Mining schools and mining engineers: the development of an educational model between the 18th centur

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Mining schools and mining engineers the
development of an educational model between the
18th century and the early 20th century

• by
• Donata Brianta
• University of Pavia - Italy

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• The framework in the 18th century
• Some distinctive features of mining education
• Created by economic ministries
• Located in mining districts of Central and
  Eastern Europe
• Often connected to a complex system of secondary
  technical schools
• Positioned as an important cross-road in the
  process of cross-cultural-transfer in the four
  major domains of mining teaching (chemistry,
  metallurgy, geosciences and mining)
• The pattern of mining schools in the
  German-speaking world promoted the setting up of
  similar institutes in Western Europe and in Latin
  American countries

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Mining Academies and Year of Foundation
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• Evolution of mining schools organisation between
  19th and 20th centuries
• Syllabus development
• Development in scientific equipment and teaching
  methods
• Evolution of mining engineer from technocrats to
  entrepreneurs and managers
• Recruitment channels and career prospects
• Competition with the polytechnic system
• Top ranking institutions

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Syllabus development
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Development in scientific equipment and teaching
methods

• Delay of European Mining Schools in experimental
  equipments versus the American system
• USA around 1870 workshop in miniature (according
  to MIT model) symbolized a radical change towards
  a technical and practical training of engineers,
  followed also by Roberts-Austen at the London
  School of Mines
• Germany only after the Dusseldorf Exhibition
  (1902), setting up of modern research
  laboratories of Micrography and Metallography
  (Clausthal 1904) and of Metallurgy and
  Electrometallurgy (Aachen 1902)
• Belgium laboratories in industrial electricity
  at the Ecole des Mines in Liège was provided by
  the private Institute M. Montefiore
• USA at the beginning of the 20th century, the
  pioneers of Metallography (Howe, Columbia School
  of Mines) and Sauveur (Boston and Harvard)
  questioned the American research system centered
  on workshop in miniature

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• France Howes methodology is supported by Le
  Chatelier (Ecole des Mines in Paris) as he
  plauded it in the Revue de Metallurgie (1904)
•  Aux États Unis, quand de grandes écoles
  techniques furent créés, on se préoccupa au
  premier moment dorganiser de véritable petites
  usines avec leurs haut forneaux, leurs machines à
  vapeur et cela fut possible grâce aux libéralités
  extrêmes des industriels américains, mais lon
  sest aperçu que lon faisait fausse route et le
  célèbre professeur de Métallurgie de Columbia
  University à New York Mr Howe a pris linitiative
  dune réaction énergique contre ces méthodes
  denseignements. Il demande que lon enseigne
  dans les principes de la science industrielle et
  non pas la technique des industries elles même.
  Le même sentiment commence à se faire jour en
  France (Du role de la science dans lindustrie,
  1904) 
• Laboratories were essential to the definition of
  Le Chateliers ideal middle course of a science
  industrielle that would avoid the artificial
  distinction between science pure and science
  appliquée

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Evolution of mining engineer from technocrats to
entrepreneurs and managers

• Recruitment channels and carrier prospects
• The main trend in Paris, Liège, Berlin and
  Freiberg was the creation, within the same high
  mining school, of two parallel recruitment
  channels and two educational paths one restricted
  to engineers of the civil service and one more
  open but less guaranteed for industrial engineers
• On the contrary, the issue about the
  differentiation of courses and of academic
  certifications was less perceived in the
  Anglo-Saxon world where a public mining survey
  was never established

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Competition with the polytechnic system

• A successful strategy was aimed at
• Enhancing and re-qualifying school regulations
  (introducing the requisites of school-leaving
  certificates for matriculation, the establishment
  of preparatory courses and of formalized paths,
  the extension of specialized curricula and the
  expansion of diploma and jobs opportunity)
• Reaching an academic self-government (with the
  election of rector by the academic body)
• In German countries Bergakademien became
  Montanistische Hochschulen and were equalized to
  the Technische Hochschulen in 1904-05
• The Belgian pattern was much more diversified
• The US system was extremely varied with a clear
  predominance of the university system