Although there is a great difference in the scope of the educational work in the technical college and the most advanced of trade schools, yet there is the similarity that both deal with mechanical appliances, but with this distinction, that the men of the latter will in practice have to do with their own hands their own work, while those of the former will direct other hands to do it. It is not essential, therefore, that a technical college should carry manual training to the same point of development as the highest grade of trade school does. In the education of the engineer there should be enough manual training to make him understand how things are made, to sufficiently familiarize him with casting and forging, hand and machine tools, engines and their adjustment, the winding of dynamos and the connections of electrical devices, so as to give him the requisite knowledge of how to design, how the engine should be used and how construction results can be accomplished. In short, to make him conversant with principles rather than to develop manual dexterity.

This brings us to the question of the practical value of technical training itself and whether it is better that young men who are to follow a professional life in engineering should get their education in the office of an older practitioner, as has been the custom in England, and is still to a large extent the universal custom in teaching the allied subject of architecture, or to gain the same end by passing through a technical college, the practice in America and Germany. To quote the growth of technical colleges is not necessarily a rational argument, but it certainly goes to show popular appreciation. In 1870 there were less than half a dozen institutions in the United States where a good techni-cal education could be had, and the number of students was small. Today there are no fewer than 43 such institutions, with over 23.000 students enrolled.

Before considering the practical value of technical education, let us define what is an engineer and what the vocation known as engineering. The word

"engineer " is used here in its broadest sense, including all branches of professional work in applied science or construction. The word " engineer " is not, as is popularly supposed, derived from the word engine, a machine. There were engineers before steam was practically applied, or before the development of engines in the modern acceptation of the term began. Both the words "engineer" and "engine " come from the same derivation, the Latin "ingenium," whose prime meaning is*' natural quality, character, genius," and it in turn is derived from " gegno"-to produce. The engineer is, therefore, a man of " natural quality " - one capable of producing.

The profession of engineering, in its broadest sense, was defined by Thomas Tredgold, when founding the Institution of Civil Engineers, as being "the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man." It is difficult to imagine a field of work of higher order, of wider scope, and for which a more complete technical training is essential.

The powers of nature, those great and mighty forces that surround us, that sustain and govern not merely our own small earth but the whole universe; powers that are without limit as to time and space, whose laws never vary, whose manifestations may undergo change but which never suffer loss, and which are the only things that we have cognizance of that are of perfect truth - these forces in all their might, from the great energy of the engine capable of lifting mighty weights, or the violence of an explosive rending mountains of rock, to the gentleness of the watch spring in your pocket, regulated to a variation of less than a second a day, are by the study of the engineer controlled and directed for the use and convenience of his fellow men.

How little did Smeaton foresee the development of civil work, to which he applied such a designative title! How little did Tredgold realize the far-reaching effects of a calling to which, it is true, he gave unlimited bounds! The responsibility of educated men who are to follow Smeaton, who are to realize the ideals of Tredgold, who are to understand, direct and make useful the powers of nature, rests upon such as you who make up this audience. It seems but necessary to repeat that definition of engineering which in simplicity of language, in directness of thought, in broadness of conception, has never been excelled, to at once answer the question whether such education is better given in special technical colleges or in the office of someone practitioner. What are these powers of nature? They are not only those that we see or feel every moment - light, heat, steam, gravity, but also those studied by the electrician, by the chemist, by the physicist, by the geologist, and by the other disciples of pure science; those intricate forces that, whether matter consists of many or few elements, give it such a manifold and diversified character.

When the total of human information of these several branches of science was comparatively limited, when the engineer could depend largely upon precedent, when progress was made by short and careful steps, it was possible for a sufficient education to be acquired under the tutelage of a single man, leaving it to the inherent genius of the pupil to self-develop. With, however, the vast and constantly broadening field of modern scientific knowledgo, it is quite impossible for one man, or such a limited group of men as one office may contain, to impart to the young student the requisite instruction in all the properties of the forces and materials of nature that he should have as a general framework of his professional education.

Although engineering, like other learned professions, is divided into separate branches, nevertheless the modern engineer must know something of machine design, of electricity and its practical application, of hydraulics, transportation, structural constraction together with physics, geology and metallurgy. If such a structure be built on the solid foundation of a good education in the liberal arts, so much the better will it be, and obviously such a preparation can only be given in an institution with a corps of specialists. It seems a contradiction to say that as any profession becomes more specialized, at the same time it becomes broader, but as a matter of fact, the range of subjects to be studied does become wider. It is not necessary, in fact it is impossible, for any one to become expert in all branches; yet so interdependent are the several divisions, so interlocked are the various nature forces that some knowledge should be had of many subjects and much knowledge of few.