Purdue University - Debris Yearbook (West Lafayette, IN)

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of all kinds. This year has seen the following most notable additions: a number of lathes; a planer; a milling machine; a grinder; and a turret lathe. Thus the department is alwavs up to date. A thorough course of lectures in shop practice is given and regular examinations are held upon the same. The great importance of this department is sometimes not fully appreciated by the student until he reaches his junior and senior years. Then it is when difficult problems in design engage his attention, that he realizes that it is his training in the shops that enables him to surmount them. Many may argue that a school cannot supply the shop knowledge, but whatever the case may be, there is little question, so far as the engineer is concerned, but that well directed shop training makes it infinitely easier for him to master the details. 56

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DEPARTMENT OF PRACTICAL MECHANICS URING the first two years of all the engineering courses, the student is required to put in a large portion of his time in the shops and draughting room. The course is outlined with the purpose of giving the student a clear and accurate notion ot the methods employed in practice. While it is true that much, if not all, of the work ot this department would do honor to any well regulated shop, it is nevertheless not intended to make a thorough mechanic of the student taking the course. After having completed his shop work the student is able to see at a glance the entire history of any piece of machinery. Not only can he trace out the different processes in its production, but he is enabled to point out and correct anv faultv design that mav tend to decrease the facility of making. It is unnecessary to outhne in detail the course. It will suffice to say, that everything advances by logical steps, the same as in actual practice. First the drawing room, then the pattern shop, next the foundry and forge room, and finally the machine shop, where the parts are finished and assembled. The familiarity with machinery, is not to be overlooked in summing up the results of this course. There are constantly being added to our already splendid equipment, new machinery 55

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OERARTMENT OF MATHEMATfCS HATEVER branch of work we iTia ' take up in the future, it is quite a settled fact that the man of success will be the man that has learned to think. If a college course has accom- plished no more than to teach one to think it has well served its purpose, and if it can be said that any one subject has done most toward developing these powers it can trulv be said of mathematics. This course is particularly strong at Purdue, being presided over by a corps of professors eminently fitted for the work. The course is laid out about as follows : During the first two years the students in all courses are required to take plane and solid geometry, higher algebra and trigonometry. In addition to the above named studies those in the engineering course take up analytical geometry, and, in their junior year, calculus. This ends the regular work in mathematics, but electives are offered to those 57