SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10882, 27 June 1899, Page 6

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING.

REPORT B"x"-THE INSPECTORGENERAL. ♦ ;

. On May 25th of this year Mr GW Hogben, Inspector-General of Schools, visited the School of Engineering at Canterbury College, in connection with which several of the classes are subsidised tinder the Technical Education Act of 1895. - In his report Mr Hogben states:- 1 -"! found it well equipped for the classes that come under the notice of the Department, and it is higidy desirable that it should be encouraged to do the work belonging to its own branch of technical education. Judged, however, from the point of view of technical education, the course of study appears to lean. in the direction of being too academicaL/ For instance, there are, I understand, about sixty in the classes for instruction in. steam, but the rules do not allow these students to take advantage of the working engines, and thus by actual tests and measurements to link closely principles and practice. If the course were perhaps less theoretical, and if less emphasis were placed on mathematical formulae, and more examples worked out from the students' own observations, even more useful work would, I am* convinced, be done than is being done now. The provisions for teaching mechanical drawing and descriptive geometry seem quite satisfactory. Perhaps the authorities might see their way at no distant date to provide, for; a course in electrical engineering." ■-. ■'.; .