from three to six years looks apalling. Another drawback is the class method, due to the necessity for keeping down instructional cost, so that when the student misses an evening once in a while, he becomes discouraged.
The Association Institute in Chicago has adopted an excellent method in which courses in the night school are arranged so that each may be fully completed in a season. Instead of compelling a student to start in at the rudiments of all engineering science, he is taken as far as his previous training will permit in the subject he has chosen, endeavors being made to have him later take more of the fundamentals and finally pursue intermediate and advanced courses covering the same ground. This may be radical and a copy of the methods of the schools run for profit, but the aim of the school is to help the student and the small fees charged indicate sufficiently that there is no financial profit in the enterprise.
Correspondence schools are a great improvement over night schools, on account of the all-year study, but they do not furnish a flesh and blood teacher in the room with the student. The man who takes a correspondence course in a reputable school has well-prepared lessons regularly mailed to him and his progress depends wholly upon himself. If he requires help he has only to write to receive it. The courses, however, are stiff and a
