Secondary technical education has come to mean that instruction in technical schools which stand midway between the engineering college course and the trade school course. It consists of study and practical work combined, with the object of giving a thorough grounding in the principles and main facts of engineering, and to supplement this with application of these facts and principles to actual work.

Technical education in this country has, so far, been largely confined to the development of purely engineering courses, fitting the student for design and supervision of installation of railroad, power plant machine shop or what not, and incidentally giving some idea of the actual work required in carrying out these designs and installations.

Considered from an economic standpoint, time and energy spent in completing an engineering course by the man whose natural ability and instinct fit him for a position in charge of actual construction work is out of proportion to the necessities of the case. To complete an engineering course in a good college requires, before entrance, the completion of at least a full high school course, and four years in the college. To the student of ordinary mental ability, this means that his ctua life work cannot be commenced much under the age of 23 years. While this may not be a burdensome matter for many of those who contemplate engineering as a life work it, nevertheless, bars from a technical school education many young men who have in them the making of first-rate foremen and superintendents.

In a recent address delivered before the Schoolmas-ters' Club of Denver, Victor C. Alderson, president of the Colorado School of Mines, called attention to the industrial strength which has been achieved by Switzerland in spite of unfavorable conditions by the system of detail instruction in industries. This system extends from the Polytechnic School at Zurich, which is one of the finest in the world, through all grades of instruction down to a traveling school for shoemakers which goes from place to place instructing the peasants in the art. In all the courses of all of these schools, science, art, literature and language are studied, but simply as a means to the industrial end.

In treating all subjects on this basis, it is not necessary that they should lose their value as mental training, or their influence to broaden the student. All that is needful is that studies should be so chosen and related to each other that the utilitarian value of each shall be brought out to the greatest possible degree. In France, the National Institute of Art and Trade stands at the head of the system of technical education which includes instruction in commerce - by both high school and college courses; in foremanship, by a system of four schools giving secondary technical instruction; special schools in wood and iron industries, in watch making, in weaving, modeling, cabinet making, machine shop practice and gun making. Besides the national system, many cities have special schools of their own for teaching trades and arts.

English cities and philanthropists are establishing technical schools for day, and especially for evening students, largely of secondary technical grade, but no national sysiem is organized.

German industrial schools are models to be envied and followed. From the primary schools all students pass to trade schools of all industries for both boys and girls, and to secondary schools of technics and commerce. Above these are the higher engineering schools standing beside the great universities which are devoted to literature and pure science. As a consequence, Germany has developed an industrial system which has turned the empire into a vast workshop and placed it in the front rank of manufacturing nations in spite of unfavorable conditions and the somewhat phlegmatic temperament of the people.

As a nation, we are industrially successful, but are we as successful as we might be, if our workmen, our foremen, our superintendents, were all trained to utilize their abilities to the best advantage ? Engineering colleges are doing a splendid work, but from observation of the occupations of technical graduates, it would appear that these colleges are at present turning out as large a supply of designing engineers as the industries of the country can use. On the other hand, the only source from which men can at present be drawn for intermediate positions in manufaturing systems - which has a course not intended to train for such work - or the rank and file of the workmen.- "The Engineer."