didn't lack for aptitude. From fourteen years old to twenty we made our own apparatus and gave our own lectures and demonstrations, and such is the history of the education of many a man who thus and then learned more than would be thought possible now, for what we lacked otherwise we made up by imagination and reasoning. Before coming of age I ran away from the mercantile life with my grandfather and we attended night school together for drawing, descriptive geometry, etc., after which we formed the partnership of Smith & Webb and had over five years' experience together in the machine business. Now would it have been any better for me to have gone instead to one of the six schools mentioned by Professor Baker instead of having this experience in business? I understand that some of you now propose to give instruction of this kind in the regular course to teach how to handle men and practical problems. My advice would be to confine the course to its legitimate ground and cover those things that a man will have little chance of learning later.

Nothing has been said so far about books. They could be had and good use made of them. Books, however, were not thrust upon one, as they are now. They were more modest and waited to be asked. The "Encyclopædia Britannica," then rarer than now, was in my grandfather's library. My father had "Appleton's Cyclopædia of Mechanics," etc. My aunt had French books and "Silliman's Physics" appeared at Christmas. We used "Davies' Descriptive Geometry," one of the excellent textbooks given us by West Point men. One book of my aunt's was fas

tened on to as my own and has been brought with me, thinking all may not have seen it.

Technical education started sooner abroad than here and in spite of what many good people have against the army and the church, both have been very useful in the matter of books. Engineering originated largely in the army and culture in the church, and some of the best scientific treatises have been written by military officers or churchmen. Particularly in France, treatises were prepared for government schools and as such had a definite scope and aim. The book I have is, however, in English: "A Course of Mathematics Composed for the Use of the Royal Military Academy," by Charles Hutton, LL.D., F.R.S., late Professor of Mathematics. Corrected and revised by William Rutherford, F.R.A.S., Royal Military Academy, 1840.

It was written about thirty years before, and, as may be seen, they had a very correct notion of what mathematics should be taught and how to teach it.

I have an affection for this book. It was printed the year I was born and I drank in the milk of differential calculus mostly from it. I had attempted at sixteen to discuss mathematically the principles of the windmill my father patented, and had so far invented for myself the usual method of finding maximum and minimum values as to be able to calculate the proper speed for maximum work. The method seemed so powerful and important that I felt instinctively that there must already be some such branch of mathematics. I set to looking for it in Hutton and found the "Differential Calculus" which till then had

been no more than a name. It was like reading a novel, except the differentiation of a". Then it referred back to a whole page of series on the exponential theorem, which took my breath away and I left that theorem out until four years later, when visiting a son of Judge Rodgers, of Springfield, Ohio. He had been to college and his Loomis's "Calculus” had a simpler treatment, which removed all difficulty.

Before the war then there was the same chance as now for any one to learn the fundamentals of engineering science that had the aptitude, the purpose and the will.

After the war a regular course in college seemed more and more desirable provided my mental capacity was equal to it. One of my grandfather's maxims was that "a rolling stone gathers no moss," and it was hard to decide to sell my share in Smith and Webb and go to school again. To test my mental capacity, I set myself the task of learning verbatim the introduction to Loomis's "Calculus." That settled it and I had to choose between Harvard, Yale, Rensselaer and the University of Michigan. Catalogues were studied on the principle that the higher the entrance requirements the more the course and the diploma would be worth, so that admission granted the more entrance conditions the better, and being February there would be a semester's conditions anyhow. The University of Michigan was chosen as being the farthest from Philadelphia, so that if not suited any change would be toward home. Providence favored the choice and friends sent me letters of introduction to Dr. Gillespie at Ann Arbor

and later Bishop of Michigan, and to Professor De Volson Wood, which made it easier for me to get started and the sale of my business interests gave me much more than was needed for a college course.

Had your Secretary asked me to write about the difficulties of getting an education to-day, more could have been found to talk about, for it seems to me it was easier for the average student then than now. Then we finished geometry with the sphere and ellipsoid and went on to other and higher subjects, but now these simple bodies seem to dominate the college life of many students, who devote their energies mainly to violent practical discussion between themselves and other colleges over the simple position of these bodies in space. Blessed is he who works his way through college, with no time or money to waste.

As to the giants of those days, one is enough for so short a paper; indeed, a paper apiece would do them less than justice, and if more is wanted on this point it must be left to the future.

ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY OR CHEMICAL

ENGINEERING.

BY CHARLES F. MABERY,

Professor of Chemistry, Case School of Applied Science.

The school of science is founded on a two-fold assumption. First, that the individual receiving its benefits has the intellectual capacity to assimilate its training with adequate improvement of his mental condition, and with the corresponding capacity to acquire a store of knowledge that will be useful in the practice of some branch of applied science. For the satisfactory accomplishment of this design, the youth is permitted to devote the four best years of his life to such preparation for professional scientific employment, after he has received according to the wise judgment of those in charge of the scientific curriculum, a suitable preparation in the secondary schools. It is further assumed, that the individual has the ability to make an acceptable and successful use of his attainments, a feature of the first importance in modern education, since the present demand is for the man who can show results to the practical exclusion of his opposite. In this respect the institution, unfortunately, has no means of protecting itself from a waste of time and energy in educating an individual who can mentally comply with its requirements but who lacks inherent energy and ability to benefit by his attainments. It has no data whereby it may determine whether the