within the last three days another sad loss had occurred-one who was not a member of the Council, but with whom, from 1852 to 1856, the President had worked, more as a brother than a subordinate. He had been Latimer Clark's assistant during those years, and had never worked with a more earnest, honest and faithful compeer. It was with a feeling of great regret that he had to announce his demise.

The President then delivered the following Address :

The election to the position of President is the highest possible reward which the Institution can give to those who have endeavoured to serve it well and truly. I have often feared that my position as a specialist might have proved a bar to the attainment of my greatest ambition. It has come at last. I am very grateful, and I promise that I will continue to do my very best to merit your confidence and approbation. I am also proud, not alone for the sake of that branch of the profession to which I specially belong, but also because I am a member of the great Civil Service of this country. Twenty-eight of my forty-six years of professional work have been spent in the service of the Crown. I can speak with some authority and experience when I assert that this Service deserves a recognition for zeal, industry, and the conscientious determination to do its duty far greater than that usually accorded to it by Parliament, the public, and the press. The jealousy and contempt so freely displayed for Government work are not justified by results. It is the fashion to decry the public service. It is probably a survival of that old feeling of oppression and dissatisfaction which the ruled always felt towards their rulers. The position is now reversed-the public is the master and the official is the servant. The public servant is not to be coerced by oaths or driven by whips or deterred by scorns. His labours should be sweetened by praise, and his successes acknowledged by a grateful recognition. Two of your Vice-Presidents belong, and some of your Council have belonged, to this Service. You at any rate are free from criticism, for you have testified to my zeal by giving me the greatest reward you can confer. My successors will be able to drive home the nail I desire to insert in the coffin of the traditional general and false belief in the inefficiency of a great and growing public service.

I entered the Institution as an Associate in 1859, and am now in my fortieth year of membership. It is interesting to see the growth of the Institution during that period :

The distribution of our 7,088 members over the globe is shown in this Table :

Roughly we can say that 71 per cent. are Home Members, 21 per cent. are Colonial Members, and 8 per cent. are Foreign Members. It is not alone in numbers that growth is shown; it is more so in the business of the engineer. The field of the profession has extended in all directions by the advances of practical science and by a process of evolution and agglutination. The introduction of the steam-engine, the development of the railroad, the invention of the paddle and the screw, and the evolution of the ocean greyhound; the conversion of iron into steel, and the demand for ores; the opening of coal- and oil-fields and the production of gas; the sanitation of our dwellings and

our towns, and the demand for pure air and pure water; the applications of electricity and the annihilation of distance; the rifling of ordnance, the improvement of explosives, and the armouring of great fighting, floating, moving machines; the enormous growth of manufactures and their distribution over the face of the earth; the pursuit of wealth, the roving propensities of our race, and the industrial competition of nations;—have all contributed to break up our profession into special branches and into individual groups, with their separate organizations and with their independent homes. Thus we have the railway engineer, the mechanical engineer, the naval architect, the mining engineer, the sanitary engineer, the gas engineer, the hydraulic engineer, the electrical engineer, the chemical engineer, the marine engineer, species of one genus-the civil engineer, whose home is in this building, whose Institution, like a good mother, tries to keep them all under the protection of her wings, and who is prepared to make any sacrifice to advance the knowledge of engineering, and to maintain the solidarity and reputation of the profession. The Engineering Conference held by the Institution in 1897 was undertaken in the furtherance of this aim, with results so successful as to call for its repetition in the approaching spring of 1899.

EXAMINATIONS.

Our great European rivals relegate the examination and selection of their engineers to their Governments, but we, under the guidance of our immediate Past-President, have taken this load on our own shoulders; not before it was needed, for the competition of highly educated engineers of other countries was becoming rather too evident. Loss of business is a potent force to effect reform. The reform itself in our case has materially strengthened the credentials of our Institution.

Our task has been a difficult one, for, while we recognise most fully that the practical training of the drawing-office, of the shop and of works in progress are the true school for the engineer, we cannot help thinking that he ought to acquire that knowledge which is the basis of his profession and those exact methods of inquiry and of thought which lead to truthful deduction and to sound judgment, before he can satisfactorily begin his professional experience.

The foundation of engineering is science. Science is not only a knowledge of the facts of Nature but of the development of her laws. It is, in the language of Huxley, organised common sense. The

man who determines to practise in the business of applying those facts and laws to add to the comfort and happiness of mankind must know something of the mental tools and weapons that mathematics and logic have placed at his disposal. His mind must be trained to habits of enquiry, and he should know something of the experience and teaching of the past. Hence the Institution, as the tutelary genius of the profession, has established a system of qualifying, not competing, examinations for admission into its ranks; not only to test the education and preparation of those who wish to recruit our numbers, and the qualifications of those who desire to improve their position in our classes, but also to enhance the standing of the modern engineer as the most scientific and advanced of all the learned professions. The result of the first examinations has been highly satisfactory. Out of 24 examined for Studentship, 3 only failed to pass. Of 40 examined for Associate Membership, 7 failed. Of 48 theses submitted in lieu of examination, 5 only failed to secure a satisfactory report. The popularity of the measure among even the examinees is shown by the entrance of 71 for this last October examination.

The examination papers which have been set are by no means of an insignificant character, yet 86 per cent. of marks have been acquired on the whole examination.

A

Our ancient Universities commenced their careers as mindtraining establishments, with faculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine. These were called, and still are known, as the learned professions, but subsequently Arts was added, from which has sprung all modern science. Engineering as the principal outcome of this faculty has been the mother of scientific progress. mere University training alone does not lead to invention and discovery. It is contact with the practical world, a knowledge of wants and defects, which excite discoveries and improvements. The modern method of research proceeds by making experiment subservient to hypothesis. Difficulties teach effects, effects suggest causes, a knowledge of causes leads to remedies, and finally to exact science. Practice, the home of difficulty, is thus the nursery of science. The engineer is far in advance of the pure scientist. Smeaton and Watt, Telford and Stephenson, Rankine and Kelvin, Whitworth and Froude, Regnault and Hirn, have established not only the profession of the scientific engineer, but they have laid the groundwork of science itself.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

The engineer extracts matter from the earth and transforms it into purer and more serviceable forms. He finds energy lying dormant or running to waste; he converts it into active and useful forms. A knowledge of matter and of energy is the foundation of all his actions. This, combined with the power of thinking so as to enable the brain to direct and assist the hand, is the root of what is known as technical training. The modern engineer has immense advantages over his predecessors. He can commence his practical career with a University training, well charged with facts, wanting only that experience which practice alone will give.

There is a fashion in Great Britain for technical education just now. Enormous sums of money are being annually spent on secondary, intermediate, and more advanced education. It is well that it is so. It is well that the country has awakened from its conservatism and apathy, and that it is putting its schools in order. But is it doing so on a true issue, and are we distributing our money through the right channels? Our trade is suffering even in our own colonies from the competition of our continental neighbours, who are said to be beating us by their technically superior hand labour. It is true we are suffering, but is this the true cause? It is rather from the superior commercial skill of the principals at home and the accomplished polyglot and welltrained traveller abroad, as well as from a financial system that is more moral and more sound than that rampant in England through the gross abuses of the Limited Liability Act of 1862. Our law courts are almost daily the scenes of the exposure of the modern spoiling of the Egyptians. A new industry is designed by some simple, well-devised, and economical process. Capital is required to develop it. In Germany, financial support is readily subscribed by the generous and enlightened policy of its banks. In England we require a syndicate, a pioneer company, and finally an appeal to the public for an enlarged limited company. The financiers, the lawyers, the brokers, as well as the original inventor, have to be satisfied, and this satisfaction grows very much with the state of the money market and the excitement for investment with the public. The industry is established, but with a terribly overloaded capital-overloaded by the harpies who have sprung from the operations of the Limited Liability Act. The same industry could be established in Germany with probably half the capital. Its manufacture would be supervised there with greater skill, and it