The schools of science have not undergone great changes during the last year. The number of institutions endowed with the national land grant remains the same and their faculties and students have neither diminished nor increased greatly. Gifts have been made to some of them, and thus they have been afforded better conveniences and an opportunity to widen the field of instruction and increase the teaching force. The newly established colleges of agriculture in Mississippi and South Carolina have been well attended and are meeting with eminent success. The list of schools of science not endowed with the national land grant has had a few additions. The Case School of Applied Science has been organized at Cleveland, Ohio. The design of its instruction is to give a thorough technical and professional training in the principles of natural and physical science, with their application to the arts. The course of study will be four years in length. One-half of the time will be spent in a careful study of mathematics, chemistry, physics, modern languages, and the methods of scientific research; the other half, in professional studies in some department of applied science. It is yet to be announced in what departments instruction will be afforded. The Ohio Mechanics' Institute, Cincinnati, has taken a forward step during the year by organizing a department of science and arts. Its duties include publishing a quarterly journal of science, providing annually a course of not less than six public lectures on topics of general interest within the scope of the department, holding monthly meetings for the transaction of business and the discussion of scientific questions, and inquiring into and reporting on new and presumably meritorious inventions. The department is divided into special sections for scientific work, each of which has an organization of its own. Sections of chemistry, mechanics, and engineering have been formed, and those of electricity and architecture are contemplated. The journal of the department contains "such of its proceedings, including reports on inventions, papers, and discussions of scientific interest, as may be deemed valuable to the public." The consideration of new inventions is intrusted to a committee of not less than five persons. Evidence of original invention, novelty, and usefulness is required. If the device or discovery seems worthy, the committee may recommend the award of the medal of the Ohio Mechanics' Institute. The society is enjoying a vigorous life and promises to greatly enlarge its field of usefulness. A series of elaborate agricultural experiments has been undertaken at private expense at Houghton Farm, Orange County, N. Y. This estate was purchased five years ago by Mr. Lawson Valentine, of New York City. It was soon brought to a satisfactory condition as a residence, and then plans for experimental work were made. Dr. Manly Miles was employed as director, and laid out fields suitable for his purpose, supervised their systematic drainage, and visited the best known experimental stations of Europe. Actual work was commenced in the year 1880. Recently the enterprise has been divided into three distinct departments: the farm, the experiment work, and the residence. The intentions of the proprietor with reference to these departments are stated by him, as follows:

(1) That the farming operations be carried on in accordance with the best known methods and under the best possible organization and management, with a view of educating and enlightening others by furnishing valuable examples and results in practical agriculture.

(2) That there be a scientific department devoted to agricultural investigation and experiment, and that such department be of the highest order, so as to command the respect, interest, and coöperation of the leading scientific minds of this and other countries.

(3) That Houghton Farm be a comfortable, healthful, and attractive home for the family of its proprietor and afford large hospitality for friends and guests.

PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY.

During the year a circular on chemistry and physics, edited by Prof. F. W. Clarke, B. S., has been widely distributed. It contains a comprehensive view of instruction in these subjects, given in various classes of schools, and was introduced by general re

marks on the increase of science teaching, the methods of instruction, laboratories, original research, &c. The report was well received and promises to aid in promoting the study of these sciences, which contribute so much to the solution of industrial problems and to the right understanding of familiar operations and phenomena.

Examples of the practical uses to which the principles of each department of physics are applied readily suggest themselves.

The author of a handbook of the Kansas State Agricultural College, issued during the time when Hon. J. A. Anderson, now a member of Congress, was president of the institution, says:

In most of the arts and trades, a knowledge of some branch of physics or chemistry ranks next in usefulness to that of practical English and practical mathematics, and should be taught accordingly. Familiarity with the laws of light and skill in the manipulation of shades and colors have special worth to the painter, frescoer, engraver, and photographer. The mason, builder, and machinist should understand heat, as it acts upon air in the draught of flues and ventilation of houses or in the shrinking and warping of wood, or as it acts upon water, upheaving foundations, disintegrating rock, or furnishing the great motor, steam. Water itself, either as a driving power or as a solving and cleansing agent, has an interest to the artisan equal to the use which he makes of it. Electricity has its special value to the operator, metallurgy to the worker in metals, economic geology and botany to the engineer. As numberless as the vats, laboratories, and furnaces of the industrial world are the combinations of physics and chemistry.

Mr. C. B. Stetson, a writer on technical education, speaking of the industrial value of a knowledge of chemistry, says:

All those persons whose business it is to produce new combinations of matter-such as the farmer, miner, dyer, bleacher, founder, maker of machinery, and numerous othersshould have a knowledge of chemistry. Without such knowledge, which is an essential element of skilled labor in these departments of industry, neither rude nor dexterous labor can produce satisfactory results.

Such ideas of the importance of chemistry are of recent origin. A hundred years ago the students of medicine first undertook to apply the elements of this science which now is called upon by them with the utmost frequency. Within the present century only have professorships in colleges been generally established. The rapid spread of the study commenced after the period of brilliant chemical discoveries, which extended over a large part of the first half of this century. When, in 1862, Congress gave land for the promotion of the education of the people in the pursuits and professions of life, chemistry had become recognized as a science touching human industry at many points and found a foothold in all the institutions aided by the national grant. Nearly one-fourth of them have courses designed particularly for the perfecting of students in chemical knowledge. Cornell University has a four years' course in chemistry and physics; Rutgers Scientific School, a short course exclusively for chemistry and a long course in chemistry and agriculture; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, three courses, four years in length. Other scientific colleges give similar prominence to this science, so that it may be said with truth that endowing schools for practical education by the Government has been a powerful stimulus to the study of chemistry. Professor Clarke, in the circular whose publication has elicited these thoughts, speaks of the study of chemistry and physics in the schools of science as follows:

One,

The scientific schools differ from each other almost as widely as do the colleges. for example, is exclusively a school of engineering, in which chemistry and physics are purely incidental studies. Others devote especial attention to giving mechanical training, to mining, or to chemical technology. In nearly all of them applied science, so called, is mainly cultivated, with inorganic and analytical chemistry and general physics as prominent objects of study.

The mental discipline incident to the study of chemistry is of the highest kind, and entitles the science to a prominent place among the branches which make up advanced courses of study. This truth has been recognized by many collegiate institutions, both by giving the science increased attention in fixed courses and by placing it on an equality

with classical and mathematical studies in many instances in which the elective system has been adopted. Original work in the laboratory merits the warmest commendation, as it employs the finest qualities of the intellect. Prof. Henry E. Roscoe has made a forcible presentation of the claims of original research at Owens College, Manchester, England, in which occur the following passages:

In this ordinary course of laboratory work the hand is gradually trained to perform the various mechanical operations; the eye is at the same time taught to observe with care and the mind to draw the logical inferences from the phenomena observed. Habits of independent thought and ideas of free inquiry are thus at once inculcated; no authority besides that of the senses is appealed to, and no preconceived notions have to be obeyed; the student creates for himself his own material for observation, and draws his own conclusion therefrom. If he is inaccurate, either in his manipulation, his observations, or in his conclusion, nature soon finds him out.

INSTRUCTION IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING.

The multiplication of courses in mechanical engineering, the improvement of methods of instruction in this department, and the increase of appliances for practical work have been noticeable in schools of science during the present year, as well as in those immediately preceding. The term mechanical engineering is not easily defined. It may be described as the art of designing, constructing, and operating machinery, mill work, steam engines, and other machines. The ample remuneration for such work which manufacturers are willing to give and the popular conviction that our youth may be trained to fill places of usefulness and honorable profit in mills and factories to the advantage of themselves and the nation have originated and nourished the systematic study of all branches bearing upon mechanic arts. In the courses established, modern languages and literature have served to make students acquainted with engineering literature and able to express themselves with correctness and fluency. The sciences have unfolded the laws of natural forces underlying processes and existing in materials. Mathematics has given the rules of calculation; drawing, a skill of eye and hand; and shop practice, familiarity with actual labor accurately performed. How these and other subjects are embodied in the training of the mechanical engineer will appear incidentally in taking a brief view of instruction in this department.

The friends of industrial science and practical education living in Eastern Massachusetts were turning their thoughts as early as 1860 to the establishment of an institute of technology, in which the sciences allied to the occupations of the producing classes should be taught with special reference to their economic value. A school of mechanical engineering was not among those named in the original plan, but the course of study placed at the head of all in the first catalogue of the institute was in this subject. Its studies occupied the last two years of a four years' course, and were embraced under the heads of analytic mechanics, applied mechanics, construction of machines, descriptive geometry, and general studies.

While the Institute of Technology was being organized in Boston, gentlemen of wealth in the central part of the State became convinced of the need of a system of training boys for the duties of an active life "broader and brighter than the popular method of learning a trade and more simple and direct than the so-called liberal education.” Through their beneficence the Worcester County Free Institute was founded and enabled to offer an education based on mathematics, living languages, physical sciences, and drawing, and a training for some mechanical pursuit. At the organization of the institute (1868), algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and mechanics were included in the mathematical studies. French is the modern foreign language most studied. Chemistry was taken more or less throughout the course, while physics and geology received attention. Free hand drawing occupied ten hours a week junior year and two hours a week middle year; mechanical drawing, six hours a week during middle and senior years. A department of design received into it at the middle of junior year students who had exhibited aptness for drawing, and gave them instruction preparatory to

fresco and ornamental painting and the designing of prints. The distinguishing feature of the institute was the method and amount of practice in a machine shop. The shop was a genuine factory, turning off marketable products and employing skilled mechanics for the direction of the students. In it each scholar was obliged to work a fixed number of hours weekly. His advantages over a common apprentice consisted in the rapid @dvancement from drudgery to skilled labor, the careful distribution of time, constant tuition, and the discipline and culture of drawing and intellectual studies. The original plan has been adhered to substantially to the present time, the amount of drawing and shop practice having been slightly increased. Each student must commence work at 7 in the morning, daily. The training, it is claimed, omits no element necessary to an education in mechanics, and introduces chipping, filing, planing, sawing, milling, &c., in their relations to an actual machine or structure and under the stimulus of the business consequences of inferior workmanship. The course of practical work may be so modified as to give special fitness for either mechanical engineering, civil engineering, drawing, physics, or chemistry, students of mechanical engineering being required to serve an apprenticeship of six months previous to entering the regular three years'

course.

In 1868, Edwin A. Stevens, esq., a wealthy citizen of Hoboken, N. J., bequeathed land and a large sum of money for the founding of an "institution of learning." The trustees to whom the disposition of the funds was given determined to establish a school of mechanical engineering and name it the Stevens Institute of Technology in honor of its founder. A single course of instruction was arranged. Mathematics, physics, mechanical drawing, chemistry and metallurgy, French and German, and literature were given places beside mechanical engineering. A faculty of young men was selected to aid in executing the plans of the trustees, and the new field was entered upon with enthusiasm. The institute has grown steadily. In 1875 a mechanical laboratory was established. In it engines, lubricants, building materials, and other structures and substances have been tested. The department of mechanical engineering instructs thoroughly in the various branches of the subject and gives practice to familiarize the student with appliances, processes, and methods necessary to the construction of mechanical design. The workshop course consists of carpenter work and wood turning, millwrighting and steam fitting, machinist work, blacksmithing, moulding and founding, and pattern making. The carpenter work includes the preparation of tools and exercises in planing, sawing, and framing. The instruction in wood turning is upon the care and management of the lathe, the production of definite forms, and the action of woods while being turned. The practice in millwrighting and steam fitting is thorough and complete, as it is in the other departments of actual work. The school has long had a machine and carpenter shop, an iron and brass foundry, and a blacksmith shop. During the past year (1881) a new machine shop has been fitted up and presented to the institute. It is 50 by 80 feet in area and has galleries running along the four sides. An engine near the centre drives two lines of shafting connecting with machine tools. They consist of fourteen lathes of different sizes, two planers, two drill presses, and one milling machine. At the presentation exercises, President Henry Morton spoke of shop practice, as might the heads of other schools or departments of mechanical engineering, in the following words:

We have no idea of allowing our workshop course in any way to displace the valuable instruction of the other departments; but, on the contrary, we intend that it shall render them only more efficient, by making closer their relations to what every student sees to be the object of his course here, namely, the acquirement of the various and extensive knowledge-scientific, mathematical, and practical-which will enable him to grapple successfully with the vast and difficult problems daily presented to the mechanical engineer.

About the year 1869 the Iowa Agricultural College established a course in mechanical engineering. Previously there had been a shop connected with the college; but it was made of service in purely utilitarian work for the college, which was chiefly concerned

with agriculture. While repairs were being made and other work done, the students had opportunities to earn wages and learn the use of tools. On the reorganization of the college, instruction in branches contributing to mechanical knowledge was arranged in a course by itself, which followed closely the agricultural course for a year and a half and then was characterized by special studies in the mechanic arts. The plan has been changed little since. The work in the shop, consisting of a series of exercises such as are involved in the construction of models and simple pieces of apparatus, has become more regular and systematic. It is required for two or three hours a week during freshman, junior, and senior years. Much work is done in the mechanical laboratory during junior year and the study of steam occupies considerable time in senior year.

Although there had been a design to locate a branch of the Illinois Industrial University at Chicago, in which there should be instruction in the mechanic arts, yet a shop was provided at the opening of the university at Champaign in which students learned something of mechanical processes. No regular course of practice was taken and no professor of mechanical engineering appointed until 1870. Training was obtained by constructing parts of machines and by performing work needed by the university. In 1870 Professor Robinson entered upon his duties as professor of mechanical engineering, arranged a course of study and practice, and commenced the equipment of shops. By his advice an engine, a lathe, machine tools, a forge and its accessories, raw material, and other necessaries were provided, and the shop was enlarged. In 1871 a building 128 by 88 feet was erected, in which were a boiler and forge room; a machine shop, furnished with steam engine, lathes, and other machinery; pattern and finishing shop, and shops for carpentry, cabinet work, wood working machinery, paint rooms, printing room, draughting rooms, &c. Over seven thousand dollars' worth of new machines and tools was added to the outfit of the several shops, and the attendance upon this course of instruction rapidly increased, and practice became more systematic. In 1878 a course in mechanical engineering was announced, which has been adhered to closely to the present time. It gives the student practice in five shops which are devoted to (1) pattern making, (2) blacksmithing, (3) moulding and founding, (4) bench work for iron, and (5) machine tool work for iron, respectively. In the first the practice consists of planing, turning, chiselling, and the preparation of patterns for casting. The shop has a complete set of tools, benches, and vises. The common operations of blacksmithing are undertaken in the second shop and those of casting in the third. In the fourth shop there is a course of free hand bench work, and afterward the fitting of parts is undertaken. In the fifth shop all the fundamental operations on iron by machinery are practised. The actual work done is carefully outlined beforehand by drawings; and the designing of machines and their elements is required.

Instruction in mechanical engineering in Cornell University received its chief impulse in 1870, when provision was made by Hon. Hiram Sibley for the erection of a building for the department of mechanic arts. A course four years in length and another three years in length had been arranged at the organization of the university or soon after. Upon the completion of the building and the equipment of its rooms the department was in a condition to supply practical as well as theoretical instruction. A professorship was endowed by the generous benefactor who erected the building and the amount of shop practice gradually increased. The University Register of 1876 speaks of the department of mechanic arts as follows:

There are now closely connected with the lecture room, in which the theoretical side of the mechanic arts is presented, other rooms for the designing and modelling of machinery and workshops fitted with power and machinery for working in wood and metals, in which the practical side will be conducted.

The machine shop is to be conducted wholly as a means of instruction, and each student in the department will be required to devote at least two hours a day to work in the shop, so that he will not only get theory and practice combined, but he will also have opportunities to construct and use tools of the greatest precision. Each candidate