by all schools to attract students and when one school advertises a certain special course all the other schools near by feel compelled to follow suit or fall in the estimation of the public.
The newspapers are greatly to blame for getting parents of growing boys excited. A large city constructs a vast water works system and the project attracts the attention of special newspaper and magazine writers who play the thing for all it is worth. Little wonder when some of these men receive $50 per page. In the descriptions a great deal of attention is paid to the picturesque side of the engineer's work and the few engineers who receive large salaries are paraded before the public until the fathers and mothers begin to believe that their sons must study hydraulic engineering. The schools hunting for students scent the popular demand and immediately thereafter it is announced that courses in the highly paid specialty of hydraulic engineering are to be started. The work of the United States Bureau of Road Inquiry compelled the starting of many special courses in highway engineering. A great piece of sanitary work like the Chicago drainage canal or the Washington filtration plant calls for special courses in sanitary engineering. The wonderful interest in concrete work during the past ten years, due to the advertising of the cement manufacturers, has stimulated interest in concrete engineering and thousands of boys are specializing in reinforced
