ceded me. I do find all the time this lack of appreciation of the application of mathematics and physics and mechanics to actual work. I taught mathematics myself years ago, and know what the difficulties are. I believe one great difficulty is the attempt to cover too much territory. I have been glad to hear the opinion expressed here by so many eminent educators that we ought to simplify our curricula rather than elaborate them. If a boy has firmly fixed in his mind the elementary principles of mathematics, physics and applied mechanics, he is a pretty good engineer, I don't care whether you call him mechanical, civil or electrical. You can take him, and in six months make any kind of an engineer you please out of him. I wish we could get men that can use any simple mathematics, simple physics and mechanics, and use them right, in everyday problems.

THE ENGINEERING EXPERIMENT STATION AT

IOWA STATE COLLEGE.

BY G. W. BISSELL,

Ex-Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State College.

At the New York meeting of this Society in 1900, Dean Marston, of Iowa State College, presented a paper* entitled "Original Investigations by Engineering Schools a Duty to the Public and to the Profession." The entire paper should be read in this connection because the ideas therein recorded had become and have since been the dominating ideal of the Engineering Experiment Station at Ames, Iowa. The substance of a few paragraphs of Dean Marston's paper is as follows:

"In a now recognized important sense, the entire public must be considered university students, and by frequent publications, addressed to different classes of people, by extensive lectures, and possibly by correspondence instruction, the modern university must seek to educate this greater student body. Besides this, no university or department thereof can be considered to be doing living, vital work, unless in addition to its work of instruction it is carrying on original investigations. Otherwise its work will be purely mechanical. No student can be properly educated without bringing him into such close relation with veiled truth that he feels the very throb of her pulse, and receives direct from her the inspiration to become himself a searcher after the truth.

* PROCEEDINGS, S. P. E. E., Vol. VIII., p. 235.

"So, too, the function of the modern technical school should be in its particular field, closely similar to that of the university, as outlined above. . . . In addition to educating engineers the technical (engineering) school should, by special courses, train teachers for all the industries and commerce of modern civilization. . . . By the publication and distribution of frequent bulletins on technical, industrial and commercial subjects, by its faculty taking part in meetings and conventions, etc., the technical school should seek to educate the industrial and commercial public in the application of science to their work.

"It is the special object of this paper, however, to make a plea for systematic, original investigation work in technical schools." . . . "Such investigations are of two kinds. First, those mainly of professional interest and value; second, investigations whose results have a considerable commercial, industrial and public, as well as professional, value."

In the current catalog of Iowa State College, under the caption "Engineering Experiment Station," is printed the following:

"While the principal business of the several engineering departments of the college is to give instruction to their students, the fact is recognized that the state contributes largely to the financial support of the college and that in return, not only should the college give tuition to the youth of Iowa, but it should contribute as much as possible to the successful carrying on of industrial interests of the state. By the establishment of experiment stations the national government has recognized the duty of the land grant

colleges to the agricultural interests. The engineering departments of this college believe that it is their proper business to aid the other industrial enterprises of the state. With this thought as the motive, the several engineering departments have undertaken during the past ten years and will continue in the future to undertake to carry on investigations of interest and value to the industries of Iowa, as need therefore may arise, and in so far as the funds available will permit. A number of pamphlets and bulletins giving the results of some of these investigations have already been published, and have been received with much favor by the people of the state. By strong resolutions numerous industrial and public organizations in Iowa have expressed their approval of this work.

"In recognition and furtherance of this work, the Thirty-first General Assembly has appropriated a specific annual sum for the establishment of an engineering experiment station, for carrying on and publishing bulletins of investigations of value to the industrial and municipal interests of Iowa."

So much for the ideals of Iowa and her state college in this field of engineering experiment station work. As to the means and methods of following the ideal towards attainment, it may be said that the "sinews of war" for many years consisted chiefly of congenial and determined workers and a rather meagre material equipment, the latter barely sufficient for the instruction of yearly increasing classes of eager and industrious students, and still more meager financial resources. Nevertheless, in this period, eleven bulle

tins on sewage disposal, building materials and fuels, were published and circulated, aggregating 225 pages, and the Iowa Engineer was launched. The latter was a private enterprise of the heads of the engineering departments and was supported mainly by its advertising pages.

This period extended from 1897 to 1904. In 1904 the "recognition" by the state of Iowa was secured in the form of the "munificient" annual appropriation of $3,000, to be expended solely for engineering experimentation and the publication of bulletins, and also the college was made the "State Highway Commission" with an additional annual grant of $3,000. Four years later the first-named annual grant was increased to $3,500.

After the recognition act, the engineering experiment station was formally created as a distinct department of the engineering work of the college and a staff selected which consists now of the president of the college, ex-officio, A. Marston, director, and Professors Meeker, Beyer, Spinney and Bennett, these men representing respectively civil engineering, mechanical engineering, mining engineering and ceramics, electrical engineering and physics and chemistry.

Mr. P. E. Ellis is assistant chemist and gives his time to station work and is paid from its funds.

In this second period of the history of the station, bulletins have been issued six times per year, nominally, seven having appeared to date and others in press or nearly ready for the printer. Material for others is being gathered and new investigations are outlined.