That two bicycle salesmen were the first people to fly is as surprising today as it was over a century ago. In 1903, the Wright brothers flew above the crowd at a public exhibition in the United States. For a long period, the whole world was still in shock.
The Wrights' success is worth reviewing today because it challenges the 21st century's belief that, for young engineers, courses in arts and humanities are not as important as math and science. In fact, however, neither of the Wright brothers went to college or had any formal technical training.
To see what we can learn from the Wright brothers today, we must consider what made them different then. The Wright brothers grew up in a family where there was always encouragement on curiosity. The bookshelves in their home were filled with novels, poetry, and ancient history. The Wrights' parents had great curiosity for learning. They encouraged their children to read widely and find out the truth on their own. In their late 20s, the Wrights began reading books on the movement of bird wings, which led to their original air-control system.
The Wright brothers often compared themselves to artists because their invention had a lot to do with arts. For example, the art of flying was actually a complicated dance between man, machine and air, which required thousands of hours of practice to perfect. Technical skills and math were certainly necessary to build the machine, but much of the challenge lay in the art of flying in order to have beautiful lines during flight and landing.
If today's schools hope to have more extraordinary engineers, they should broaden the limited academic requirements and encourage students to be curious about different subjects as the Wright brothers did.
