sories, such as tires, fuels, lubricants and mechanical devices. The writer is of the opinion that automotive engineering subjects should be given through the medium of lecture laboratory and field courses.

Highway transport engineering courses may be offered by technical institutions by utilizing several educational agencies. First, the courses may constitute third and fourth year options in the civil, mechanical or general engineering curriculum. The fundamentals of the special subjects outlined in paragraphs (1) to (6) may be given in six three-hour semester courses. A review of the curricula of the three engineering courses mentioned indicates that eighteen semester hours may be assigned in the third and fourth years to highway transport engineering without eliminating any fundamental engineering courses.

Second, a complete highway transport engineering curriculum may be arranged similar to the curricula of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering courses. Such a course should include all of the humanistic, pure and applied science, business, engineering and special courses previously enumerated. In this connection, it should be pointed out that a fouryear course devoted to highway transport engineering and highway engineering would provide an admirable foundation for men entering either field of engineering. Broadly trained highway engineers should have, in addition to the training in the fundamental humanistic, scientific and technical courses, a knowledge of highway engineering, of the vehicles using highways, and of methods of highway transport.

Third, technical institutions may offer graduate engineering courses, which should be advanced specialized courses designed primarily for men who have taken a first degree in arts, science or engineering, who have acquired a knowledge of the fundamental principles upon which such advanced courses are based, and who have had a certain amount of experience in engineering work. It is evident that such courses should be given under such conditions that it will be practicable for engineers and others engaged in highway trans

port to take advantage of the opportunities offered. While the usual type of one-term or one-year graduate course may prove of value in some institutions, the writer is of the opinion, based on an experience with graduate courses for practicing engineers extending over a period of five years, that courses given in a concentrated form in short periods constitute the most efficient method of meeting the demand of practicing engineers for advanced technical training. As a definite indication of the demand for such courses, it is of interest to note that during a period of five years there were 229 registrations in the graduate course in highway engineering at Columbia University in which all subjects were given in periods of from two to three weeks.1

While advocating the introduction of undergraduate and graduate courses in highway transport engineering, the writer wishes to place himself on record as opposed to educational institutions offering such courses unless their financial resources are such that they can secure specialists to give such courses and provide the necessary laboratory and field equip

Also it should be emphasized that duplication of specialized courses in institutions located in the same geographical section of the country should be avoided. If this recommendation was universally adopted, educational resources could be conserved with resulting economy and material increase in the efficiency of specialized courses. It is believed that the high cost of the necessities of life with the resulting demand that salaries of educators be materially increased will force many institutions to seriously review their educational programs and to determine the fields in which they can best serve their communities and most efficiently fulfill their mission in the nation's educational system.

1 For a further discussion of this subject, see the writer's paper entitled "Graduate Courses for Practicing Engineers," 1916 PROCEEDINGS, Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education.

THE VITALIZING PRINCIPLE IN EDUCATION.

EDWARD J. KUNZE,

Professor and Head, Dept. of Industrial Engineering, The Pennsylvania State College.

Were we to seek an answer to the question, what is the fundamental impelling force in intellectual advancement, we would doubtless find it in "man thinking," for man thinking is man progressing, man developing, man perfecting. The act of perfecting is primarily a volitional act. The question then resolves itself into, how may we best cause man to first conceive of the real value of this endowment and then to find continued delight in its exercise.

Engineering has long been known as an attractive subject. Engineering students usually work harder than those taking a general course of study such as one in the liberal arts especially when the latter is taken with no specific aim in view. Engineering students do not burn their books nor do they leave their lecture notes behind them when they are graduated from the college or university: There is a spirit of greater permanency surrounding their work. It appears that engineering teachers have, as a rule, rested on this important advantage over general courses of study. Engineers are not in the habit of analyzing their work as teachers in the same logical and scientific manner that they apply to their engineering problems: They are less rational and more empirical in their teaching methods. Dr. Mann* makes the statement that of the group of representative colleges investigated in his report, "38 per cent. of the professors spend no time at all in study to increase their understanding of educational methods," "only 2 per cent. spending more than 10 per cent. of their time in this manner." This condition is "A Study of Engineering Education,'' p. 101.

not strange when we realize that the engineer is not required to spend a single hour of special training for teaching in order to receive a teaching position. Most engineers assume the vocation of teaching either directly after graduation from a technical college or after spending a term of years in professional practice. Selections for directing positions are usually based solely on success in private practice. Frequently this very success draws attention and energy away from the work of teaching. Was it not Dr. Swain who first warned us that we must be first teachers and then engineers?

The sciences of education and of psychology are almost entirely devoted to the consideration of the child. Genetic psychology should certainly be studied by all who would profess a knowledge of these subjects but why stop with adolescence? Every college of education maintains a course in general methods. Why not offer, in some of these colleges, courses in which a critical study is made of laboratory methods in engineering and of similar subjects that are of direct interest to engineering teachers and in which actual and reliable tests could be made of different phases of engineering teaching and results arrived at in that scientific manner which becomes an engineer and thus enable the teaching engineer to secure a definite basis for his method of teaching. Especially well could this be done during the summer session. Dr. Mann has pointed out* the absolute necessity for the scientific construction of future engineering curricula. This opens a new and fruitful field for experimental psychology and experimental pedagogy and it is believed that soon some alert and progressive university will accept the opportunity usefulness in this line offers.

Whenever the shortcomings of our work in teaching engineering have been bared the concern seems to have been almost altogether with individual courses of study or with the teachers; too little concern, it seems to the speaker, has been evidenced with the student to determine how he functions or rather just why he does not function. Regarding *"A Study of Engineering Education,'' pp. 56 and 57.

students, Emerson says "we do not give them a training as if we believed in their noble nature." It is not sufficient to fill the student with facts nor is this primarily very important. Importance rests in the interconnection of facts. The student should add some of his own individuality to the world's stock of ideas. He should be led to make over what he hears and reads into a product of his own. It should become a part of himself. He does not really know a subject unless he can use it. He should be led to have opinions, to state them and to put them into action. We must develop the thought that is vague in the student's mind: The thought may be sure but it needs some nuture, some open channel for action. "The measure of the teacher's success, says Osborne, "is the degree in which ideas come, not from him but from his pupils." Dr. Swain in his excellent little treatise on "How to Study," addressed to the student, shows clearly that he had this idea in mind.

We come back now to our original question: How may we secure student-thinking"? It does not matter materially whether that thinking is done along one channel or another so long as it shall be "productive thinking" as Huxley puts it, or "inventive thinking" as Eliot expresses it, or as Professor Angel defines reasoning, "purposive thinking." The problem before us is to cause the student to acquire those faculties that permit him to examine data with discrimination and apprehend facts, to make precise comparisons and see existing relations, to draw accurate inferences and comprehend all the conditions involved, to exercise judgment and to solve problems. In order that he may do these things, we must first cause him to become interested in mental occupation in order that he may concentrate his attention. He must receive some motive power to cause him to acquire a degree of enthusiasm. We attend to that in which we are interested; that which has excited in us a motive for its consideration. All voluntary activities are directed toward some definite end, the attainment of which we consider of value. Long and hard consecutive thinking absolutely requires some