ENGINEERING ALUMNI

At the last dinner of the Harvard Engineering Society the topic of an organization of alumni engaged in engineering was broached and we now learn that its formation is practically assured. Surely there can be nothing but advantage to be gained from an association of this sort. Its close affiliation with the Engineering Society will bring the men leaving College to engage in engineering work into closer touch with the graduates who have preceded them, and if the organization be properly conducted the novice will feel that he can look for advice to older men who have begun where he is beginning.

The Scientific School, built up by the late Dean Shaler, is now in a state of transition, and will probably develop in time into a purely graduate school. Its graduates will have in addition to their technical equipment, the broadening influence of a college education which counteracts the restrictions of a rigid technical training. Under its present able administration and aided by the McKay bequest, the engineering department should take its place among the foremost institutions of applied engineering in the country. In this development the almuni organization should take an important part. Similar organizations have been successful in the Law and Medical Schools, and, if they are not responsible for the high position of these departments, they certainly exert a quiet but far-reaching influence.