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Caption: Course Catalog - 1896-1897
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EQUIPMENT 59 cient to absorb the entire attention of the student during his whole course, but not less than one-half his time must be given to purely technical training, and to the acquirement of a professional capital, or stock of information and knowledge of details. Engineering knowledge must be fresh to be valuable, since ideas and methods are quickly supplanted by improved ones, and become useless except as mile-stones of progress. Consequently the most valuable part of this professional knowledge can never be crystalized in text-books, but must be drawn from the mental stores of the instructor. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION Whenever suitable text-books can be found, they are employed because their use saves much time in acquiring facts and data, and because such books become doubly valuable for later reference, when enriched by notes and additions. But to arouse most fully the enthusiasm of the student, discussions and formal lectures are necessary, and they must be fully illustrated by sketches, diagrams, drawings, and photographs of executed work. These are frequently used in the advanced classes, partly because the deficiency of text-books is there greatest. Additional courses of extended reading are indicated by references to the University library, so that each student may enjoy the greatest possible benefit from the course of instruction. In all courses of study offered by this College, drawing, in its manifold forms and uses, is made a special feature, both in its application and its modes of execution. EQUIPMENT The equipment of the various departments is described under appropriate heads. In addition to this, the College owns a good reference library and some valuable apparatus of a general character. The most important portion consists of a collection of machines and apparatus for abbreviating computations, and especially for use in the calculation of tables. The principal instruments are described below. (i) A Thomas ten-place arithmometer, the largest size manufactured, imported especially for the University, and giving products of numbers to twenty places. (2) Two
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