The Education of the American Engineer

Abstract

THE growing success of American and German manufacturers in the international competition for the world's markets has in recent years commanded alike the earnest attention of our industrial leaders and of our educational, authorities. As numerous articles in these columns have testified, many serious attempts have been made during the past few years by expert observers from this country to try to discover the precise connection between foreign industrial success and the educational systems of the countries the competition of which has been brought home to us most decidedly; and the greatest attention has perhaps been given to the manner in which foreign engineers are prepared in schools and colleges for their life's work. It is little more than a year ago that Prof. W. E. Dalby laid before the Institution of Naval Architects and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers the results of his commission from Mr. Yarrow to report on the training of engineers in other ocountries, and as recently as May 5 the report of the Mosely Educational Commission, which dealt at some length with the same subject, was reviewed in NATURE. The most recent contribution to this important subject is a paper by Dr. Mullineux Walmsley read before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and published in the Journal of that society for May. Dr. Walmsley was given leave of absence by the governing body of the Northampton Institute, of which he is principal, and was instructed to investigate the methods of higher engineering education in the United, States and Canada, and more particularly the effect, so far as it could be ascertained, of the education on the engineering industries, the views of the great manufacturers and employers on the value of the products turned out by the schools, and the attitude generally taken up by them towards these schools. The paper embodying the chief conclusions at which Dr. Walmsley arrived and the more important of his observations runs to fifty pages, and a few typical examples only can be given in the space available.