..Vovember 194';

INDUSTRIAL and- ENGINEERING

'hemisfryWALTER J. MUR?HY, Editor

An EcJucator's Reply

Orn .July editorial, "Education for an Industrial Career," ap­paTently touched on a subject of very lively intere:--;t. The

.,riginal n"sponse from industrialists yielded a rirh harve:--;t of~onlIncnt \'.'hile the editorial was under developlnent; rnany--boughtful replies camp frcnl1 the educators to whom it, was'iddress()d.

One pronlincnt chemical engineer \"ho also is dean of a schoolIi {)ngincering is among the correspondents. His !PUcr, written

:"rnnl a different perspective, contains a nunlber of point~ we be­t]t've should be kept in nlind when the complex subject of terh­niral educatiun is under con~id('ration. He conlrnents as follows:

"]. 'Yhy is it that engineering, and science to a lessc-r degn'e,,t all the professions is the only one that believes it ran train a

11lan adequately in four years? If our nlethod has all the perfec­'jon that \\'C believe it has~ why do nledicine, law, denti:-:try~ and-.:/, forth require a greater nUlnber of :years for training?

"2. 'Yhat company has a program for promoting prof('~si()nal

it've]oI)Jnent or, let us say, extending the basic theoretical train­Ulg tlrnong its technical rnen--('xe!usive of its training c()urse~,

whieh probably are not for professional developnlent but, for COIl1­

pany indoctrination and job training."3. Do the opinions of the industrialists refleet the hack­

~I'ounds of the individuals then1~elves? In the old-~tyl(' eurricu­hIlll for engineering and scienep none of the so-called ~()('ial hu­manistics courses were offerpd. For instance, econornic.~ ,niB not"ffef(~d and such things as psychology \\'ere unknown. Lah-r:'hpse individuals, as they becaIne junior and senior e.\Tcutiv(· .... ~

have wished that they had taken such courses. Are thl',\' rcf1('(·t­~,ng this deficiency in their training?

"4. IIow rnany cOlnpanips are willing to agrpp that the edu('a­'ion should be complete enough to fulfill all the denlands t hat they(nake? They desire the training of a lllan for a technical or prt'{'j­...ion job and then gradually prolnote hinl to an executive job,,,,here the requirements an' entirely different and a differr'nt t~'I)('

,,1' training would be preferred. This means that thf' uld-~tyl()

1inlitcd four-year education is no longer adequate.".5. 'Yhy charge against a four-year course all the defieient'ie~

t,t t he entire educational system? I am referring e~pecially toEnglish. COInpetency in English has always been a debatahle'Iuestion, not only among engineers but others. Probably nlunyi ,f the deficiencies could be made up in college, but sonle' of thprnare nlore deep-seated than that and are chargeable back tf) faultyEnglish and deficiencies in the high, and even grade schools.

"6. This is more important still. Ho\v many of the critics n-­'Visit colleges \vhere they have an opportunity to see what is ac­tually being taught? Of course, the rest of the answer to this isii!hat college trains only in fundamentals; the rest of it ~lust conlt>(from e~perience. If a man does not kno\v t\venty years aftt>r he~eaves college any more than he learned ,vhile there, he is surely avery poor engineer and is quite incapable as an executive."

A partial answer to our correspondent's comparison of thet'ducational pattern for chemists and chemical engineers, as con­trasted to that for the other professions, is given in several other'onlments "'e have received. These letters report increased~cheduling of humaniti8s (!()ursps in the chemical enginf'ering

eurrieululIl. an indication that this laek in earlier currieula i~ be­ing vi('wf'd a:--; a deficiency. flo\ycvpr, ever-inercased pressure isbeing placed on the four-.\"ear curriculunl. already almOf;;t in­tolerahl.\' ovcrcro\vded.

A four-year curriculunl i~ obviously inadequate for providiugthe scientifi(' fundamentals, specialized training in a particula.rfield of applied science, plus what might be called executive train­ing. a c()1ubiuation of hunlanities courses and such subjf'ct,f' as()('onornic8 and business adlninistration and law. The issue facingeducator and industrialist is the optinlurn division of this eduea­tional rcspunsihilit y a I110ng the ,~('h()I)L tlw ('Tnplo.ver, and th(' in­dividual.

It is encouraging that SOIn(' Anwriean t(Jlllpallic.,:-: now ('ull:-,idpJ'

desirable act ual 'classroom instruction for teehnical pnlploye()s tosupplement their on-the-job training. Such instruction, hov{('ver,usually will bf' on the specialized topics or advarH'cd subjPcts inthe eOnlpan\-'s field of activity. It appears logical to expect theC'lnployer rather than the educator to aeecpt the ba~ie re;-:punsi­hility for such speeialized training, since tht' expense of providingit may be considered a legitinlate invpst rnent in the gn'ater futurevalue of his eillployee. \Vhere the ernplo.ver defaults, the in(li­vidual \Yith initiative usually \Yill ~uppl.v the defici('llc.y, for anubvious incentive txists. At the sarne tirne th(' coll('ges willalways have the basic responsibility fell' giving the fledglingt'hcrnist or chelnieal engineer as (,0111plet(" a grounding in funda­rnentals as tiIne and ('ducational resuurces pcnnit.

The question of t('chnical l'S. e~p('utiv(' training is ]llUre ('urn­plex. \Yith rare exccptions, 1hose technical graduates who Inoveup to exceutivc positions have no oppurt unit y to apply the.'techniques of busiupss adrninistration ulltil years after graduatiun.Logie ,,'ould suggest that such fornwJ training as will eornple­IlH'nt the latent abiliti('s of a technical graduate should be givenat cornpany initiative and expense and should ('OIne just heforethe elnployee is in a position to apply thern. (hl the ot hel' hand,the humanities, and such broad su~jects in t ht· s()('ial ~('i(,TH'('S afo;t~eonomics, are appropriate for the collrge.

Finallv, another vvord about English and the wich'.:-ipreud dis­,"'iatisfaction \\'ith th-e ability of the technical graduate to expresshinlself. The secondary and grade schools certainly share theresponsibility for developing the student's ability to put thoughtsinto \"ords. But the technical school has the specific additionalobligation of teaching its students to view and to utilize technicalexpression as mathematics paraphrased. The poet. uses theEnglish language to bring his reader the lnoon in "a ghostlygalleon tossed upon cloudy seas." For our profession the lan­guage stands ready to bear the sturdy freighter of the techniealreport fronl points distant in place or tilne, without loss or dam­age to its cargo of facts.

l\lembers of the cheInieal profession differ from the majorityin the other professions in that their careers are in our industries.Because of the chenlical employee's need for highly specializedtraining superimposed on a broad, fundamental education, edu­cator and industrialist alike have an unusually great stake in theeducational process. A healthy situation exists when hoth real­ize its first-rank import.ance.

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