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is all about. It can hardly be disputed that this is a very convenient way to get students through the laboratory without much trouble to the instructor, but can it be said that it is the best for the student? Let the student be given real problems to solve in the laboratory, so that he must prepare his own log sheet and decide what data he must obtain in order to solve his problem. No student should be allowed in the laboratory until he has proved to his instructor that he knows what he is after and has a full understanding of his problem.

The tendency in engineering practice is to standardize as much as possible, but when it is realized that this standardization permits of the employment of less competent help who need not necessarily be very strong in analysis, how foolish it seems to apply this to methods of instruction primarily intended to instruct the student in fundamental laws. With these few remarks, I have attempted to point out some of the principal features in the teaching of applied mechanics which my experience has shown me must continually be kept in mind in order that the work in that subject may become more efficient. One who has had engineering experience can easily realize the importance of these remarks. He understands the engineer's point of view, how he must attack his problem and apply his theories and I believe such an one can more satisfactorily lead his students to correct understanding of the subject than one who looks at the subject from the academic point of view, and cannot fully comprehend all the relations of the principles he is explaining to engineering practice.

JOINT DISCUSSION.

DEAN KENT: "Much careful repetition by the instructor" is said to instil the principles into the boy. I think the trouble with the teachers is they do too much oral repetition. They forget that nine tenths of what they say goes into one ear and out of the other. The proper thing is to have a textbook written in good English, in words that cannot be misunderstood. One trouble with the textbooks is, they have not been carefully edited for the purpose of seeing whether the sentences are rhetorically correct and clear. They lack unity. In regard to teaching mechanics, the other day I sprang a quiz on the senior class, calling for the fundamental equations of elementary dynamics. I asked them to explain how they got the equations and give an example showing that they understood how to apply them in a practical example. The result was rather startling; they had the formulæ by memory, but they could not show their derivation, and in their application many of them showed a lamentable lack of knowledge of the first principles.

DEAN WOODWARD: I think three hours a week is not too much, and is not extending a subject over too long a time. Some of the principles require a good deal of study. They should have the same course in mechanics, in my judgment. The examples brought in are from all the realms of applied mechanics. These things should be taught as early as the middle of the sophomore year, and go on continuously. The examples we bring in should not all be from engineering work. They should be abstract, some of

them; some of them should be ideal till the ideals are clear. Then they should be applied to real problems until they get a clear grasp of the important truth that every ideal solution is a more or less close approximation to a real solution, or to the solution of a real problem. Thus the student learns that ideal problems become useful in dealing with real ones.

I don't think it is wise to give men purely numerical examples. The general underlying thought is best given in general terms, so they are not too much distracted by numerical values. I would have them learn the best arrangement for their work, the best style for their work, the clearness of it on paper and the logical order in which they should put things down, and finally the necessity for the absolute numerical accuracy of all their results. While you are emphasizing the arrangement and accuracy you should begin with something perfectly familiar in principle.

In regard to the language we find in our books, I endorse what Professor Kent says. We find problems stated so badly that they may mean one thing or they may mean another. Sometimes you have to guess at the meaning by the answer that is given. There is too much looseness in the English.

PROFESSOR BENJAMIN: At this time of the year I am. always in a particularly humble frame of mind. I feel that if the Lord will forgive me for what I have left undone during my teaching the past year; I will try to do better next year. So I do not feel like criticising anybody. I suppose those who take my men after I have taught them will have the same feeling toward me that I have toward those who pre

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.

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