Stevens Institute of Technology - Link Yearbook (Hoboken, NJ)

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5 R. Inaugural Address NYONE surveying the field of engineering education, and the relation thereof to the profession as actually practiced, finds himself confronted by two facts. The first of these facts is the amount and variety of specialization expected, even of undergraduates, and provided for in the multiplicity of curricula or courses of study that are to be found in the catalogs of our engineering schools. You will remember, that in medieval education there was the trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, and that these seven branches of knowledge were supposed to have each its proper place in the education of every scholar. So, too, engineering, that modern, efficient, all-serving daughter of the great mother called science, that is herself a thousand years younger than trivium and quadrivium-this engineering must apparently divide itself into its own trivium of civil, mechanical, and electrical disciplines, and many schools add the further quadrivium of mining and metallurgy, chemical engineering, sanitary and municipal engineering, and industrial engineering. But there is one fundamental difference. Nowadays, it takes seven different scholars to compass the whole new septivium, whereas one sufficed for the old. Nor is this all. In many schools, some or all of these fundamental branches of our subject are further divided and subdivided into a maze of options from among which the engineering matrieulate, or possibly his more mature brother the ripencd Freshman or Sophomore, is expected to select that royal road best calculated to lead him directly to the goal of his ambitions and the field of his life work. My second fact in the present engineering situation, namely, the frequency with which one finds an apparent contrast between the nature of the field in which an academically-trained engineer has, in fact, won distinction, and the label of the training that preceded and, we may hope, prepared the way, for his success. Among my own acquaintances, 'there is, for example, a man who took his degree in electrical engineering and then proceeded to win for himself a reputation in a line of work that lies in the bordcrland between chemical engineering and metallurgy, with scarcely a trace of electricity, or even of electro-chemistry in the whole picture. Two other graduates, one in electrical and one in mechanical engineering, are now teaching various branches of industrial engineering in the very institutions that once, so carefully, selected different labels for them. A younger man, obviously destined for brilliant accomplishments in power plant engineering, was trained and diplomaed as a boat-builder. A graduate in mechanical engineering, who even started to teach that subject, is now the electrification expert of a great railroad. Another mechanical graduate is now in responsible charge of the installation of all the electrical equipment in a great city subway. And still another has just completed a notable bridge-building project. On the other hand, one of the most sagacious of practicing mechanical engineers, and a much sought consultant in that branch of, presumably, civil cn- gineering which deals with the estimation and development of water powers, had an academic training that was supposed to produce a chemist. Such cases as these could be multiplied indefinitely. Do they not indicate clearly that it makes very little difference whether our sophisticated Freshman chooses wisely, or merely by drawing a slip of paper out ofa hat, which one of the forty-three available disciplines he shall subject himself to? ls it not proved by such cases that almost any curriculum in engineering will suffice to start almost any thoroughly competent man on the road to success in almost any field, provided only that the said curriculum is thoroughly grounded on fundamental principles? And that its spirit throughout is characterized by that sincerity of mind, that in- stinct for analyzing every problem into its fundamental elements, that respect for facts and for reasoned judgments based on facts, that appreciation of tl1e art of assembling happily chosen combinations of money, materials, and men for the prosecution of activities beneficial to mankind, that are of the essence of all engineering and of many other kinds of work as well? But, you may say, these men succeeded in spite of the iuappropriateuess of their academic training, and would have been cven more successful if, by a better fortune, they could have been put through the right mill in their youth. Perhaps-and then again, perhaps not. Of course, there are many factors contributing ' 25

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Q gt L. .Y 9 3 1 nliiinllulllllllllllfllll 1? . , W ... ................ ..... 5 ' ' - -Nm --- 'T ', TZ ' if , if ' ' H Eilllllllllllllllil llllllllll 21 u 1 15 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIxwlllllilllllllllll' ,fi miiigiiigiiiiwi iiiii i iiiiii i Ill I.G3.!li.5ll.!9PA9'e iiiiiiiiiiiii iII1uuuuunuuuuhulluiuuw .tif if' 1 W? . f - E4 ai-G,:3j, . vp it .ZV.Y,,, 1 ' 71 ik 'N ,lP'42i' ' -x ' 1 TUX I l' 'TTQL PH' 1 .xi - ' get ' i ' ,frfW'iA Iki:' niinigfnn - 1 V I A-victim:-1 The Alexander C. Humphreys Memorial N the front entrance to the Administration Building stands a bronze tablet which bears the I inscri tion, Alexander Crombie Humphreys, 1851-1927, President of Stevens, 1902- 1927. 'Ilhe relief portrait on the tablet is the likeness of President Humphreys, bareheaded, clothed in academic robes, and seated with a scroll in his.hand. This work of sculpture was done by Trygve Hammer, who is perhaps best known for his Theodore Roosevelt at Tenafly, N. J., which attracted muc favorable comment last summer. The memorial was unveiled at tl1e inau uration of President Harvey N. Davis on Novem- ber 23, 1928. The Class of '81, of which the late President Humphreys was a member, donated the gift. Mr. John Aspinwall, '81, made the speech of presentation. In giving the accc tance s ecch, Mr. Alten S. Miller, '88, told of the work that Dr. Humphreys had done for Sllevens dliring his twenty-five years as President. Little Peggy Loud, great-grandchild of Dr. Humphreys, was supposed to ull the cord, but she got lost at the psychological moment. Her father, Sherman Loud, Slevens, '20, grandson of Dr. Humphreys, performed the ceremony instead. The Alexander C. Humphreys Chair of Economics of Engineering N March 6, 1929, President Harvey N. Davis announced, at the New York State Cham- O ber of Commerce, the contribution of 350,000 toward the endowment of the Alexander C. Humphreys Chair of Economics of Engineering. At that time the endowment was only one-fifth completed, but a special donation of the salary required for the first year made it possible to appoint an occupant at once. One-half of the present endowment fund was given y Arthur G. Glasgow, Stevens, ,85, of London, England, who was a former business partner of the late President Hum hreys. The other contributors are: John Aspinwall, J. B. Klumpp, E. S. Mott, George Giblls, Albert Blum, Henry L. Blum, Robert Boettger, Theodore Boettger, Frederick A. Muschenheim, and Greer, Crane and Webb. William Duane Ennis, graduate of Stevens in 1897, was ap ointed to the professorship. Professor Ennis is at resent Director of Research of the Teclinical Advisory Corporation of New York. Recentlly, he completed a comprehensive industrial survey of the State of Virginia, and of late years he has made similar surveys of fifteen other communities including the Mohawk Valley, the Port of Mobile, and the City of Cincinnati. Professor Ennis is by no means new to Stevens students, for during the past year he has served as a special lecturer in the College. 24

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il, . 3, i t ii rw ' mlm llllillliii mms , ffiiiirhii l- - - i - ' ngsmaia r asf t!iEMiiEl tt'lllu ttna uai.H,Zg to every success, the chiefof which are usually such elements of character as industry, loyalty, and common sense. But, insofar as the appropriateness or inappropriateness of their academic training affected the result at all, I am inclined to assert that these gentlemen, and their hundreds of thoroughly admirable fellow misfits in the engineering world, have succeeded not at all in spite of, but, in part at least, actually because of the apparent contrast between type of training and type ofjob that I have been emphasizing. In making this statement, I am not trying to phrase a spectacular paradox. l' am trying to formulate a fundamental principle of professional education that is so inherent in the trend of the times that it is being brought out in different ways by a surprisingly diverse group of observers. You will remember that Josh Billings once said, It's fine to know a lot of things, especially if some of them are so. Similarly, I might phrase the principle I am speaking ofin the words, A youngster had better not know too many things, even if all of them are so g in other words, there is real danger in our teaching these students of ours too much about the specific careers ahead of them. Why waste time in an engineering school learning details, descriptions of processes and of machines, tricks of technique of hand or brain, or even miscellaneous facts, all of which, insofar as one wants them at all, can be learned far more effectively on the job? Why not devote one's time in the school in learning what one may never have another chance to learn, namely, fundamental principles, and how to think? And always re- member that ignorance, plus willingness to learn, plus ability to learn, is a far better basis on which to establish appropriate and satisfactory human relationships with one's own organization, and with the world in general, than is knowing a lot of things, even if all of them are so. My conception of the educational opportunity which the undergraduate engineering schools of today would do well to offer to their students must be, by now, fairly clear to you. There will not be a multiplicity of more or less specialized undergraduate curricula, each designed to train for some one variety of engineering career. There will be one curriculum. And in this curriculum the emphasis will be placed on the basic dis- ciplines that underlie all engineering careers: there will be plenty of mathematics, physics and chemistry: there will be mechanics in all its branches, including the deplorably few fundamental principles that are yet known as to the nature and serviceableness of the materials of enginecringg stress will be laid on thermo- dynamics and in particular on the two laws of thermodynamics and on how to use them as a vital part of one's thinkingg there will be electrodynamics with emphasis on the fundamental principles of both direct and alternating current phenomenag at least a foundation will be laid in hydro and aerodynamics: and there will be thorough training in the various arts of mensuration, and in the still greater art of feeling instinctively the appropriate degree of skepticism as to the results. Many useful facts will be automatically stored away in the studcnt's mind if his teachers will merely adhere strictly to the practice of basing every problem or examination question on real data. But there will be a great dearth of survey courses designed primarily to impart facts. Throughout, the method of attack, rather than the answer, would be the significant thing. This curriculum will also emphasize the non-technical, purely human side of an engineer's life, by offering an appropriate amount of history and literature, of economies and government, of psychology, of philosophy and ethics and even of music and art, and by stressing the economic and human sides ofengineering itself in every available way. And finally, this curriculum will bc such as to develop in each individual student, to at least an acceptable degree, the various arts of self-expression and of communication, including not only the sketching pencil and the drawing pen, without which so many engineers are hopelessly inarticulate, but particularly the written and the spoken word. Preferably, all of these arts of expression will be developed by patient, long continued, informal, individual guidance, extending throughout the student's four years, and intimately related to the ordinary activities of his academic life, rather than by a multiplicity of special, artificial activities called plates, themes and orations. There will, I say. be only one unspecialized undergraduate curriculum rather than seven or seventeen or forty-three specialized onesg and the one curriculum will prepare, in one sense,for all sorts of engineering careers, and in another sense for no career whatever. That is, it will not attempt to teach the details of any one of many branches. Its graduates won't know much but they will have the saving grace of knowing that 26 -