MACKAYE TO GIVE NEW PHILOSOPHY COURSE

James Mackaye, who spoke in Hanover a year ago under the auspices of the Philosophical Club, is to give a new course in Philosophy during the second semester. Social Engineering will be the general subject of the new course which will be known as Philosophy 6.

The object of the course, in the words of Mr. Mackaye, will be "to present a method of moralizing science, and applying an engineering technique to the problem of suppressing the misery and promoting the happiness of society. Happiness (as well as unhappiness) is an effect of causes and, like other effects, can be produced only by setting in operation the causes adapted to produce it. Experience proves that the application of causes to the production of effects is rendered vastly more successful by the substitution of technical for untechnical methods of application and, popular opinion to the contrary, there is no reason to believe that the effect called happiness is an exception to this rule. Usefulness no less than wealth is a proper object of engineering methods. Upon this presumption are founded the proposals for extending such methods to the production of happiness comprised in the present course."

Mr. Mackaye is a brother of Percy Mackaye, the poet and dramatist, and was graduated from Harvard where he studied under James, Royce and Palmer. While engaged in the practice of chemical engineering since his graduation from the Lawrence Scientific School, he has been chiefly interested in the application of scientific methods to the guidance of human conduct. He has given expression to this interest in a course of lectures on relative topics at Harvard during the past year and in several books dealing with various phases of the subject.