to do many things now which formerly could only be done by dexterous
workmen, it is clear that its use has decidedly increased the relative
demand for skilled labor as compared with unskilled, and there is
abundant room for an additional increase, if it is true, as declared by
the most eminent authority, that the power now expended can be readily
made to yield three or four times its present results, and ultimately
ten or twenty times, when masters and workmen can be had with sufficient
intelligence and skill for the direction and manipulation of the tools
and machinery that would be invented."
The establishment of colleges and universities by the aid of national
grants has depended very much for their character upon the industrial
tendencies of the respective States, it being understood that the land
grants have principally been given to those of the newer States and
Territories which required development, although some of the
institutions of the older States on the Atlantic seaboard have also been
recipients of the same fund, which in itself only dates from an act of
Congress in 1862. In California and Missouri, both States abounding in
mineral resources, there are courses in mining and metallurgy provided
in the institutions receiving national aid. In the great grain-producing
sections of the Mississippi Valley the colleges are principally devoted
to agriculture, whereas the characteristic feature of the Iowa and
Kansas schools is the prominence given to industries.
We need not devote attention to the aims and arrangements of the
agricultural colleges proper, but will pass at once to those which deal
with the mechanical arts, dealing first of all with those that are
assisted by the national land grant. Taking them alphabetically, we have
first the State Agricultural College of Colorado, in the mechanical and
drawing department of which shops for bench work in wood and iron and
for forging have been recently erected, this institution being one of
the newest in America. In the Illinois Industrial University the student
of mechanical engineering receives practice in five shops devoted to
pattern-making, blacksmithing, moulding and founding, benchwork for
iron, and machine tool-work for iron. In the first shop the practice
consists of planing, chiseling, turning, and the preparation of patterns
for casting. The ordinary blacksmithing operations take place in the
second shop, and those of casting in the third. In the fourth there is,
first of all, a course of freehand benchwork, and afterward the fitting
of parts is undertaken. In the fifth shop all the fundamental operations
on iron by machinery are practiced, the actual work being carefully
outlined beforehand by drawings. This department of the University
consists, in point of fact, of three separate schools, destined to
qualify the student for every kind of engineering--mining, railway,
mechanical, and architectural. In addition to the shops and machine
rooms, there are well furnished cabinets of geological and mineralogical
specimens, chemical laboratories for assaying and metallurgy, stamp
mill, furnaces, etc., and, in fact, every known vehicle for practical
instruction. The school of architecture prepares students for the
building profession. Among the subjects in this branch are office work
and shop practice, constructing joints in carpentry and joinery, cabinet
making and turning, together with modeling in clay. The courses in
mathematics, mechanics and physics are the same as those in the
engineering school; but the technical studies embrace drawing from
casts, wood, stone, brick, and iron construction, turners' work,
slating, plastering, painting, and plumbing, architectural drawing and
designing, the history and aesthetics of architecture, estimates,
agreements specification, heating, lighting, draining, and ventilation.
The student's work from scale drawing occupies three terms, carpentry
and joinery being taught in the first year, turning and cabinet making
in the second, metal and stone work in the third. A more condensed
course, known as the builder's course, is given to those who can only
stop one year. The machine shop has a steam engine of 16 horse power,
two engines and three plain lathes, a planer, a large drill press, a
pattern shop, a blacksmith's shop, all of the machinery having been