Address in Praise of Founders

"Address in Praise of Founders by Dr. McGinnis. Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at U.N.B. Emphasizes Necessity of Study of Those Branches of Science in View of Reorganization Which Must Follow the War" The Daily Mail (16 May 1918): 6.

The wholesome influence of the University of New Brunswick is by no means limited to the Province from which it derives its support. As in the past, however, the institution must continue to offer whatever the spirit of the times may demand. this reaction upon the University has resulted in a continual readjustment of courses offered. New branches of study have been added, old ones continued, but very few if any have been actually dropped. So the process is essentially one of expansion. Subdivisions have become necessary. Thus, not only have chemistry and physics drifted apart from their common origin, but that important branch of study known as physical chemistry has been extensively developed over the common ground between them. The actual character of a course of study called "science" would be about as definite to the intending student as another one which might be called "language." Its reason for being could only be that it might include a little from each of all the branches of science, or a little from each of all the languages.

Can anyone imagine a practicing engineer of today who knows only a little from each of all the engineering branches. Such a man does not fit in the scheme of modern expansion. So our engineering student of today has a definite task before him. It is an intensive study over a restricted field which was perhaps naturally for a time too much restricted. A modern language or two for purposes of collateral reading have always been required. It is scarcely necessary to add that a real appreciation of these literatures is not attained. However, a broader study of the English language is now generally held to be necessary for our engineers.

The world war is now moulding the future requirements of our educational systems, for there is to be a mighty conflict for national supremacy. Radical changes are in the making in England with a strong tendency to criticize the classical education as pursued in the public schools there.

Lord Raleigh, one of England's foremost physicists, while not supporting an exclusively scientific training, points out that "the majority of boys, notwithstanding the time spent on the classics, attain neither to a knowledge of the languages nor to an appreciation of the writings of the ancient authors."

At the Head Masters' conference held in 1908 to propose a curriculum, 80 per cent of the head masters were classical men, and they proposed a curriculum in which the study of the dead languages occupied over forty per cent of the school hours after the age when Greek became a subject. A reviewer suggest that "Parents would ask themselves if such curricula in which English as well as science is neglected, are not contrary to all common sense and do not necessarily lead to no education instead of one that is 'liberal.'"

Be this as it may, I can at least point out that engineering courses such as electrical engineering, can scarcely be expected to flourish of to give full value to the student unless fostered and provided for by men other than those of a decidedly classical trend. In the latter case, its vital welfare is naturally left to the initiative of some friend who does not exist. The classical man is at a loss to know why a library of the latest books will not in great measure provide an abundance of technical information. It will, but he forgets that when his electric lights go out he finds it useless to run to the encyclopedia. The only argument against the extensive use of laboratory apparatus in studying nature's laws, is that apparatus is rather expensive. But since proficiency is not otherwise attained, the question must be fairly met.

That branch of science known as physics, the study of matter and of energy, has been taught here in some form or other since the foundation of the University, and has made its most rapid strides in the lifetime of the University. English speaking people have contributed very largely to this advancement. The philosophy of modern physics holds that the universe is in the end rationally intelligible, no matter how incomplete our present understanding of it may be. It believes in the absolute uniformity of nature.

But the only way to learn of nature's laws is to experiment. Thus our laboratory equipment is the most important element in our course of physics. Of course this view has not always been held. Aristotle said that bodies fell quicker in exact proportion to their weight. No statement could be farther from the truth, and Aristotle could easily have tried the simple experiment of dropping two stone differing in weight. But he preferred his philosophy of "pure thought" and to rely upon his giant intellect.

The physics of the present century has been the physics of the atom, which fact is readily seen if I name several of the most far-reaching advances of the present century. First: An experimental proof of the divisibility of the atom. This was made possible by X-rays. Second: Evidence of the electrical origin of ordinary mass. Third: An absolute prediction of the extent of the motion of the particles in the Brownian Movements, and a subsequent experimental confirmation to one-half per cent. Fourth: The discover of radio-activity. Here we find matter shooting off negatively charged particles with speed near the velocity of light, or 186,000 miles per second, and positively charged particles with one-tenth that velocity. Fifth: The discovery that electricity itself is atomic or divisible into elementary parts all similar. Sixth: The discovery of the mode of makeup of the atom, that is, the nucleus with its revolving satellites or electrons, and just how many electrons. Seventh and last: A discovery which when viewed in its proper perspective makes the others appear insignificant, namely, a new relation between the chemical elements and a new contribution to our knowledge of radiations emitted by the different elements. This discovery was made by a young English physicist in his twenty-sixth year, Moseley, who has since given up his life in this world war which is crushing out the finest scientific brains in existence. This loss has cost England dearly and cannot be made up. The results of Moseley's discovery show a sort of stairs of elements, each element corresponding to one step. There are only four vacant threads between the lightest and the heaviest elements with which he could work, i. e., aluminum and lead, indicating that there are only four elements within this range which have not been found.

Some people wonder what of practical value is in these fundamental truths. The fetish of immediate utility does not possess the true physicist for he knows he is the pioneer upon whose work practically all engineering advancement depends.

The latest admission of the true value of investigation and research is by the Canadian Government through its Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Properly qualified persons are given financial assistance that they may help to solve the many problems which confront the Dominion along the lines of its expansion. One aim of our University courses should be to properly qualify students to take advantage of such opportunities and indeed to regard the opportunity as a privilege. If this is conscientiously done we need have no fear but that the best traditions of the loyal Founders of this University will have been preserved.