MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.
133
Committee of the University, and that they are going io alter it for the future to 35 per cent.
I mention this merely as a reason why we have not had more students of Engineering in the Royal University.
They are afraid to go to the Royal.
Another disadvantage under which they labour is that the examinations in the JEtoyal University take place immediately after they lave finished their College work.
The College work -terminates on the second Saturday in June, and the examinations are held in July, so they have really little or no time to digest their work.
In the old Queen's University the examinations were conducted in October, .and
the students had plenty of opportunity of making aip the work that they had been studying during the College session.
The courses, too, are ever increasing, and the subjects are becoming more numerous, so it is almost impossible for the students to make them up, unless they have more time after their lectures ter¬ minate.
Perhaps I might say, here, that I think the students in Engineering have too many examinations to pass in the Royal University.
They first have to pass two Arts examinations, the Matriculation exami¬ nation of the Royal University, and also the First Arts examination.
Both of these examinations require a knowledge of Latin and French, and, in addition, they have to pass three professional examinations.
I think they have too many examinations to pass.
It is impossible to make up all the subjects.
In the old •Queen's University they first passed the Matriculation examination of the College to which they were attached, and then there were only two subsequent examinations —the First Professional, and the Degree.
I think they might very well dispense with the First Arts examina¬ tion, considering that they have to pass the Matricula¬ tion examination in Arts and three professional exami¬ nations besides.
With regard to the Engineering Depart¬ ment, the subjects in Engineering have become so numerous, and require such an amount of laboratory work, that students should be allowed to devote their whole time to professional subjects.
Science has de¬ veloped remarkably within the last forty or fifty years, especially laboratory work ; and I think if a young man •comes from the country, particularly from the West of Ireland, where there is very little opportunity of learning Latin and French, that when he passes the Matriculation examination in the College in English and Mathematics, "that is the only Arts examination that he ought to be required to pass, in addition to the professional exami¬ nations in the Royal University.
You cannot make an Arts man of every engineer.
A small amount of Latin Qt French—the smattering he gets in a year—is prac¬ tically of no use to him.
It would be much better for him to devote his time to what pays ; and in after life French is really not of so much use to an engineer as to members of other professions, because, where our en¬ gineers get employment principally is in the countries where English is spoken—in Australia and Canada and the United Kingdom.
They never get employment in "France.
Then as to text-books, the scientific books that are used in Engineering are principally English and American, and "not French or German.
There is another matter that I would like to bring before you "with regard to the Exhibitions that are awarded in Engineering in the Royal University.
There are very few of them—only two for the whole of Ireland in each «lass—two in the First Professional examination, two in the Second Professional, and two in the Degree.
Looking over the statistics for the last twenty years, I ihink you will find that very few of the first class Exhibitions were awarded, though I think several of ihem were deserved.
This is a great discouragement to students, and it is a consequence of the system of marking.
In the 'First Professional -examination about 50 per cent, of them have jot been filled up.
I think that is a great pity, because it is a great encouragement to a young man to •get an Exhibition, and I think a great many who did not get Exhibitions deserved them.
Another matter I "would
_
like to mention is, that I think the Board of maminers would be the proper persons to recommend students for Exhibitions, and not the Standing ,1/Oirmxittee.
The Examiners merely send in the '+vf <'
an<^ ^e Standing Committee adjudicate on them.'
Naturally, the Board of Examiners ought to be •the most competent judges of the men that were de-prying of the different Exhibitions, and not the Stand¬ ing Committee, who did not examine, and did not know ; anything about the subjects.
I also wish to point out to *you that this College—taking the 'Engineering .part
of it—< h*§ done fairly good work in the past.
I have here a list* of the number of Engineeringrstudents who entered the
* See page 489.
Galway.
College from the beginning, and also a list of the Honours which they obtained in the Royal University, and the Exhibitions especially; and, as I have said, April 8,1902L the Exhibitions were not at all as numerous as they ——
might have been, had the marking been at all moderate, ^^"^ or in harmony with what it is in other Colleges.
The j,-1(UA
*
number of students who entered in Engineering from ^7 '*
the opening of the College, in 1849, up to the present day, is 357.
Eighty-six of these obtained their degrees in the Queen's and Royal Universities, and in the First Professional examination of the University ninety-nine passed; and in the Second Professional, forty-nine.
The Second Professional was only introduced when the Royal University came into existence.
There was no Second Professional examination in the old Queen's University.
I beg, also, to draw attention to some of the leading appointments which some of my men have got.
County surveyorships, in Ireland, are very valu¬ able appointments.
They are open to public competi¬ tion.
I suppose they are worth £1,000 a year, or over it.
The fixed part of the salary would be, probably, £600 or £700, and the private practice is large, so I would say that £1,000 is a moderate estimate.
Five of my students have got county surveyorships.
Lately, since the Local Government Act was passed, a number of other—I won't say valuable—but very good appoint¬ ments for engineers have been thrown open to public competition.
I refer to assistant county surveyorships, the candidates for which have to pass a Civil Service examination, and then are recommended to the County Councils, who subsequently select them.
There are thirty-seven county surveyorships and 144 assistant surveyorships in Ireland; these are all open to public competition, and within the last two and a-half years, our students have got ten of these ap¬ pointments.
These appointments are much sought by engineers, because a young man, after finishing his College course and getting his diploma, gets into work without any fee, and it prepares him for the county surveyorship later on.
The salary of an assist¬ ant county surveyor is not very large, but it is as good as that of a dispensary doctor, averaging from £120 to £150 a year, and no fee has to be paid for it, so that really the position is a very suitable one for a young man starting in life.
One of my students, who was formerly resident engineer on the Galway and Clifden line:—which I constructed myself, along with Mr.
Ryan —is now engineer-in-chief on the Carndonagh Extension line, on the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway Company's system.
Mr.
Edward Lynam has got an inspectorship of the Board of Works, and I have a number of other appointments noted here which were obtained by our students, and which I need not read to you.
In India, a number of our students used to get employment, before Cooper's Hill College was estab¬ lished.
The appointments in India are practically con¬ fined to its students now.
One of my.
students, Mr.
Charles W.
Odling, is at present chief engineer and secretary to the Government Public Works Department, and a member of the Legislative Council, in the North¬ west Provinces, and Oude.
Another old student of this College, Mr.
Edward Stoney, is engineer-in-chief of the Madras railways, and there are a great many others who are now in the engineering departments in appoint¬ ments which they obtained by public competition.
Mr.
William King was deputy superintendent of the-Geological Survey, in India.
In Australia, one of my students is engineer-in-chief of the railways under the Government of Victoria.
I will hand in this list.*
With regard to the last portion of my Summary, the system of instruction adopted in our Engineering School is well calculated to meet the requirements of engineer¬ ing appointments in this and other countries, and especially those which have been recently thrown open to public competition in Ireland.
I may mention shortly that the system I adopt here is a three years* course.
In the first year the students attend lectures in my department.
They commence with Drawing— drawing the useful curves that crop up in Engineering and Architecture.
Then I teach them Perspective and Geometric Drawing and Descriptive Geometry, which is the basis of working drawings both in Architecture and Engineering.
I may mention we go a little more into Architecture in this College than they do either in Belfast or Cork.
In the first year we teach Descriptive Architec¬ ture, that is, the kind of Architecture that has prevailed in all countries in all ages—Classical, Romanesque, Gothic, and so on.
In addition to that the students at¬ tend lectures on Mathematics, Chemistry, Experimental Physics, and Practical Physics, and I also have them, drawing in separate hours.
They commence with Archi-
t See page 490.
S2
