experience of a practical shop manager, it would be far more advantageous to them to take a position as time taker, shop order tracer or stock clerk. In the stock department they would gain familiarity with