ENGINEERING SCHOOLS; SCHOOLS OF APPLIED SCIENCE; INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY. The ear liest establishment of this type of school occurred in France and Germany. In France, the Ecole des Pouts et Chausees, originally started in 1747 as a drawing school, was organized in 1760 for the training of engineers for the Government ser vice. In 1794 the celebrated Eeole Poly-technique was founded, primarily to fit men for the engi neer and artillery corps of the French Army. Not only has this school done much to set the standard of scientific training for the State ser vice, but from the fact that many of its gradu ates have engaged in private work, it has exerted a strong influence upon general industrial prac tice. Other special engineering schools have been established at different times by the French Gov ernment, and in 1329 the Ecole.Centrale des Arts et Metiers was founded as a private institution. The standards of this school have always been of the highest character. In Germany the first in stitution that approached a modern engineering school was the School of Mines founded at Frei berg in 1824, in order to develop engineers for working the mines in the neighborhood. Later in the century came the great development of pure science in the German universities, and following this came an era of equal activity in the field of applied science, which quickly resulted in the widespread establishment of polytechnics or Tcchnischc Hochschulea. Rivalry between the various States played a part in the spread of these schools, each striving to outdo the others. in magnificence of buildings and completeness ot equipment. These institutions, which often had their beginnings in secondary technical or trade schools, have now become foundations co ordinate with the universities, requiring equal academic preparation for admission, and repre senting specialized courses in engineering, archi tecture, industrial chemistry, and agriculture. Schools of this kind are uniformly supported by the governments of the various States, and pre sent a very highly developed organization. The splendid Technische Hoehschule at Charlotten burg, and similar institutions at Munich, Dres den, Darmstadt, and Hanover, are foremost ex amples of this class. Engineering schools of a high grade are maintained also by the govern ments of Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Russia. Great Britain awakened more slow ly to the need of technical education than other European countries. In 1881 a Royal Commis sion on Technical Instruction was appointed to investigate the entire subject. Among other re sults of this awakening was the foundation of the City and Guilds of London Institute, formed by a union of many of the wealthy corporations of the old London guilds. The scope of the Institute activities includes the support and management of three institutions in the city of London, and the direction of a system of examinations dealing with the work of technical classes throughout England and Wales, and represents a system that touches all the important phases of technical in struction with the single exception of the trade school. The most important of the three schools established in London, the Central 'Institution of the City and Guilds of London 'Institute, is a well-organized school of technology. The Institute gave £100,000 for buildings and equipment, and annually contributes £10,000 to its support.
Courses are provided for training engineers, ar chitects, industrial chemists, and technical teach ers. Other schools of an advanced character and several university departments of applied science have come to the front in Great Britain, promi nent among which are Owens College (q.v.), Manchester; Mason College. Birmingham; York shire College, Leeds; and Bradford Technical College.
In the United States the development of the school of technology has been exceedingly rapid, and has resulted in a type of institution that in some respects is the superior of any thing to be found abroad. The Rensselaer Poly technic Institute (q.v.), founded in 1824 by Ste phen Van Rensselaer as a school of theoretical and applied -,:cience, was the first establishment in this field. The work of this school has been almost exclusively devoted to the training of civil engineers. In response to the growing de mand for scientific instruction, the Sheffield Scientific School (1847) at Yale and the Lawrence Scientific School (1848) at Harvard were founded. Most of the technical schools, however, date from the later years of the Civil War. In 1861, through the efforts of Prof. William B. Rogers, the charter of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (q.v.) was granted, and in 1865 the first classes were organized. The Worcester Polytechnic Institute (q.v.) was opened to stu dents in 1867. This was the first school of tech nology in the United States to provide systematic instruction in workshop practice as an element of the course in mechanical engineering. In 1864 the first courses in the School of Mines, Columbia University, were organized, and from this have developed the several schools of applied science of that institution. In 1871 the Stevens Institute of Technology (q.v.) at Hoboken was opened. The beginnings of the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and the Mechanic Arts were made at Cornell University in 1872. and other courses in applied science were soon established there. In the next twenty years a large number of schools of the first rank were founded either as separate institutions or as departments of universities.
Notable among those of the first kind are Purdue University (q.v.), Lafayette, Ind.; Rose Poly technic (q.v.), Terre _Haute, Ind.; the Michigan School of Mines, Houghton, Mich.; the Case School of Applied Science (q.v.), Cleveland,Ohio; and the Armour Institute of Technology (q.v.), at Chicago, 111. Prominent among the second group are the engineering departments of Lehigh University, the Ohio State University, Wash ington University (Saint Louis), and the uni versities of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and California.
The history of these schools has been marked by the development of a number of very signifi cant features of instruction. To begin with, emphasis has from the first been placed upon the laboratory method of instruction, as opposed to sole reliance upon text hooks. Following the organization of instruction in pure science came that in applied science. Another feature that has characterized the instruction in many of these in stitutions is the degree of specialization in the instructing staff made possible by the large num bers of students. The courses of study of Ameri can schools of technology almost universally ex tend through four years.