An Engineer Speaks

To The Editor of the CRIMSON:

I recently read in a New York newspaper abstracts of your editorial on the Harvard Engineering School.

I was born in Boston, attended schools there, and know in a general way what you are up against, and also what students are after graduating.

To attempt an engineering comeback and to actively compete with other engineering schools, would mean spending large sums of money and the returns from admissions would show only a slight increase for five years. It is believed your best bet is to look over the various engineering fields, and to specialize in one.

Through work on a book on Engineering Materials, with chapters on Testing machines; iron--gray, malleable, wrought, alloy; carbon and alloy steels; heat treating; non-ferrous metals and alloys; copper, tin, nickel, lead, zinc, aluminum, etc., I have come in contact with many products and processes. In spite of the depression, there is marked activity in research work, and as there is activity in this field, then this is the one to train students to enter, instead of in the already overcrowded ones.

Trusting the above from an ex-Boston man, may be of interest. Charles H. Hughes.