and in Hawaii and Porto Rico as well. There are, I believe, approximately 126 institutions in this country in which engineering education is offered. Of these 99 will be found to maintain units of the R. O. T. C. Four others have made application. The 99 units already established are divided amongst the various branches of the service approximately as follows:

Of these, the Engineering, the Signal Corps, and the Coast Artillery units absolutely require engineering courses and this will also be true of Ordnance and Motor Transport Corps units when they come to be established. Engineering institutions are, of course, also favorable for the units of all services.

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It has been determined that to supply the necessary technical officers for a citizens' reserve army of 5,000,000, annual increment of about 7,000 such officers must be provided. Modern warfare makes an insistent and constantly increasing demand for officers with technical training. It is of vital importance that these men should have if possible such training as only engineering colleges can afford. Before the war our engineering schools graduated annually about 4,300 young men. Of these a percentage would not, for physical and other reasons, be qualified for military service as officers of the Army. It is probably safe to say that not more than 3,500 could be counted on as eligible for commissions in the Officers' Reserve Corps each year. This number provides us with one half of those required. If even this half is to be made available it means that every student of engineering must be enrolled in the R. O. T. C. and encouraged to seek a commission in the Reserve Corps.

While the engineering schools render such a contribution to the country they should receive certain substantial benefits in return. It is particularly noticeable in the case of engineering courses that they do not require much modification in order to be of military value. It is necessary to partially shift the emphasis and to introduce concrete problems and applications of a military nature; this military subject matter will add interest and value to the courses without detracting from their general academic worth. The use of the engineering courses as a part of the training for a reserve officer will furthermore contribute an added incentive to the students, and will inculcate in them at the same time a sense of civic responsibility and national service.

The marked improvements in the morale, esprit, and general disciplinary bearing of the undergraduates in schools where the R. O. T. C. has become a part of the institutional life has been generally noted with satisfaction. It has been made evident that military instruction tends to produce better coördination of mind and body than athletics, it inculcates firmness and decision of character, respect for law and authority, quick thinking, and alertness of mind.

There are certain special problems which arise in connection with the introduction of the R. O. T. C. into engineering institutions and I should be very glad of your assistance in their solution. I shall confine myself to two. First, there is the problem of overloaded schedules. This is solved in part by incorporating in the military program, those subjects which form part of the academic program. There remains the necessity of providing a certain amount of time outside of the study periods for physical training. I think you will admit that a good physical set up, good carriage, powers of endurance, the habit of physical activity and self-care are essential to every man, civilian or soldier. It does not seem unreasonable to ask every young American at the formative period of his life to devote at least two hours per week to the development and establishment of good health. Secondly, the reduction or abandonment of practical military exercise dur

ing the academic year requires special emphasis upon summer camps. Several difficulties arise here. The student who depends on his summer earnings for funds with which to pay his way through college finds it difficult to give up his six weeks of the summer to camp training. In the case of some institutions, there is the added difficulty of continuous academic sessions, summer schools and summer shop work or engineering camps. I feel sure that we can in some way reach a solution of this difficulty; perhaps by combining all the camp work into a single three months' period, so as to leave all of the summers free but one, which might, if necessary be the summer after graduation.

These are difficulties with which we are contending and on these and on all other matters I shall be grateful for your advice and help.

THE PROBLEM METHOD AT THE ENGINEERING

SCHOOL, U. S. ARMY, CAMP A. A.
HUMPHREYS, VA.

BY MAJOR C. C. MORE AND CAPT. W. E. DUCKERING,

U. S. Army.

The primary purpose of The Engineering School at Camp A. A. Humphreys, Va., is to stimulate and encourage the student in the exercise of his power of independent thought, reasoning and judgment, and to increase his ability to cope with new situations when confronted with them in engineering practice, rather than merely to provide him with a fund of engineering information and abstract theory, valuable as the latter are as adjuncts in his training. This purpose was laid down as a guiding principle at the very beginning, by the Chief of Engineers, Major General W. M. Black, and was emphasized continually by Colonel V. P. Peterson, Commandant of The Engineer School. In the half-year ending June, 1919, under the personal direction of Colonel Earl North and with the enthusiastic coöperation of the instructors, this object was attained in the Department of Mechanics of Engineering, by the use of methods similar to those which have been in successful operation during the past six or seven years at the University of Washington, Seattle. (The Washington method of teaching mechanics is the outgrowth of several years of experimentation carried on with the enthusiastic encouragement and support of Professor A. H. Fuller, then dean of the College of Engineering. A brief description of this method is given in an article by W. E. Duckering, in Engineering Education, May, 1917.)

The major portion of the classroom work was devoted to stimulating mental effort on the part of the student, and to training him in practical methods of attacking, analyzing,

and solving engineering problems, instead of being devoted to the usual methods which attempt to cover a set amount of text-book material, and center instruction around that purpose. The student was encouraged to use his own judgment and to make use of ideas which had grown out of his own previous experience. An endeavor was made to lay the foundation for future effort within the student himself, rather than in a text which he could carry under his arm. Every encouragement was offered to the development of what may be called the "engineering mind.'

In this method there are two definite phases of the work: First, the phase in which study problems are used, and second, that in which drill or training problems are used. Study problems were designed for purpose of analysis rather than synthesis, with concrete engineering situations used as a basis. Where feasible, the objective ideas corresponding to technical terms used by engineers were presented by means of visits to actual engineering structures. In this manner the students were enabled to more easily visualize and understand the technical language of the engineer. For example, a bridge was visited before the first study problem was taken up. The names and functions of the various parts were discussed, and the question was raised as to the path traversed by a load placed upon the bridge, as it is transmitted through the members of the bridge, from its point of application to the ground. This introduced one of the fundamental principles of engineering thought into the minds of the students at an early stage in their training. This visit to the bridge was not made for the purpose of analyzing that particular structure but to introduce the subject of structures in general. The subsequent class-room work dealt with a different type of bridge and during the course many types of bridges were used in problems, so that the student would not be limited, in his idea of bridges in general, by the one that he happened to inspect first.

In the classroom, the first definite study problem dealt with