the men and the work. Since the war that system has been developed and carried out in much greater detail.

The different services in the Army were often confused, the same type of work being called by different names. A standard terminology is being worked out. Instead of 565 titles of various specialized jobs on the Army's occupational index, there will be something like 170, each one accompanied by specifications of the skill, knowledge, and personal qualifications required to do the job properly. Standard terminology and specification are the fundamental basis of any training system which the Army must develop for procuring or producing the specialists needed in the military establishment.

The description of such a standard terminology and such specifications in the industrial work and in the engineering world might be of like use to the training program. There are at the present time over 11,000 different terms used by industry defining various types of specialties. The statistics gathered by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics are in consequence difficult of classification. We do not know to-day how many machinists there are, nor exactly what a machinist is. We should attempt to get, in civilian life, some sort of a standard terminology with reference to all types of specialist work. One industrial community is interested in this problem. Three of the leading industries of this community are cooperating with three elements of the school system—a university, a mechanics' institute, and the public-school system-to determine what are the types of work required by the industries of that community, what terminology they will use in describing the types of workers, and what the definition of those types of workers shall be. The industries have discovered that they are getting a great deal of benefit from this analysis of their jobs, in regard to their replacement problems, wage scales, and other things within the industry. The schools have also found a new point of view and a new interest in their work.

The second part of the problem is to evolve ways and means of discovering the bent of the men, their natural capacities, their desire to work, their intelligence, and other things of that kind, in order to find out which job the man is best qualified to take. The Army used the means that were developed during the war by the committee on classification of personnel, by the psychological testing division of the Surgeon General's Office. These tests have been studied and developed. Schools are already practicing with these methods and are making progress. With the cooperation of industry, and working along the line of these two fundamental factors, the problem of commercial engineering will be solved more rapidly than by trying to construct curricula before we know exactly what the problem is and

before we understand the specific details of the duties that those men must be trained to perform. They are not to be trained merely to do particular jobs, but trained in the fundamentals to be broadminded, competent, all-round men.

The most effective way of determining what fundamentals are is to analyze what has to be done, to discover what principles and what basic ideas occur, and how they occur in the world's work. When a student studies physics he has no perspective, because all topics are presented in the same perspective. Texts in physics usually have some five to eight hundred various principles, rules, and laws. According to one analysis of specifications of the world's work there are only 6 fundamental ideas of physics. From my own analysis of the subject there are not more than 25. The same idea applies to other subjects. By recording and analyzing with care what physics does in the world's work, the fundamentals can be discovered, organized, and taught in very much less time. By means of this analysis and application in the Army, the time of training to definite standards of proficiency has been reduced by as much as one-half.

The analysis of what are fundamentals applies to the social, economic, and civic aspects of the problem. If the engineer is merely a master of the technical side of his work, and fails to understand the social, economic, and civic relations, he is out of touch with life, and therefore does not win the professional recognition which should be accorded him. The Army insists also that the soldier be given some of the fundamentals of social and civic relations. Based upon analysis a course of 30 lessons has been developed so that every recruit learns about the organization of the Army, why the Army exists at all, what its relations are to the Government, why the Government exists, what the duties of the soldiers are to one another as men, how this country was organized in the first place, what it stands for, and many other things relating to social and human relations. This material is organized as a series of discussions and episodes in the soldier's life.

When we define our ideals of education in general terms, we have only a very vague and indefinite objective, which is good to look upon but does not get anywhere. This method of definite specifications takes a long time, but every month spent at it gets you somewhere definitely ahead. In fact, if civil communities undertake this program they must expect to continue at it, and change and modify it as time develops.

DISCUSSION.

GEORGE W. DOWRIE, dean of the school of business, University of Minnesota. It is expected that the universities in four years' time give to their students the culture that is associated with

the university degree, instill in them the proper professional ideals, make social-minded beings out of them, give them the fundamentals, and help them apply what they have learned in preparation for some specific task. If so, they must have help from the outside. The gulf between school and business can be bridged by having suggestions, inspirational talks from business men on the standards of their profession, which will be later of real practical use, and, most of all, by taking advantage of the laboratory or clinical facilities afforded by business establishments. Business men should study their needs and let the universities know what they are; should help in the collection. of case materials. In the use of case material and problems from actual experience one can test the student's power to analyze and can develop qualities which will be of great value to him in meeting the problems of real life.

The University of Minnesota is experimenting with the plan of sending senior students into industrial, financial, and mercantile establishments, where they work as regular employees two days a week. They get the same wages as the less experienced help and are routed according to a systematic plan right through the establishment. Each group of seniors is in charge of a specialist in his major field, who keeps track of what his students are doing in these establishments.

The universities demand that a professor of business subjects have all the erudition and training associated with a doctor of philosophy, and the business man insists that he shall really know what he is talking about. However difficult, these specifications must be met. Instructors must know what they are talking about, and at the same time be not so absorbed in a commercial connection that they neglect their teaching. Business men and practicing engineers can assist with this problem by helping place faculty members, in summer or when on leave of absence, in situations where they can get real, useful, vital contact with business.

K. G. MATHESON, president, Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Business men and manufacturers should adopt this plan of visiting colleges and giving the students the benefits of their practical experience. Engineering education demands that the student have the best preparatory training possible, including and emphasizing cultural studies, in addition to scientific subjects. If the educational impatience of the American student can be overcome, he should graduate from a standard college of the cultural type before specializing in engineering. The graduates of such a course of training not only would be thoroughly versed in their profession, but would be capable and valuable citizens as well. Since college training is not made the basis of specialization, institutions giving engineering courses should inculcate in the curricula the

maximum of cultural training. The most important fundamental in education, as in life, is the building of character; without it, education becomes a menace instead of a benefit.

F. M. FEIKER, vice president, McGraw-Hill Co., Inc., New York City. This conference marks the bringing together of the men whom I call the "makers" of education, the teachers, and the users" of education, the men in charge of our manufacturing and commercial institutions, who take the product of the technical and engineering schools. In the minds of the latter the former are to-day on the defensive. A large part of the misunderstanding between the two groups comes from lack of clearness in expressing each other's point of view. To set up specifications for jobs is an illuminating attempt to get the users of education to present clearly what they believe to be the requirements for different classes of work and different opportunities in their establishments. To educate men for executive positions in commercial establishments one must know more specifically what are the requirements for these executive positions. There must be set up some broad differences in specific educational requirements between men who are going into technical engineering, design work, and commercial engineering. An opportunity must be found for bringing together through some organized effort the users of education.

The opportunity for the spread of an idea in a meeting of this sort is very small. It is difficult to get ideas started in our great industrial life to-day. The Department of Commerce has been trying during the last nine months or so to get over to industry a new conception of the department. It is the same as getting over a new conception of business or engineering education to business men. The only way to do it is to get the business men themselves interested in what is being done.

To bring educators and business men together there is, furthermore, need of a common language. An industrial engineer is distinctly different from an electrical, chemical, or civil engineer so far as his training is concerned. A commercial engineer is a man with an engineering training who sells the products of an engineering concern by telling the buyer how to use the products. The men who sell motor trucks are successful for a very different reason from that of the men who sell pleasure cars. When you sell a motor truck you have to sell a method of using it. A motor truck to be used efficiently may completely change the method of handling goods in a plant, and the salesman must know enough about processes and the technical handling of the product to fit the motor truck as a unit of transportation into the general plan for the factory. The salesman of a private car makes his sale on the basis of the upholstery, the

painting, and the riding qualities of the car, none of which requires a technical background for successful selling.

CHARLES S. HOWE, president Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, Ohio. Organizations dealing largely with civic problems during the last 20 years have greatly increased. Chambers of commerce now deal with every civic question. And yet rarely do we find an engineer on the committees which are discussing even the engineering problems before the city. Seldom in advertising clubs, city clubs, rotary clubs, and church clubs are there any engineers taking part in the discussions. One great problem before the cities of to-day is the question of treatment of its philanthropies. In Cleveland there are over 100 such philanthropies under the control of one organization. This organization disburses two or three million dollars to the different charities of the city. All of this work is done through committees, and there are practically no engineers upon any of these committees. It would seem that the engineer is not paying very much attention to some of his civic duties. One reason may be because the engineer is a specialist along narrow lines. It is difficult also for him to get away at noon to attend a civic meeting. The average engineer can not do it. The real reason, however, is because he can not talk.

If the engineering colleges are to train their graduates to take part in civic matters, they must give them a better training in English, more training in speaking. The training in commercial subjects also may be helpful.

IRA N. HOLLIS, president Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts. So far as engineering is concerned, the application to business of some of the principles taught under engineering is vastly more important than the reverse. That would mean, practically, less business in science and more science in business. The success of a college is more a question of men than it is of studies, of classification, and four-year schedules. That is the chief factor in any kind of education. One of the professors at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute made of mathematics a human subject, alive to every student, and he made of himself a guide to every person who came into contact with him.

The course in engineering is overcrowded. There is no place for a four-year course for accounting or business. The contact with commercial life ought either to come in a fifth year or after graduation. Engineers do not neglect their civic and social duties. There is no profession superior to the engineer in this regard. Meetings like this indicate that they are endeavoring to do even more than in the past.

The word "engineer" was used hundreds of years ago in exactly the sense in which we use it to-day. It comes from the San