to his own department of engineering, to enable him to direct, with
intelligence and confidence, every operation that contributes to the
success of his work. The school of engineering should therefore be so
organized that the young engineer may be taught the elements of every
trade which is likely to find important application in his professional
work. It cannot be expected that time can be given him to make himself
an expert workman, or to acquire the special knowledge of details and
the thousand and one useful devices which are an important part of the
stock in trade of the skilled workman; but he may very quickly learn
enough to facilitate his own work greatly, and to enable him to learn
still more, with rapidity and ease, during his later professional life.
He must also, usually, learn the essential elements and principles of
each of several trades, and must study their relations to his work, and
the limitations of his methods of design and construction which they
always, to a greater or less extent, cause by their own practical or
economical limitations. He will find that his designs, his methods of
construction, and of fitting up and erecting, must always be planned
with an intelligent regard to the exigencies of the shop, as well as to
the aspect of the commercial side of every operation. This extension of
trade education for the engineer into several trades, instead of its
restriction to a single trade, as is the case in the regular trade
school, still further limits the range of his instruction in each. With
unusual talent for manipulation, he may acquire considerable knowledge
of all the subsidiary trades in a wonderfully short space of time, if he
is carefully handled by his instructors, who must evidently be experts,
each in his own trade. Even the average man who goes into such schools,
following his natural bent, may do well in the shop course, under good
arrangements as to time and character of instruction. If a man has not a
natural inclination for the business, and a natural aptitude for it, he
will make a great mistake if he goes into such a school with the hope of