Boston Paper - Some Thoughts and Suggestions on Technical Education - Presidential Address

FOR a great part of the progress of the world we are indebted to the works of engineers. It is to them that we owe our means of rapid transportation, our canals, our railroads, our bridges, many of our automatic machines, and most of those appliances which, by facili tating or decreasing the amount of human labor to be expended and by utilizing the great forces of nature, have made the present progress of the world possible. Their education is a matter of momentous interest to the whole civilized world. I have, therefore, thought that some discussion of the theory upon which their education should be based would be of interest to this body, and have ventured a few reflections and suggestions upon the subject. The word education, in its original signification, meant the draw ing out of a man what there was in him. In our common schools the practical work of education consists in putting into the brain a larger number of facts than can be retained, which are consequently more or less understood and digested. It ordinarily consists simply of teaching a round of abstractions or facts which when not assim ilated are not only useless to the individual, but generate careless habits of thought and make more or less untruthful, unfaithful or unsuccessful men. In most of our schools a procrustean system is adopted; all are made to advance upon one general plan, the quick being kept back and the slow dragged on at a rate too great for their power of comprehension. Until within a very few years it has been a theory in common school education that the brain alone should be developed, and that little or no attention need be paid to the train-