The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-09-14
Snecial to The Globe.

Special to The Globe.
BOSTON, Sept. 1S.-During the sum-
mer what promises TO be in many i'm
portant respects the finest laboratory
of electrical engineering in the world
has been going up in the Back Bay
district of this city; wide, one-story
brick structure, the interest of which
does not stop with the students of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
for whom it is primarily constructed,
but includes every person interested
in the opening of the struggle be-
tween the United States and Germany
for the primary of modern education.
This struggle, about which Aneri-
cans are likely to hear a great deal
during the next two years, when plans
now being formulated in various sci
entiic centers are more fully under
way, starts with a generally admit
ted German supremacy. In electrical
engineering, the German Empire, with
Its splendid laboratories at Carlsruhe,
Darmstadt and Charlottenburg, to say
nothing of the great laboratory now
being planned at AK Ia Chapelle. Is
the worlds center for exact scien-
tific work Neither France nor Great
Britain has anything to compare with
these great German institutions, and
the Reichsanstalt, the Imperial Physi-
cotechnicai institution at Charlotten-
burg, is the court of last resort for
the whole civilized world in ali mat
ters pertaining to the standards of
measurement for the various electri-
cal processes. That an American in
stitution is to have a laboratory equal
and probably superior to any of its
German rivals is therefore q matter of
no little moment.
Differences in Method.
The history of the new American
laboratory if typical OF the difference
between German and American meth
DDS. Germany moves slowly toward
any ultimate accomplishment. The
German, one might say, smokes his
cumbersome pipe. meditates an
achievement, and builds the result.
whether a laboratory or q system of
philosophy, so thoroughly that neither
stone nor a sentence can easily be
altered under a long period of years.
The American, on the other hand,
smokes a short briar and builds while
he smokes; and if time and tide call
for change is cheerfully willing to re-
build, the following year. He goes for
inspiration to the actual workshop
where the eXigencies of the worlds
work compel constant adoption of the
latest and most improved methods.
Here in Boston, therefore, the newest
educational laboratory in the country
trical testing departments at Pittsburg
and Schenectady than to the Reichs-
anStalt. But it will be superior
to these great industrial centers in that
it will add the two essential features
of the German laboratory room de-
voted to the maintenance and inVesti-
cation of the ultimate standards of
electrical measurement, and a series of
laboratories for special research work
The German student is apt to know
a more about the minute processes Of
special research than the latest i'm
proVementS in practical electrical mec-
hanism On this side of the water the
institute has attempted to encourage
this closer acquaintance by visits of
inspection to the more important cleo
trical centers, an educational example
of Mahomet going to the mountain.
Now the new laboratory provides
way for bringing the mountain to Ma
homet Railroad transportation, big
city drayS, and electric crane from the
street door to a system of tracks con-
Meeting with the lecture hail., and,
above all, the modern spirit of co-ope-
ration between the important technical
school and the great manufacturing es-
adjustment, are combined to accom-
pliSh the miracle. 1t will be possible
to take a new dynamo direct from any
given factory to the laboratory Of the
institute, transport 1t by machinery in
to the lecture hall, use it to illustrate a
lecture, carry it back into the power
house, set 1t UP on a metal floor es-
peeialIy provided for such experiments,
take it to pieces and examine it In
detail, and finally put it together once
more and send 1t back to the factory
The laboratory will thus surmount
what has been considered an insur-
mountable obstacle-the fact that the
modern science of applied electricity
grows SO fast that no educational in
stitutlon can afford to purchase, often
only to Immediately discard, each new
link in the chain of progress.
Augustus Lowell Laboratory.
The new laboratory is to be named
the Augustus Lowell Laboratory of
Electrical Engineering in honor of The
services which the late Augustus Low
ell rendered to the institute. 1t is
divided into five important working
parts-the power room and main
laboratory, closely akin to the big
commercial institution: the smaller
research rooms, based upon study
of the facilities which the Germans
place at the disposal of special re-
search workers; the standardizing
room, which is intended to equal or
surpass the famous Reichsanstalt;
the lecture room, unquestionably the
most complete in the world; and fin
ally the workshop, where the me-
chanicians of the institute will repair
and indeed manufacture a great part
of the laboratory apparatus. These