Page:Engineering as a vocation (IA cu31924004245605).pdf/94

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ENGINEERING AS A VOCATION

very high standing of the German schools, but the difference is in the lower grades rather than in the higher schools, the technical high school in Germany corresponding to our technical schools here. Many eminent Germans have said the American engineering schools are as good as any in the world, as engineering schools, but that as schools devoted to research and research methods they are inferior to the schools of Europe. The American public school system is based on the idea that each male pupil has an equal chance to occupy the Presidential chair and that each girl has an equal chance to become the wife of the President. This idea is carried out to some extent in the engineering schools, where the endeavor seems to be to train boys to fill positions as chief engineers. Restlessness, envy and discontent are marked American traits and these, in part, account for the success of so many foreign engineers who come to the United States and succeed, even with the handicap of having to learn a new language. Few teachers in American engineering schools tell the truth to their pupils about conditions as they actually exist. Nothing is said about the ninety-nine privates in the company, to use a military simile, but the captain is a hero. The captain himself, however, is only a minor officer and it is the colonel over twelve captains and the generals over three or nine colonels, who are held up as examples for the emulation of the boy. The majority of the schools