Working Drawings and How to Make and Use Them.

Author's reply to a review from Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol. 111: MR. EDITOR: -Having been absent from the city, I have only just received the August number of the Journal, which contains a review of my recent little book on "Working Drawings," etc., and as your author has manifestly misunderstood my preface or read it hastily, I desire to correct some of the erroneous impressions his review must create, to the prejudice of the work.He states first generally that "Engineers and master mechanics * * have been amazed that even graduates of technical and scientific schools generally come to them with entirely erroneous methods of thought * and practice."If this statement be true, then the system of instruction in our scientific and technical schools generally must be out of gear, from the use of present standard authorities, not the book under review, as that has not yet been introduced, and it is time the schools should know it .and change their system; but I have heard no complaint in that direction, and our graduates seem to have no difficulty in making drawings that are readily understood. At all events, no school should teach errors, and if our system be such we hope to be convinced of it that a change may be immediately effected.In the second paragraph your reviewer states that "The title and preface of this book give the impression that the author has done a good work in presenting a plan by which cadet engineers can be graduated capable of entering the draughting room and being immediately useful," etc.If such an impression is created by a careful reading of the preface I must confess that I need to study how to write correctly, for I have distinctly stated therein that the book was designed especially for the very lowest grade of scholars capable of comprehending the subject, viz., those in the public schools, and that this book was but the first of a series and was intended simply as a test of the ability of the student to comprehend the principles which underlie the science of making drawings..