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ENGINEERING AS A VOCATION

plaint and some graduates are crying from disappointment, when, perhaps, the school was not responsible. Accidents of birth have much to do with lack of success in life. No school can supply a man with common sense and intelligence if these very desirable qualities were omitted in his makeup, but education can do much to enable one to make good use of all the intelligence he may have.

The modern engineer must have a college training or something that is equivalent. The equivalent is very, very hard to obtain. Teaching is a distinct profession and the practising engineer cannot always obtain the viewpoint of the teaching engineer. The curricula of the numerous engineering schools bear a very close resemblance to each other, yet many men have taken positions as professors with the idea of revolutionizing matters. Many of these men have had the privilege of organizing new schools in old colleges and universities and have had, some of them, the opportunity to start out on new lines in entirely new institutions unhampered by traditions. With the free hand given them and the splendid opportunity offered for reform it is significant that the courses in such schools gradually bear a very strong resemblance to those in older schools. All heads of engineering schools pay great attention to old graduates and the average engineering school of to-day, with all its reputed shortcomings is really