Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1917-06-21
FRANCE TO ENCOURAGE
STUDY OF ENGINEERING
Points to Progress of o. S. and
Says Popularity of Engineer
ing Is Responsible.

Paris. (by maiD.-Farsighted observ-
ers declare that the engineer is the man
Of the future in France. 1t is not q
mere superstition based upon the event
ual reconstruction, but seems ratheI
to be a deduction from the new spirlt
professor Of the Central Polytechnic
school, France trained it's students pc
fore the war as if they should all enter
the institute" and it is generally recog.
nized as a fact that, in her hour OF
need. France felt the lack among her
scientists of men able to give practlca
| application to their discoveries.
France has had great engineers-a
few of them-at all epochs. French en-
gineers pierced the Isthmus of Suez,
dredged the South American ports,
built the %seaports Of the Levant, started
petus to the automobile industry ana
aviation; yet in it's industrial enter
prises before the war France employed
an average of only one engineer for
every 100 workmen, where Germany
employed four. 1t is to this situation
that many attribute the fact that n
was losing its head in the automobile
industry and had already passed IN
aviation by Germany when the war
broke out.
The engineers of France came from
the Central Polytechnic school Of Arts
and Trades. the School Of Mines. and
the School of Electricity, in all of which,
professors complain, mathematics,
which play the principal role, were
taught for their W sake rather h
as a means to an end. The elite OF
every generation in France for a CEN
fury has thus, according to another pro-
lessor, been led toward h ideal Of
mathematic a~bstractiG.s and has de-
veloped a ace of scientists. savants and
bureaucrats.
To Follow American Plan.
M. Appel, a of the faculty OF
sciences and an advocate of a thorough
reformation OF the educational system,
is In favor of the adoption Of the Amer
lean plan Of judging technical students
at work in the school itself rather than
by competitive examination. Senator
Gay proposes to complete each of the
French universities with a faculty OF
applied sciences, comprising instruction
In all branches that correspond to the
industries of the region in which the
ready a number of these regional tech
nical schools which require only slight
transformation in order to conform
themselves to the proposed plan.
At Nancy there are h chemical, cleo
trical and colonial institutes, with a
Lille had, before the German occupation
an Industrial chemical institute, while
Lyons had a school Of tanning chem
tstry and an agricultural institute. At
Grenoble there is an electrical institute
and a butter making school, while Tou-
louise has al electrical and chemical in
stitute. These institutions in the opin-
ion of experienced educators lack CO.
hesion and completeness. Senator Gay
proposes to give them official status to
enable a more thorough organization.
1T was in America that old Albion
lao NM ~ ~4f0~- H. ~ ~s5 n n
Houlevigue, professor Of the faculty of
sciences at Marseilles. 1T is to Amer
lea, also, that we must go for guidance
If we want the man Of the future to be
equal TO histask."
M. Houlvigue points 20 the progress
made in America during the last half
century, before which most Of the
knowledge Of technical science in the
country was that gained by men with
tools in their hand That is why
America. has introduced more Of the
practical into it's technical education
profit from that lesson in France" he
adds.
Economical motive power will be abb
solutely required in France after the
war, n this, in the opinion Of the best
authorities, will be found only in the
in the Alps, the Jura. the Vosges and
the Pyrenees, and the development of
three resources alone will call for the
services of a great number OF compe-
tent engineers.
AS an object lesson Of the necessity
Of looking more to the practical than to
the theoretical, men who are consider
ing this question point to the new un-
d~er-secretary of state for Transports
ton. M. Claveille, who before the war
was general manager of the Western
State railroad. Claveille never went to
a technical school. He learned engin-
eering in the hard school Of experience.
and in this great emergency, when
France was facing a most serious cri-
sis as a result OF the congestion of her
transportation lines, he was the only
available man to solve the problem.
They point also to the fact that, when
1t became necessary to intensity the
prediction of munitions, the govern
merit was obliged to resort to the SER
vices Of a college professor, Albert
Thc:nas, while the railroads and water
ways were, during h first two years
of the war, in the hands Of a man Of
| letters.