University of Virginia Library

General Plan of Study.

At the University of Virginia engineering is studied as a
learned profession, just as law or medicine. Care is taken in
the first place to secure honest, thorough, and adequate preparation
on the part of the entering student. This having been accomplished,
a four year course has been organized, in which
the student's whole time is devoted to his professional studies,
including in these the fundamental sciences, which lie at the
basis of all sound knowledge of engineering practice. No attempt
has been made to create a place for courses in the
humanistic branches—courses which in the majority of cases
are fragmentary and ineffectual, arousing little interest in the
student, and securing for him even less of benefit. On the
other hand the scientific and technical courses are so taught as
to make them true instruments of liberal culture; conceived on
broad grounds, prosecuted to high ends, and followed in the
right spirit, they develop competent engineers and not mere
skilled craftsmen.