study will encourage correctness of speech, unnecessary
activities of the mind, and tendencies toward greater useful
ness and efficiency. And wliat would culture be without the
element of exactness ? Secondly, the technical man must
have an acquaintance with foreign works and methods. The
translation of a language is in itself valuable for the enlarg
ing of one's vocabulary, besides the food given for broad and
intelligent thought. In the third place, the purely mind
training of the engineer is valuable. If imagination is so
important in the development of a informed and
cultured man, where is there opportunity to exercise this
faculty more than in the realm of constructive work? The
draughtsman gives the ideas of his mind to the world first
in the shape of drawings. All the machinery he works with
is in outline before his mind’s eye before he sees the actual. If
he approaches his work in the right way psychology is of as
much use to him as to the literary trained man.
Furthermore, his ethical relations tire by no means
unimportant. The wide application of his work to the
welfare of humanity emphasizes the idea of duty to him.
When an engine or bridge is to be designed and constructed
it must be faultless and safe in every respect, and he is
conscious of the great obligation that rests upon him in
relation to his fellow-man. A standard of right actions is
encouraged which, necessarily, must greatly strengthen his
inoral nature. Causes and effects are ever before his mind,
and with a standard of right and logical thinking and work
ing, he possesses a moral culture that might not be supposed
from the nature of his work.
We need only, then, to conclude, that all studies if
rightly pursued, have a value to the student outside of the
mere usefulness of such branches, and it seems as though
the tendency of our age is to incline more and more to such