24
8
23.
24.
25.
University.
From then until now the University has been
doing, on the whole efficiently and well, precisely tha
for which it was established.
In 1929 Messrs. Swire announced that they were dis-
appointed in our engineering graduates, who were not
(they said) proving useful to them, and they proclaimed (apparently as a discovery) that University-trained
engineers are of very limited value in industry unless
and until they have also had workshop experience under
commercial conditions (G.R. Para. 59). This is the merest
truism, and has been well understood for the best part
of a century by all the "academic" engineers in the world.
It seems a pity that from the very beginning in 1912,
facilities of the right kind were not available for under-
graduate and/or postgraduate training, in the Taikoo or
other workshops.
The most progressive engineering firms
in Europe and America have long ago realised that work-
shop experience which may be suitable for boys fresh from school, or fresh from
the streets, is inappropriate, inefficient and wasteful
of time, in the case of men who have already taken a
University or Technical College Course in Engineering
Science.
It is a common complaint (though most often heard
from persons whose impartiality is not above suspicion)
that our graduates are unwilling to "go through the mill,"
and that they object to practical work as being hard,
dirty, and disagreeable.
There is unfortunately a certain
measure of truth in this, but while it is by no means the
whole truth, it is the only portion of truth that receives
regular publicity.
Any man who has gone successfully through a degree
course, in this or any other British University, is already