September 24, 1914
Immediate Contact With Head Professors Is a Decided Advantage; Mining Engineering One of Best Professions.By S.H. Worrell, dean of the Texas School of Mines, El Paso
The question of where shall I go to college? is of very vital interest to every young man or woman who is planning to secure an education. Where there are no influences of sentiment involved in the selection, the main question that usually presents itself is: “Shall I go to a large college or a small one?”
There is much to be said for the small college, if by small we mean small in point of number of student body. The small college in the latter sense may have a splendid equipment for the special kind of work it is undertaking. The laboratory equipment per student may be better at the small than at the large institutions. For example, the equipment per student in the chemical laboratories of the Texas School of Mines is much better than at the University of California. The larger institution may have, generally does have, more money invested in equipment, but the most of it and best of it naturally is for the use of the post graduate or special student and professors who are doing research work. The undergraduate is seldom so well provided for. The money value of the equipment per student is generally larger in the smaller college. In the latter type of institution, there is seldom more than one man, a professor of ability, drawing a good salary, in each department of the college.
The following is quoted from a booklet issued by Center college, of Kentucky, founded in 1819, an institution that has produced many illustrious men:
“A small student body is of immense advantage to every student enrolled in the college and for the following reasons:
“Every student has the advantage of immediate contact with the head professor in each department. He is not relegated to the care of cheap assistants, the common condition in institutions with large student bodies.”
Taught by “Student Assistants”
The first year almost entirely, the second year in part, a student attending a large institution will receive his laboratory instructions largely or entirely from “student assistants,” upper classmen naturally more interested in their own work than in instructing others. Their salary is usually $250. He is fortunate if he receives instruction form a tutor ($600 to $900). His class room work, even in the largest and best institutions, may be under an instructor at $1000 to $12000. In the smaller college only, to continue the quotation, does he “enjoy the personal contact, advice and friendship of his professors an is a man and not a number to them. His instruction is personal and directly supervised from day to day. The professors charge themselves with the students’ character development as well as with his technical instruction. The small student body means a genuine college democracy. The individual is not submerged in a mass, but knows his college fellows as a whole, finds his place in the general activity and life of the college and plays his part in the rivalries, literally and athletic, of the college, and in such contact finds free play for the development of his individuality in the contest and competitions of a student body where he knows and is intimately known.”
A more Difficult Question
In addition to the question of where to go to college, the even more difficult question often presents itself of what profession to adopt. Aside from the fact that a course at the school of mines, like a course at many other institutions, provided the primary requisite of an institution of learning, namely, a good general education, it also fits a man in a special way for various engineering professions. The particular value of a course in mining is set forth in an article by Prof. G. M. Butler, formerly of the Colorado School of Mines in an article in the Student Engineer. He says in part as follows:
“Mining engineering is the broadest of all the professions. A good mining engineer must have considerable knowledge of civil, mechanical, chemical, and to a lesser extent, electrical engineering. He is often called upon to engage in sanitary, municipal, railway and hydraulic engineering operations; but if the apprentice period is long and sometimes tedious, the rewards are correspondingly great. They may be thus summarized:
“I. The graduate mining engineer may choose his life work from a varied assortment of activities. He can earn good wages as an assayer and chemist, a deputy mineral and land surveyor, a draughtsman, on the geological staffs of the great railroad, mining for exploration companies, in the mineral classification work of the government forest service, or in the geological or coast and geodetic survey, in actual mining, milling or smelting operations.
“II. It is possible for the graduate in mining to choose his environment.
Easy to Secure Employment
“III. It is comparatively easy for a mining engineer student to secure employment immediately after graduation. This is because so many lines are open to him.
“IV. The financial returns on an investment in a course in mining engineering are extremely satisfactory. It is doubtful if a worker in any other profession is as well paid at the beginning.
“V. The work is interesting. The mining engineer usually travels extensively in his own land, and, often in other countries. This broadens his sympathies and his outlook upon life and is in itself a source of recreation and enjoyment.
“VI. A mining engineer may be his own boss, he may develop his own prospect or mine or engage in leasing.”
“VII. The field is not over crowded. Work for the mining engineer is found the world over, in Asia, most of Africa, much of both Americas.”
Must be Trained to Succeed
The time has passed when unskilled, untrained men will be employed in mining enterprise. Some wonderful properties have succeeded in spite of their management, but it has been axiomatic that more properties have failed from lack of management than lack of ore. The time will come when a mining company will no more employ an untrained man, be his virtues ever so great, than a railway company would now employ a freight clerk to run a locomotive. The same outcome is to be expected in either case, namely, disaster.
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SCHOOL OF MINES HAS RECORD LIST
Opens With Larger Number Than Any Mine School on the First Day
The El Paso School of Mines opened Monday for its initial session. The registration on the opening day, 24, is the largest registration of any mines school in its opening year, according to S.H. Worrell, dean of the school.
During the summer extensive improvements have been made in the buildings of the old military institute and everything is in first class condition. Arrangements are being made to have the mines school enter the local sport filed with a strong football team.
A number of the students are working their way through the school. The authorities of the school are making efforts to assist these students in securing positions.
Those Who Have Registered
The following is the complete list of registration on the opening day: W.H. Farrell, El Paso; Fred Chesney, El Paso; H.M. Park, Alexandria City, Ala.; Lloyd Nelson, Santa Rita, N.M.; George Johnson, El Paso; P.W. Smith, El Paso; R.R. Barberena, Tampico, Mex.; Jack Ivy, Big Springs; W.E. Sharpe Jr., El Paso; D.K. Davey, Tucson, Ariz.; V. Leasure, Larned, Kan., and Harold Roman, W.D. Richmond, W.F. Race, James B. Briggs, O.B. Walker and H.D. Greer, El Paso.
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