Chemistry in its Relations to Engineering 1

Abstract

THE engineer of fifty years ago can hardly be said to have received any special educational training; he forced himself to the front in virtue of his qualities and industry alone. But the youth who to-day intends to become an engineer feels it wise, if not necessary, to decide where he shall receive, not only his general, but also his engineering education. While he was at school he will have learnt much about the simpler and more general laws and facts of mechanics and natural science, both by description and by practical work in the laboratory and in the workshop; he will also have attained to some proficiency in mathematics, in one or more of the modern languages, in thawing and in other usual school subjects. When he passes on to his college career his knowledge of these subjects will undergo expansion in the class-room and especially in the laboratory and workshop. It is satisfactory to find that many of our leading schools for training engineers exist in connection with institutions in which pure and applied mathematics, natural science and modern languages are efficiently taught even in their higher stages. The engineering student is thus afforded the opportunity of following up the higher study of any one of these subjects, if his taste and energy lead him to wish him to do so. But even his ordinary course of instruction always includes the opportunity of obtaining lecture and laboratory instruction in chemistry.