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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 85

Isolation of Schools for Technical Training

Isolation of Schools for Technical Training.

Whether technical education should be put under the wing of the university or be provided for in separate establishments is a question upon which great diversity of opinion exists.

Hofmann of Berlin, Victor Meyer of Zürich, Kühne of Heidelberg, and Piccard of the Bernoullianum at Basle are in favor of incorporating polytechnic and university training; Lunge of Zürich, Wislecenus of Würzburg, and others equally eminent oppose it. Quincke of Heidelberg holds that the function of the Polytechnic is to facilitate the transition from pure science to practice by means of lectures and laboratory work, but admits that the number of scientifically trained men sent out from the polytechnic schools of Germany has been in excess of the number of high class industrial positions open to them, so that polytechnic graduates have been compelled to take subordinate positions. He is, however, in favor of amalgamation.

But, conflicting as these opinions seem, the commissioners found the fact to be that in every country visited separate institutions have been established for technology and for pure training. Institutions devoted to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and those devoted to its page 8 applications to industrial operations, do not as a matter of practical experience thrive equally well in the same atmosphere; the points of view are radically different in the two cases. At this moment there are in process of erection the magnificent Technological High School of Berlin, separate from the University, and the University of Strasburg—which it is purposed to make one of the grandest of German universities—in which no provision is made for a faculty of engineering and where the requirements of students in their future careers and the commercial aspects of problems are not considered at all.