rii kol #168 E CARNEGIE FOUNDATION OR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING A STUDY OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION BY CHARLES RIBORG MANN BULLETIN NUMBER ELEVEN 1918 • Digitized by GoogIe A STUDY OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION PREPARED FOR THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION OF THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING SOCIETIES BY CHARLES RIBORG MANN BULLETIN NUMBER ELEVEN e NEW YORK CITY 576 FIFTH AVENUE Digitized by Google D. B. UPDIKE • THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS • BOSTON Digitized by G4 le CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE V By the PRESIDENT OF THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION INTRODUCTION 1X By the JOINT COMMITTEE ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION of the National Engi- neering Societies PART I PRESENT CONDITIONS CHAPTER I. The Development of Engineering Schools in the United States 8 II. Aims and Curricula of the Early Schools 9 III. The Struggle for Resources and Recognition 15 IV. Development of the Curriculum into its Present Form 21 V. Methods of Administration in Engineering Schools 27 VI. Student Elimination and Progress 82 VII. Types of Instruction in Engineering Schools 87 PART II THE PROBLEMS OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION VIII. Admission 47 IX. The Time Schedule 54 X. Content of Courses 60 XI. Testing and Grading 67 XII. Shopwork 75 PART III SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS XIII. The Curriculum 87 XIV. Specialization 95 XV. Teachers 101 X VI. The Professional Engineer 106 Digitized by Google iv CONTENTS APPENDIX Objective Tests 117 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 127 INDEX 131 Digitized by GoOgle PREFACE THE present bulletin has been prepared under conditions somewhat different from other publications and bulletins of the Carnegie Foundation. This study of Engineer- ing Education arose out of the action of a joint committee on engineering education, representing the principal engineering societies. More than three years ago the Com- mittee had gathered a considerable amount of material bearing on the subject, and had come to the opinion that the work could be best carried out by the employment of some one trained in applied science, who should devote his entire attention to the study, working under the general direction of the Committee and in touch with it. The Carnegie Foundation agreed to appoint such a man and to bear the expense of the study. Professor Charles R. Mann, of the University of Chicago, undertook the work under these conditions, and the report which follows is the outcome of his studies under the general supervision of the Committee. The discussion of Professor Mann's report by the Committee forms the introductory chapter. It will be understood that the report did not contemplate a study or examination of the engineering schools of the United States, altho a limited number of typical schools were visited and studied by Professor Mann. The point of view from which the study was undertaken was the following: Fifty years ago, when the engineering schools of the United States were inaugurated, they began their work upon a definite teaching plan and one that had at least pedagogic consistency. The course was four years. The first two were spent mainly in the fundamental sciences—chemistry, phy- sics, mathematics, and mechanics; the last two years mainly in the applications of these sciences to theoretical and practical problems. In the half century that has passed this course of study has been overlaid with a great number of special studies intended to enable the student to deal with the con- stantly growing applications of science to the industries. While the original teaching plan remains as the basis of the four-year engineering curriculum, the courses given in most schools have been greatly modified in the effort to teach special subjects. As a result, the load upon the student has become continually heavier and bears unequally in different places and in different parts of the course. In addition there is a wide- spread feeling that under this pressure the great body of students fail to gain, on the one hand, a satisfactory grounding in the fundamental sciences; and on the other hand, do not fulfil the expectations of engineers and manufacturers in dealing with the practical problems with which they are confronted on leaving the engineering schools. It is out of this situation that the Committee of the Engineering Societies began its study, whose purpose is not so much to record the details of engineering teaching in the various schools as to examine the fundamental question of the right methods of teaching and of the preparation of young men for the engineering professions: in other words, to question anew the pedagogic solution of fifty years ago, to examine Digitized by Google n vi PREFACE the curriculum of to-day and the methods of teaching now employed, and to suggest in the light of fifty years of experience the pedagogic basis of the course of study intended to prepare young men for the work demanded of the engineer of to-day. In the effort to do this, the point of view of the teacher, of the engineer, and of the manufacturer and employer has been kept in view. While the report and the introduction of the Committee deal with many matters of detail in the formation and development of a suitable curriculum, and suggest vari- ous methods for simplifying the present courses of study, three questions of impor- tance are raised which are closely related to the primary purpose for which the engi- neering school exists. Professor Mann argues that the present arrangement, under which the fundamental sciences are taught in advance of their applications, is the wrong method of teaching, and that the engineering education will never be satisfactory until theory and prac- tice are taught simultaneously. For example, mathematics is the most important tool of the engineer. It is taught for two years in the engineering school in separate courses—higher algebra, coiirdi- nate geometry, the calculus, and mechanics. The splitting up of mathematics into sepa- rate courses is itself a source of weakness from the standpoint of the student's needs. He needs not studies nor recitations in these artificial divisions of mathematics, but a single course in mathematics illuminated and made alive at every step by applica- tions in the solutions of actual problems. Algebra, coordinate geometry, and the cal- culus are not separate and unrelated studies, but merely parts of the one subject of mathematics. As a consequence of this method of teaching Professor Mann urges that the engi- neering courses, as taught in the preliminary years, do not form sound criteria for judg- ing as to the ability of the student to do successful engineering work, and that many students are sent away from the technical school without having had any fair test as to their capacity for engineering practice or study. In the third place he gives the results of certain objective tests designed to throw light upon the fitness of the applicant to undertake engineering studies and practice. It is quite clear that the trial of these tests made hitherto is not sufficient to demon- strate their trustworthiness, but the question raised is an exceedingly interesting one. There are few devices connected with teaching more unsatisfactory than our present day examinations, whether used as tests for admission or as criteria of performance on the part of the student. In general these suggestions of Professor Mann, if carried out, would affect present day teaching of engineering in much the same way that Langdell's case method revo- lutionized the teaching of law. Langdell built the teaching of law exclusively and directly upon the study of cases. His notion was that the principles upon which the law rests are few in number, and that these could be best apprehended and mastered by the student in the direct Digitized by Gopgle PREFACE vii examination of typical cases. The number of such cases necessary to illustrate these principles he held to be very small in comparison with the overwhelming mass of law reports to which the student had formerly been directed as the basis of the study of the law in conjunction with textbooks. Langdell's method involved the working out by the student of the principles of the law from actual cases tried and decided in the courts. Law he conceived of as an Applied Science. Langdell's method is not infrequently referred to as the laboratory method of teaching law, conveying the impression that the case method of teaching law con- 'sists in transferring to the teaching of law the methods employed in the teaching of applied science. This statement has been the cause of no little confusion. The teach- ing of law by the case method presents only a remote analogy with the methods hitherto employed in teaching applied science. Applied science is not taught ordi- narily in the engineering school by the case method. On the contrary, the methods actually employed in teaching the so-called laboratory subjects do not differ appre- ciably from the methods of teaching literature or Latin. At present the student un- dertakes to learn a vast body of theory under the name of physics, mechanics, or chem- istry, illustrated in some measure in the laboratory, and then seeks later to select from this mass of knowledge the principles to be applied, for example in electrical engineering. The case method would proceed in directly the opposite manner. Taking up, for example, the dynamo as a "case,"—that is, as an illustration of physical laws in their actual concrete working,—it would proceed to analyze the machine for the purpose of discovering the fundamental physical or mechanical principles involved in its operation. It would lead the student from practical applications by analysis to a comprehension of theory, instead of from theory to applications as under present methods of teaching.