MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
Degree of B.S.: civil engineering, mechan ical engineering, mining engineering and metal lurgy, architecture, chemistry, electrical engi neering, biology and public health, physics, gen eral science, chemical engineering, sanitary engineering, geology, naval architecture and marine engineering, electro-chemistry and engi neering administration. Further specialization is permitted within these courses in the Massa chusetts Institute of Technology, for example, in mechanical engineering along the lines of engine design, locomotive engineering, mill engineering and steam turbine engineering.
A summary of the requirements for admis sion and the curricula for graduation, for the course leading to a degree in mechanical engi neering in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech nology, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Illinois will serve as an illustration of the standardized technological course in an institution of the highest class. The specifications for admission are given in terms of units (one unit is approximately one fourth of the work of a high school year).
The proportions between shop work, or practice work, and theoretical work in the cur riculum of techniCal schools, vary widely in different institutions and at different times. The most progressive have abandoned the re quirement of many hours of manipulative laboratory work and the production of com pleted machines, and now require sufficient shop work for an understanding of the processes and tools, but without insistence upon the attain ment of skill. On the other hand there .is stronger and stronger emphasis upon the mas tering of the fundamental subjects and theory behind the technical courses. Many strong institutions like those whose curricula are given above require also a considerable proportion of liberal, non-technical study in order to de velop the man as well as the engineer, so that the student who graduates from the institution shall understand the importance of both the human and the technological factors which enter into the practice of his profession. In place of the narrow technical education of 1890 or 1900 with slender foundation in the sci ences and the inclusion of large quantities of shop practice, technical schools now seek to develop at the same time an accurate working knowledge of the principles and practices of engineering subjects and personal qualities of judgment, initiative, responsibility and an understanding of men. Such a curriculum as that noted above in engineering administration requires quite as much knowledge of °human engineering') as of mechanical or chemical engi neering.
The co-operative type of technical education, sometimes known as the Cincinnati co-operative plan, is the most recent attempt to co-ordinate theory and practice under conditions approxi mating those of the shop and of the field. First formulated in 1899 by Hermann Schneider when instructor at Lehigh University, it had its be ginning in 1906 at the University of Cincinnati which established under his direction a co-oper ative agreement with industrial plants, railways, etc., by which students who are admitted to the
university, as are other students, work on a schedule by which, during biweekly periods, one-half of the class is at the university, and one-half is in the factory. During the next pe riod of two weeks the sections change about. The co-operative course is of five years' dura tion, 11 months in the.year. While•in factory or shops students are regular employees, receive regular pay and must report satisfactory serv ice in the shops as well as in the classrooms in order to be continued in the university. The co-operative plan has been adopted at other technical institutions, and in some cases by sec ondary institutions, which are advantageously located near shops and industrial plants of vari ous kinds, with which co-operative arrange ments may be made. It is claimed that this combination of scientific and theoretical study at the university with practical experience re sults in a better mastery of facts and of man ual skill since it is secured under conditions which compel a maximum of independent think ing along with an appreciation of the social significance of the studies and the practice.
Technical education has its upward reach into graduate courses for professional degrees like Civil Engineer (C.E.), and Master of Civil Engineering (M.C.E.) ; organizations for re search like the Engineering Experiment Station of the University of Illinois, the Federal Forest Products Laboratory located at the University of Wisconsin and the Mellon Institute of the University of Pittsburgh; and investigations in subjects like industrial chemistry leading to the Ph.D. in great graduate schools which are not organically parts of a technological college, as at Cornell University and the University of Chi cago. The steady emphasis of the stronger technical schools upon investigation and con tributions to the solution of intricate new problems is one of the latest and most signifi cant aspects of technical education in the United States and in Europe.
Bibliography.—Annual Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education (especially, 1916, chapter on `Engineering Edu cation," C. R. Mann) ; Proceedings of the Soci ety for the Promotion of Engineering Educa tion; Bulletin of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Study of Engineering Education,' C. R. Mann, 1918) ; Bulletins of the United States Bureau of Edu cation, especially 1916, No. 31, °The Co operative System of Education,' C. W. Park; 1913, No. 4, °Present Standards of Higher Edu cation in the United States,* G. E. MacLean. Catalogues of Massachusetts Institute of Tech nology, University of Illinois, Rensselaer Poly technic Institute, University of Cincinnati.
KENtatic C. BABCOCK, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sci ences, University of Illinois.