In this course of instruction in Mechanical Engineering it will be observed that the writer has incorporated the scheme of a workshop course. This is done, not at all with the idea that a school of mechanical engineering is to be regarded as a "trade school," but that every engineer should have some acquaintance with the tools and the methods of work upon which the success of his own work is so largely dependent. If the mechanical engineer can acquire such knowledge in the more complete course of instruction of the trade school, either before or after his attendance at the technical school, it will be greatly to his advantage. The technical school has, however, a distinct field; and its province is not to be confounded with that of the trade school. The former is devoted to instruction in the theory and practice of a profession which calls for service upon the men from the latter--which makes demand upon a hundred trades--in the prosecution of its designs. The latter teaches, simply, the practical methods of either of the trades subsidiary to the several branches of engineering, with only so much of science as is essential to the intelligent use of the tools and the successful application of the methods of work of the trade taught. The distinction between the two departments of education, both of which are of comparatively modern date, is not always appreciated in the United States, although always observed in those countries of Europe in which technical and trade education have been longest pursued as essential branches of popular instruction. Throughout France and Germany, every large town has its trade schools, in which the trades most generally pursued in the place are systematically taught; and every large city has its technical school, in which the several professions allied to engineering are studied with special development of those to which the conditions prevailing at the place give most prominence and local importance.