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diff --git a/24681-h/24681-h.htm b/24681-h/24681-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82e2e29 --- /dev/null +++ b/24681-h/24681-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2301 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Opportunities in Engineering, by Charles M. Horton</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr.minor {width: 35%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black;} + hr.major {width: 65%; margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 4em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black;} + hr.short {width: 10%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table.title {margin: auto; border: black 2px solid; width: 26em; + padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;} + table.emblem {border-left: black 2px solid; + border-right: black 2px solid; width: 26em; + height: 20em;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum {display: inline; font-size: small; text-align: right; + position: absolute; right: 2%; + padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; + color: #444; background-color: #EEE;} + .blockquot {margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 30%;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .title1 {text-align: center; font-size: 2.8em;} + .title2 {text-align: center; font-size: 1.6em;} + .title3 {text-align: center; font-size: 1.2em;} + .title4 {text-align: center; font-size: 1.4em;} + .title5 {font-variant: small-caps; text-indent: 1em;} + .title6 {font-variant: small-caps; text-indent: 2em;} + .mt6 {margin-top: 6em;} + .mb6 {margin-bottom: 6em;} + .mt1 {margin-top: 1.5em;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px; padding: 0em 1em 1em 1em; margin-top: 2em; + margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Opportunities in Engineering, by Charles M. +Horton</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Opportunities in Engineering</p> +<p>Author: Charles M. Horton</p> +<p>Release Date: February 24, 2008 [eBook #24681]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OPPORTUNITIES IN ENGINEERING***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>OPPORTUNITIES IN<br /> ENGINEERING</h2> +<div class='figcenter'><img src='images/plant.jpg' alt='' /></div> +<hr class='minor' /> +<div class='blockquot'> +<p class='title4'>OPPORTUNITY BOOKS<br /><br /></p> + + +<p>OPPORTUNITIES IN ENGINEERING</p> +<p class='title5'>By Charles M. Horton<br /><br /></p> + +<p>OPPORTUNITIES IN AVIATION</p> +<p class='title5'>By Lieut. Gordon Lamont</p> +<p style="text-indent: 8em;">And</p> +<p class='title6'>Captain Arthur Sweetser<br /><br /></p> + +<p>OPPORTUNITIES IN CHEMISTRY</p> +<p class='title5'>By Ellwood Hendrick<br /><br /></p> + +<p>OPPORTUNITIES IN FARMING</p> +<p class='title5'>By Edward Owen Dean<br /><br /></p> + +<p>OPPORTUNITIES IN MERCHANT SHIPS</p> +<p class="title5">By Nelson Collins<br /><br /></p> + +<p>OPPORTUNITIES IN NEWSPAPER BUSINESS</p> +<p class='title5'>By James Melvin Lee<br /><br /></p> +</div> +<hr class='short' /> +<div class='blockquot'> +<p class='center'>HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK</p> +<p class='center'><span class='smcap'>Established 1817</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> +<table class='title' summary='Title'> + <tr><td class='title1'>OPPORTUNITIES<br /> IN ENGINEERING</td></tr> + + + <tr><td class='title2'>By CHARLES M. HORTON</td></tr> +</table> +<table class='emblem' summary='Emblem'> + <tr><td><div class='figcenter'><img src='images/deco.jpg' alt='' /></div></td></tr> +</table> +<table class='title' summary='Title'> + <tr><td class='title2'>HARPER & BROTHERS</td></tr> + + <tr><td class='title3'><i>Publishers</i> New York and London</td></tr> +</table> + + + +<hr class='minor' /> +<p class='center'><span class='smcap'>Opportunities in Engineering</span></p> +<hr class='short' /> +<p class='center'>Copyright 1920, by Harper & Brothers<br /> +Printed in the United States of America<br /> +Published April, 1920<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border='0' cellpadding='4' cellspacing='0' summary='CONTENTS'> +<tr><td align='left'>CHAP.</td><td></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>Engineering and the Engineer</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>Engineering Opportunities</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_9'>9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>The Engineering Type</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_16'>16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>The Four Major Branches</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_24'>24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>Making a Choice</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_31'>31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>Qualifying for Promotion</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_38'>38</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>The Consulting Engineer</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_48'>48</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>The Engineer in Civic Affairs</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_54'>54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>Code of Ethics</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_62'>62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>Future of the Engineer</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>What Constitutes Engineering Success</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_76'>76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class='smcap'>The Personal Side</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_1' id='Page_1'>1</a></span></p> +<h2>OPPORTUNITIES IN<br /> ENGINEERING</h2> + + + + +<h2>I</h2> + +<h3>ENGINEERING AND THE ENGINEER</h3> + + +<p>Several years ago, at the regular annual meeting of one of the major +engineering societies, the president of the society, in the formal +address with which he opened the meeting, gave expression to a thought +so startling that the few laymen who were seated in the auditorium +fairly gasped. What the president said in effect was that, since +engineers had got the world into war, it was the duty of engineers to +get the world out of war. As a thought, it probably reflected the secret +opinion of every engineer present, for, however innocent of intended +wrong-doing engineers assuredly are as a group in their work of +scientific investigation and development, the statement that engineers<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_2' id='Page_2'>2</a></span> +were responsible for the conflict then raging in Europe was absolute +truth.</p> + +<p>I mention this merely to bring to the reader's attention the tremendous +power which engineers wield in world affairs.</p> + +<p>The profession of engineering—which, by the way, is merely the adapting +of discoveries in science and art to the uses of mankind—is a +peculiarly isolated one. But very little is known about it among those +outside of the profession. Laymen know something about law, a little +about medicine, quite a lot—nowadays—about metaphysics. But laymen +know nothing about engineering. Indeed, a source of common amusement +among engineers is the peculiar fact that the average layman cannot +differentiate between the man who runs a locomotive and the man who +designs a locomotive. In ordinary parlance both are called engineers. +Yet there is a difference between them—a difference as between day and +night. For one merely operates the results of the creative genius of the +other. This almost universal ignorance as to what constitutes an +engineer serves to show to what broad extent the profession of +engineering is isolated.</p> + +<p>Yet it is a wonderful profession. I say this with due regard for all +other professions.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_3' id='Page_3'>3</a></span> For one cannot but ponder the fact that, if +engineers started the greatest war the world has ever known—and +engineers as a body freely admit that if they did not start it they at +least made it possible—they also stopped it, thereby proving themselves +possessed of a power greater than that of any other class of +professional men—diplomats and lawyers and divinities not excepted.</p> + +<p>That engineering is a force fraught with stupendous possibilities, +therefore, nobody can very well deny. That it is a force generally +exercised for good—despite the World War—I myself, as an engineer, can +truly testify. With some fifteen years spent on the creative end of the +work—the drafting and designing end—I have yet to see, with but two or +three rare exceptions, the genius of engineers turned into any but noble +channels.</p> + +<p>Thus, engineering is not only a wonderful profession, with the +activities of its followers of utmost importance, but also it is a +profession the individual work of whose pioneers, from Watt to +Westinghouse and from Eiffel to Edison, has been epoch-making.</p> + +<p>For when James Watt, clock-repairer, tinker, being called into a certain +small laboratory in England more than a century ago to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_4' id='Page_4'>4</a></span> make a few minor +repairs on a new design of steam-engine, discovered, while at work on +this crude unit deriving its motion from expanded steam and the +alternate workings of a lever actuated by a weight, the value of +superheated steam for power purposes, and later embodied the idea in a +steam-engine of his own, Watt set the civilized world forward into an +era so full of promise and discovery that even we who are living to-day, +despite the wonderful progress already made in mechanics as represented +among other things in the high-speed engine, the dynamo, the airplane, +are witnessing but the barest of beginnings.</p> + +<p>Likewise, when George Westinghouse, inventor of the airbrake, having +finally persuaded the directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad, after many +futile attempts in other directions, to grant him an opportunity to try +out his invention, and, trying it out—on a string of cars near +Harrisburg—ably demonstrated its practicability as a device for +stopping trains and preventing accidents, he also—as had Watt before +him—set the civilized world forward into an era full of promise and +discovery as yet but barely entered upon, even with the remarkable +progress already made in industry alone in<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_5' id='Page_5'>5</a></span> the matter of regard for the +safety of human life—Westinghouse's own particular blazed trail through +the forest of human ignorance this same airbrake.</p> + +<p>So with other pioneers—with Eiffel, in the field of tower construction; +with Edison, in the field of electricity; with the Wright brothers, in +the field of aerial navigation; With Simon Lake, inventor of the +submarine boat. All were pioneers; all set the civilized world forward; +all—though this perhaps is irrelevant, yet it will serve to reveal the +type of men these pioneers were and are—all overcame great +obstacles—Lake not the least among them.</p> + +<p>Told that he was visionary, when Lake explained, as he did in his effort +to enlist capital with which to build his first submarine boat, that he +could safely submerge his invention and steer it about on the bed of the +ocean as readily as a man can steer an automobile about the streets of a +city, that while submerged he could step out of the boat through a +trap-door without flooding the boat, by the simple process of +maintaining a greater air pressure inside than the pressure of the water +outside—Simon Lake, discouraged on every hand, finally decided to build +a boat himself, and did build one, with<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_6' id='Page_6'>6</a></span> his own hands—a boat fourteen +feet long and constructed of rough pine timbers painted with +coal-tar—in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. With this boat Lake +demonstrated to a skeptical world for all time that he was neither a +visionary nor a dreamer, but a practical doer among men—an engineer.</p> + +<p>Of such stuff, then, were, and are, engineers made. Whether they +realized it or not, whether the world at large realized it or not, each +represented a noble calling, each was a professional man, each was +chiseling his name for all time into the granite foundations of a +wonderful profession even yet only in the building—engineering. Their +name is legion, too, and their names will last because of the fact that +their work, remaining as it does after them equally with the work of +followers of the finest of the fine arts, is known to mankind as a +benefit to mankind. Known by their works, the list extends back to the +very dawn of history.</p> + +<p>For it was men of this calling, the calling of engineers, who in the +early days wrought for purposes of warfare—warfare then being the major +industry—the javelin, the spear, the helmet, the coat of mail, the +plate of armor, the slingshot; just as their later brothers, for a like +purpose, conceived and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_7' id='Page_7'>7</a></span> devised the throwing of mustard gas, the two-ton +explosive, the aerial bomb, the mortar shell, the hand-grenade—for the +protection, false and true, of the home. For the upbuilding of the home, +for the continuance of the home, men of this calling also it was who +conceived and shaped, among other things, the cook-stove, the chimney, +the wheel, the steam-engine, the spinning-jenny, the suspension-bridge, +the bedspring-oh, boy!—the bicycle, the sandblast, the automobile, the +airplane, the wireless.</p> + +<p>Thus it will be seen that engineering is a distinctive and important +profession. To some even it is the topmost of all professions. However +true that may or may not be to-day, certain it is that some day it will +be true, for the reason that engineers serve humanity at every practical +turn. Engineers make life easier to live—easier in the living; their +work is strictly constructive, sharply exact; the results positive. Not +a profession outside of the engineering profession but that has its +moments of wabbling and indecision—of faltering on the part of +practitioners between the true and the untrue. Engineering knows no such +weakness. Two and two make four. Engineers know that. Knowing it, and +knowing also the unnumbered possible<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_8' id='Page_8'>8</a></span> manifoldings of this fundamental +truism, engineers can, and do, approach a problem with a certainty of +conviction and a confidence in the powers of their working-tools nowhere +permitted men outside the profession.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_9' id='Page_9'>9</a></span></p> +<h2>II</h2> + +<h3>ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITIES</h3> + + +<p>The writer can best illustrate the opportunities for young men which +exist in engineering by a little story. The story is true in every +particular. Nor is the case itself exceptional. Men occupying high +places everywhere in engineering, did they but tell their story, would +repeat in substance what is set forth below. More than any other +profession to-day, engineering holds out opportunities for young men +possessing the requisite "will to success" and the physical stamina +necessary to carry them forward to the goal. Opportunities in any walk +of life are not all dead—not all in the past. A young man to-day can go +as far as he wills. He can go farther on less capital invested in +engineering than in any other profession—that's all.</p> + +<p>The young man's name was Smith. He was one of seven children—not the +seventh son, either—in a poor family. At the age of sixteen he went to +work in overalls on a section<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_10' id='Page_10'>10</a></span> of railroad as a helper—outdoor, rough +work. At seventeen he was transferred to the roundhouse; at nineteen he +apprenticed himself to the machinist trade. Engineering? He did not know +what it was, really. Merely he saw his way clear to earning a livelihood +and went after it. He was miserably educated. His knowledge of +mathematics embraced arithmetic up to fractions, at which point it faded +off into blissful "nothingness"—as our New-Thoughtists say. But he had +an inquiring mind and a proper will to succeed. While serving his three +years in the shop he bought a course in a correspondence school and +studied nights, taking up, among other things, the subject of mechanical +drafting. When twenty-two years of age he applied for, and got, a +position as draftsman in a small company developing a motorcycle. He was +well on his way upward.</p> + +<p>He spent a year with this company. He learned much of value to him not +only about mathematics, but about engineering as a whole as well. One +day he decided that the field was restricted—at least, too much so for +him—and he left and went with a Westinghouse organization in +Pittsburgh. His salary was in the neighborhood of a hundred and ten +dollars a month. He remained with the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_11' id='Page_11'>11</a></span> company two years as a designer, +and then, having saved up sufficient funds to meet his needs, went to +college, taking special work—physics and chemistry and mathematics. He +remained in school two years. When he came out, instead of returning to +the drafting-room and the theoretical end of the work, he donned +overalls once more and went to work in the shop as an erecting man. Two +years afterward he was chief operating engineer in a small cement-plant +in the Southwest, his salary being three thousand dollars a year. A year +of this and he returned East, at a salary of four thousand dollars a +year, as operating engineer of a larger plant. Then came a better offer, +with one of the largest, if not the very largest, steel-plants in the +country, as superintendent of power, at a salary of five thousand +dollars a year. When the war broke out, or rather when this country +became involved in the war, my friend Smith, at a salary of ten thousand +dollars a year, became associated with a staff of engineers brought +together into a corporation manufacturing shells. And all before he was +barely in his thirties!</p> + +<p>A young man still, what lies ahead of him can readily be surmised. Smith +will follow engineering on salary until he is probably<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_12' id='Page_12'>12</a></span> forty, when he +will enter upon a consulting practice, and at fifty retire with +sufficient money to keep him in comfort the remainder of his days. Nor +will he be an exception, as I have stated in the opening paragraph. The +profession is crowded with men who have worked up from equally humble +beginnings. Indeed, one of the foremost efficiency engineers in the +country to-day began as an apprentice in a foundry, while another, fully +as well known in efficiency work, began life in the United States navy +as a machinist's mate. Automobile engineers, whose names, many of them, +are household words, in particular have gone big in the profession and +from very obscure beginnings. It is not stretching the obvious to say +that the majority of these men, had they entered upon any other work, +would never have been heard from nor have attained to their present +wealth and affluence. Smith was just one of many in a profession +offering liberal opportunities. The opportunities still exist and in +just as large a proportion as they ever existed. It remains but for the +young man to decide. The profession itself, almost, will take care of +him afterward.</p> + +<p>However, not all of our engineers have gone upward by the overalls +route. Nor is<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_13' id='Page_13'>13</a></span> it at all necessary to do this in order to attain to +success. The high-school graduate, entering a college of engineering, +has an equal chance. Some maintain that he has a better chance. Certain +it is that he is better qualified to cope with the heavier theoretical +problems which come up every day in the average engineer's work. There +is a place for him, side by side with the practical man, and his +knowledge will be everywhere respected and sought. But a combination of +the theoretical and the practical, as has frequently been declared, +makes for the complete engineer. Some get the practical side first and +the theoretical side later; some get the theoretical side first and the +practical side later. It matters little—save only that he who gets the +practical side first is earning his way while getting it, while the man +who goes to college is in the majority of cases being supported from +outside sources while getting what he wants. But in the end it balances. +Merely, the "full" engineer must have both. Having both, he has, +literally, the world within his grasp. For engineering is—to +repeat—the adapting of discoveries in science and art to the uses of +mankind. And both art and science reflect and are drawn from Mother +Nature.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_14' id='Page_14'>14</a></span></p><p>There is still a great scarcity of engineers. All branches feel the +need—civil, mechanical, mining, chemical, automotive, electrical—the +call goes out. It is a call just now, owing to the vast reconstruction +period confronting the world, lifted in strident voice. Engineers +everywhere are needed, which in part accounts for the liberal salaries +offered for experienced men. The demand greatly exceeds the supply, and +gives promise of exceeding it for a number of years to come. All +manufacturing-plants, all mining enterprises, of which of both there are +thousands upon thousands, utilize each from one to many hundreds of +engineers. Some plants make use of three or four different +kinds—mechanical, civil, electrical, industrial—some only one. But not +a plant of any size but that has need for at least one engineer, and +engineers are scarce. Therefore opportunities are ample.</p> + +<p>To the young man seeking a profession, provided he be of a certain +type—possessed of certain inherent qualities, the nature of which I +shall set forth in the following chapter—engineering offers +satisfactory money returns and—more satisfactory still—a satisfactory +life. The work is creative from beginning to end; it has to do +frequently<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_15' id='Page_15'>15</a></span> with movement—always a source of delight to mankind; a +source having its beginnings in earliest infancy, and it is essentially +a work of service. To build a bridge, to design an automatic machine, to +locate and bring to the surface earth's wealth in minerals—surely this +is service of a most gratifying kind.</p> + +<p>And it pays. The arts rarely pay; science always pays. And engineering +being a science, a science in the pursuit of which also man is offered +opportunities for the exercise of his creative instincts, like art, is +therefore doubly gratifying as a life's work. I know—and it will bear +repeating—no other profession that holds so much of bigness and of +fullness of life generally. Engineers themselves reflect it. Usually +robust, always active, generally optimistic, engineers as a group swing +through life—and have swung through life from the beginnings of the +profession—without thought of publicity, for instance, or need or +desire for it. Their work alone engrossed their minds. It was enough—it +is enough—and more. And that which is sufficient unto a man is Nirvana +unto him—if he but knew it. Engineers seem to know it.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_16' id='Page_16'>16</a></span></p> +<h2>III</h2> + +<h3>THE ENGINEERING TYPE</h3> + + +<p>It is becoming more and more an accepted fact that engineers, or +physicians, or lawyers—like our poets—are born and not made. I believe +this to be true. Educators generally are thinking seriously along these +lines, with the result that vocational advisers are springing up, +especially in industrial circles, to establish eventually yet another +profession. Instinct leads young men to enter upon certain callings, +unless turned off by misguided parents or guardians, and as a general +thing the hunch works out successfully. Philosophers from time +immemorial, including Plato and Emerson, have written of this still, +small voice within, and have urged that it be heeded. The thing is +instinct—cumulative yearnings within man of thousands of his +ancestors—and to disobey it is to fling defiance at Nature herself. +Personally, I believe that when this law becomes more generally +understood there will be fewer<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_17' id='Page_17'>17</a></span> failures decorating park benches in our +cities and cracker-boxes in our country stores.</p> + +<p>The profession of engineering, therefore, has its type. You may be of +this type or you may not. The type is quite pronounced, however, and you +need not go wrong in your decision. All professions and all trades have +their types. Steel-workers—those fearless young men who balance +skilfully on a girder, frequently hundreds of feet in the air—are not +to be mistaken. Rough, rugged, gray-eyed; with frames close-knit and +usually squat; generous with money, and unconcerned as to the future; +living each day regardless of the next, and <i>living</i> it—steel-workers +are as distinct from the clerical type—slender, tall, a bit +self-conscious, fearful of themselves and of the future—I say, the +steel-worker is as different from the clerical worker as the +circus-driver is from the cleric. Their work marks them for its own, if +a man lack it upon entering the work, just as the school-room marks the +teacher in time for its own. The thing is not to be mistaken.</p> + +<p>The successful engineer must be possessed of a certain fondness for +figures. The subject of mathematics must interest him. He must like to +figure, to use a colloquialism,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_18' id='Page_18'>18</a></span> and his fondness for it must be +genuine, almost an absorption. It must reveal itself to him at an early +age, too, as early as his grammar-school days, for then it will be known +as genuinely a part of him, and the outcropping of seeds correctly sown +by his ancestors. Having this fondness for mathematics, which may be +termed otherwise as a curiosity to make concrete ends meet—the working +out of puzzles is one evidence of the gift—the young man is well armed +for a successful career in the profession. He will like mathematics for +its own sake, and when, later, in college, and later still, in the +active pursuit of his chosen work, he is confronted with a difficult +problem covering strains or stress in a beam or lever or connecting-rod, +he will attack it eagerly, instead of—as I have seen such problems +attacked more than once—irritably and with marked mental effort.</p> + +<p>The successful engineer must be a man who likes to shape things with his +hands. He need not always do it, and probably will not after he has +attained to recognition, save only as he supervises or makes the +mechanical drawings—the picture—of the thing. But the itch must be +present in the man. And, like the desire within him to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_19' id='Page_19'>19</a></span> figure, it must +make itself manifest within him early in life. If a young man be of +those who early like to crawl in under the family buzz-wagon; tinker +there for half a day at a time; emerge in a thick coating of grease and +dust and with joy in his eye—such a young man has the necessary +qualifications for a successful engineer. He may never do this—as I +say—in all his engineering career. But the yearning must be as much a +part of him as his love for mathematics—so much so that all his +engineering days he will feel something akin to envy for the machinist +who works over a machine of the engineer's own devising—and it must be +vitally a part of him. To illustrate:</p> + +<p>When only twelve years old the author, in company with several +playmates, decided one November day to build an ice-boat. From the +numerous building operations going on in the neighborhood, in the light +of the moon, he secured the necessary timbers, and from a neighbor's +back yard—also in the light of the moon—he got a young sapling which +served delightfully as a mainmast. With the needed materials all +gathered, it suddenly struck him that a plan of some kind ought to be +made of the proposed ice-boat, in order to guard against grave errors<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_20' id='Page_20'>20</a></span> +in construction. To think was to act with this bright youngster. He got +him his mother's bread-board and a pencil and an ordinary school ruler, +and with these made a drawing of the ice-boat as he thought the boat +should be. Knowing nothing of mechanical drawing, and but very little of +construction of any kind, he nevertheless devised a pretty fair-looking +boat and not a bad working drawing. One of his playmates, whose father +was something or other in a manufacturing-plant, showed the drawing to +the family circle; with the result that the kid's father, laying a rule +upon the drawing, pronounced it an accurate mechanical drawing, drawn to +scale—which was one inch to the foot—and sent for the youthful +designer, meaning me.</p> + +<p>"What do you know about mechanical drawings?" he asked the bashful +youngster, pointing to the drawing under discussion.</p> + +<p>"I don't know nothing about it," replied the kid—meaning me again. "I +just made it with a ruler."</p> + +<p>"But how come you made it to scale? That drawing is a complete plan and +elevation of an ice-boat, drawn accurately to scale." He looked +thoughtful. "I don't understand it. You ought to take up with drafting, +my boy, when you get a little older.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_21' id='Page_21'>21</a></span> I never knew of a case like it. +What does your father do?" he suddenly asked.</p> + +<p>"He's an ice-dealer,"<a name='FNanchor_1_1' id='FNanchor_1_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_1_1' class='fnanchor'>[1]</a> replied the discomfited boy. "I just made +it—that's all. We need it, too, to go ahead." Turning to his playmate, +"Come on out, Jack; the gang is waiting."</p> + +<p>Which terminated the interview.</p> + +<p>Yet the thing was the beginning of a career for the boy. The boat in +time somehow got itself built and out upon the little river; but owing +to the fact that its materials were stolen, the river failed to freeze +over that winter, and for three winters following—not till the boat +itself had fallen apart from disuse and lack of care—which points its +own moral, as hinted at above. If you must build ice-boats, and you are +a kid with mechanical yearnings, pay for the material that goes into the +making of your product. But the thing—as I say—was the beginning of a +career for the lad. In time, through the kindly office of his playmate's +father, he became apprenticed in a drafting-room of a large +manufacturing-plant—and the rest was easy. In his first year, on paper, +he devised a steam-engine with novel arrangement of slide-valves, and +thereafter for years designed<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_22' id='Page_22'>22</a></span> engines and machinery about the country, +always quite successfully.</p> + +<p>The successful engineer, while possessed of certain spiritual +characteristics, must also—if I may be so bold as to say so—be +possessed of certain physical characteristics. One of these is large, +and what is known as capable, hands. Short, spatulate fingers, with a +broad palm, appear to be a feature of the successful engineer. Of +course, there are exceptions, as there are exceptions to every rule, but +in the majority of cases which have come under the writer's observation +the successful engineer has had hands of this shaping. He likewise has +had wrists and arms to match with such hands, and—in the practical +engineer—that is, the engineer whose particular gift is coping with +ordinary problems of construction, as against the genius who blazes new +trails, like Watt and Westinghouse and Edison and Marconi and the Wright +brothers—a head whose contour was along the "well-shaped" lines. The +so-called genius usually has an odd-shaped head, I've noticed, but for +purposes of this book we shall confine ourselves to the average +successful man in engineering.</p> + +<p>Thus you have, roughly, the engineering type. I have sketched only the +major characteristics.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_23' id='Page_23'>23</a></span> The minor characteristics embrace many features. +There is patience, for one—patience to labor long with difficulties; +concentration, for another; application, for a third; certain student +qualities, for yet a fourth. Many graduate engineers have gone off into +other work immediately after leaving college because of a clearly +defined dislike for detail in construction. The average successful +engineer will be a man interested in the shaping of the details of his +machine or bridge or plant. To many, details are irksome. If the young +man who is reading this book knows that he dislikes a detail of any +character whatsoever, unless he be possessed of the creative genius of a +Westinghouse or an Edison, he would better take up with some other +profession. For engineering, in the last analysis, is the manipulating +of detailed parts into a perfect whole—whether it be a bridge or a +machine or a plant.</p> + + +<div class='footnotes'><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class='footnote'><p><a name='Footnote_1_1' id='Footnote_1_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_1_1'><span class='label'>[1]</span></a> The boy's father always wanted to be a carpenter.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_24' id='Page_24'>24</a></span></p> +<h2>IV</h2> + +<h3>THE FOUR MAJOR BRANCHES</h3> + + +<p>The four major branches of engineering are civil, mechanical, +electrical, and mining. I give them in the order of their acceptance +among engineers. Each is separate from each of the others, and each is a +profession in itself, and as distinctive from each of the others as is +the allopathic from the homeopathic among men of medicine, though not +with quite the same distinction. Whereas the several groups of +physicians seek to relieve pain and correct disorder by way of +diversified channels, the several groups of engineers each work in a +field of endeavor actively apart from each of the other groups. +Sometimes one group will lap over upon another group, in certain kinds +of construction work, but even then the branches will hold sharply each +to its own.</p> + +<p>Civil engineering embraces, roughly, all work in the soil. The surveyor +is a civil engineer. He constructs dams, builds viaducts,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_25' id='Page_25'>25</a></span> lays out +railroads, and in the war, where he was known as a pioneer, he was +responsible for all tunneling and trench projects, besides keeping the +highways clear and the wire entanglements intact. Civil engineering is a +profession which keeps its followers pretty well out in the open. A +civil engineer will go long distances, and frequently must, in order to +get to his work, and, having reached the scene of his labors, enters +upon a rugged outdoor life in camp where he remains until the job is +completed. The Panama Canal was a civil-engineering job—probably the +largest of its kind ever undertaken—and its success, after failure on +the part of another government, is a high tribute to the genius of our +own civil engineers.</p> + +<p>Mechanical engineering is a profession whose medium of endeavor lies in +the metals. Mechanical engineers shape things out of iron or steel or +brass or other metal compositions, and put these things into engines or +machines for service. All machinery, whether it be printing-presses or +automobiles or steam-engines, is the work of mechanical engineers, +though in the matter of automobiles this has become a profession by +itself, one of the minor branches known as automotive engineering. The +mechanical engineer as a rule works<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_26' id='Page_26'>26</a></span> within doors, just as the civil +engineer works out of doors, and his work, consequently, is more +confining. In the pursuit of his profession he spends much of his time +supervising the design of mechanical units, and is the one man +responsible for correct construction and security against fracture of +the machine itself when in operation. Actually the mechanical engineer +has more opportunities in his daily routine for the exercise of his +creative faculties than has any one of the other kinds of engineers, for +the simple reason that no two machines even for the same +purpose—speaking of types, always—are exactly similar in construction. +Two lathes of like size and scope, if manufactured by two separate +organizations, will be different in their minor features, and each in +some particular will be the work of a mechanical engineer whose ideas +are at variance with those of the mechanical engineer who designed the +other type. Engineers, like doctors, often disagree, which accounts for +the many different types of machinery serving the same purpose which are +found on the market.</p> + +<p>Electrical engineering is, as its name implies, a profession embracing +all construction whose basis is the electrical current. Any unit +whatsoever, so long as it utilizes or eats<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_27' id='Page_27'>27</a></span> up or carries forward a +current of electricity, is the work of electrical engineers. The +profession is a comparatively recent one perforce, owing to the fact +that but very little of a practical nature was known about electricity +until a very few years ago. The wonderful progress in this field made +within the past twenty years is one of the marvels of the engineering +profession. Dynamos, motors, arc-lights, alternating current, the +X-ray—these are a few of the things which followers of the profession +have created for the uses of mankind. The field is yet practically +unexplored, and offers to engineering students an outlet for their +energies—provided they enter this branch of engineering—second to none +of the other branches. A fascinating study, doubly so because of the +fact that nothing is known about electricity itself—its effects only +being understood—electrical engineering should appeal to the +curious-minded as no other vocation can. It is a profession shrouded in +mystery, and not the least mysterious of its recent developments is the +wireless telegraph. What this one development alone holds for the future +nobody can say. All sorts of inventions can be imagined, however, and +among them I myself seem to see automobiles operated<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_28' id='Page_28'>28</a></span> from central +stations—indeed, all mechanical movements so operated—to the end that +individual engines in time will cease to be.</p> + +<p>The profession of mining engineering, last of the major branches, +embraces all work having to do with the locating and construction of +mines—coal-mines, iron-mines, copper-mines, diamond-mines, gold-mines, +and the like. Also it establishes the nature of the apparatus used, +though more often than otherwise the mechanical engineer in this regard +is consulted, since much of the machinery utilized in mining operations +is the direct work of mechanical engineers. Screens and hoppers are +mechanical devices the result of mechanical engineering genius; but the +work of shoring up, done with timbers, and the work generally of +supervision of all mine operations, rests solely with the mining man. +The shaping of these timbers, though—the cutting of tenons, for +instance—is the work, again, of the mechanical engineer; though the +placing of these timbers, to revert back once more, is the work of the +mining engineer.</p> + +<p>There are many minor branches, and more are rapidly coming into +prominence. Chemical engineering is one of the older minor branches; +while industrial engineering—following closely upon automotive +engineering—belongs<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_29' id='Page_29'>29</a></span> properly with the more recent of the newcomers. +Efficiency engineering is a branch which to-day is making a strong bid +for recognition as a profession, although the work as yet, lacking, as +it does, proper foundation in scientific truth, even though strongly +humanitarian in its motives, has still to prove itself acceptable among +the engineering groups. Structural engineering, on the contrary, +"belongs." Its work consists of the design and layout of modern steel +structures—this roughly—while the minor branch known as heating and +ventilating engineering, as its name would indicate, deals with the +proper heating and ventilating of buildings, and as a profession is +closely allied with that of structural engineering. Out of these minor +branches come yet other branches, more particularly groups, with each in +the nature of a specialty, such as gas engineering, aircraft +engineering, steam engineering, telephone engineering, and so on.</p> + +<p>Students about to enter engineering colleges usually select one or +another of the major branches and then after graduating begin to +specialize. But infrequently Fate has much to do with this +specialization, since after leaving college the average young engineer +will turn to the nearest or most promising<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_30' id='Page_30'>30</a></span> vacancy offered him in his +chosen field—a major branch—and in the work eventually become expert +and a specialist. If it be a concern manufacturing steam-turbines, say, +the young engineer in time becomes expert and a specialist in +steam-turbines. So, too, with graduates in mining engineering, in +electrical engineering, in civil engineering, although the opportunities +for specialization in any of these latter branches are not so good as in +the mechanical field. However, entering upon a certain kind of work, the +student usually follows this work to the end of his days, which is +probably what engineering schools expect. All strive to educate only in +the principles of each of the major branches. The rest is up to the +graduate, who is permitted, and generally does, the shaping of his own +career afterward.</p> + +<p>It is a feature of our democratic form of government—thanks be! Germany +does—or did—the other thing. Germany made careers for her young men, +instead of young men for careers, with the result that she also made +machines out of them. America is a nation of individualists, which is +what makes America what it is, and our schools and school systems are +responsible.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_31' id='Page_31'>31</a></span></p> +<h2>V</h2> + +<h3>MAKING A CHOICE</h3> + + +<p>About to make a choice among the branches of engineering, the +prospective student, unless he have a decided preference to start with, +finds himself confronted with many difficulties. Engineering is +engineering, whether it be mining or electrical or civil or mechanical, +and this fact alone is not without its confusions. Yet if the young man +decides for a mining career, say, the choice may take him, after +graduating, off to South Africa, whereas if his choice lay in the +electrical field he may never get any farther from home than the nearest +electrical manufacturing plant in his town or state—and remain there +for the duration of his life. This making of a choice is a momentous +thing in a prospective engineer's life. It should be approached with all +caution, and with due regard for the nature of the life he would lead +after graduating from school. If he have a penchant for outdoor life, +then the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_32' id='Page_32'>32</a></span> choice, in a way, is easy. He should select mining or civil +engineering as his particular vocation. If he be of those who prefer to +remain more or less indoors in the practice of his profession, +mechanical or electrical engineering should be his choice.</p> + +<p>These are the major advantages or disadvantages, depending upon the +point of view. The minor ones are not so easily stated. Speaking always +for the young man without a decided preference, it is the writer's +opinion that the prospective student should analyze his particular +feelings in the matter and decide accordingly. Large projects may +interest him more than smaller ones. In this regard, he will find +greater satisfaction in following the profession dealing with large +projects, which is, of course, the civil engineering +profession—although mining, too, has its large ventures, which, +however, do not "break" as frequently as they do in civil engineering. +On the other hand, the young man may find himself attracted to the +development of small propositions, such as adding-machines and +typewriters and sewing-machines, and the like. Finding himself attracted +to these no less important phases of engineering than the development of +mines or the opening up of new country, the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_33' id='Page_33'>33</a></span> young man can, of course, +make no better choice than to enter the mechanical or the electrical +field.</p> + +<p>It all depends upon the point of view. Nor is there any hard-and-fast +rule tying a man down to a single branch once he finds that he does not +like it, or finds that he likes one of the other branches better, after +he has given his chosen branch a trial in the years immediately +following graduation. Not a few mining graduates drift over into +straight civil work after leaving school, and, likewise, not a few in +the electrical branches find themselves in time pursuing mechanical +work. Fate here, as in the matter of specialization, works her hand. A +prominent publisher of technical magazines in New York took the degree +of Arts in Cornell in his younger days; and more writers of fiction than +you can shake a stick at once labored over civil-engineering plans as +their chosen career. Herbert Hoover is a mining man who best revealed +his capabilities in the field of traffic management—if the work which +he supervised in Belgium may be so termed. Certainly it had to do with +getting materials from where they were plentiful to where they were +scarce, which is roughly the work of the traffic manager.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_34' id='Page_34'>34</a></span></p><p>And so it goes. The young man in this particular must decide for +himself. Actually, there is more of mystery and fascination in the +electrical field than in any of the other three branches, and to +prospective students this may be not without its especial appeal. To +others, the work of mining may possess its strong attraction, since this +work takes its followers into strange places and among strange people +frequently, where oftentimes the mining engineer must live cheek by +elbow with the roughest of adventurers. To yet a third group, civil +engineering, with its work of blazing new trails through an unknown +country, and wild outdoor existence through forests and over mountains +and across valleys—may have its strong attraction. While to a fourth +group of prospective students the quiet career, as represented in that +of mechanical engineering, always a more or less thoughtful, studious +life, may hold out its inviting side. The mechanical engineer, like the +electrical engineer, is a man who generally commutes, a man who comes +and goes daily between office and home, doing his work at regular hours +within the four walls of his office—a quiet, professional man. Such a +life would appeal to the man of family rather more strongly than either +of the outdoor<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_35' id='Page_35'>35</a></span> professional branches. Yet the prospective student must +make his own choice.</p> + +<p>To the young man who has no particular preference, and who would put it +up to the writer as to just which branch to follow—the young man more +or less in need—the writer unhesitatingly would advise mechanical +engineering. It is the one branch offering the largest and quickest +returns, and as a branch it fairly dominates all the other branches, for +the reason that whereas the mechanical engineer can get along without +the mining engineer or the civil engineer or the electrical engineer, +neither the mining engineer nor the civil engineer nor the electrical +engineer can always do without the services of the mechanical engineer. +No other branch so overlaps the other branches as does mechanical +engineering. The work of the mechanical engineer is seen in almost every +piece of construction reared by the civil man, just as it is seen in +every bit of construction work of the mining and the electrical +engineers. At first glance this may not appear to be true, but a close +analysis of different jobs will bring out the truth of this statement.</p> + +<p>Thus mechanical engineering offers largest and quickest returns. It does +this for another<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_36' id='Page_36'>36</a></span> reason. Because of this very overlapping upon the +other three branches, for every position open in the electrical field, +or the mining or the civil field, there are a dozen vacancies in the +mechanical field. It cannot but be otherwise. Not one of the other +branches but what has need at times for—as I have stated—a mechanical +engineer. The casings and base-plates and supports of motors, for +instance, while the motor itself—its windings and the like—is the work +of the electrical engineer, are due to the designing genius of some +mechanical man. Likewise, in the mining field, where shaking screens, to +name only one of the many mechanical units necessary in mining +operations, are an essential factor—units operated with pulleys and +belts and cams and levers—all the province of the mechanical +engineer—the mechanical man finds his uses. So in civil work, +especially in dam construction where gates are necessary; and in +chemical engineering—to drop into a minor branch—where tanks and vats +and ovens and stirring paddles and the like are used. No matter in which +branch a man may go, always he will find evidence of the presence some +time of the mechanical engineer. The mechanical engineer dominates all +the other branches,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_37' id='Page_37'>37</a></span> as has been said before. He is given second place +in the order of the branches merely because the civil engineer happened +to be the first and oldest kind of engineer to be given recognition as a +profession. This man made himself a professional man, just as did the +early practitioners of medicine—concocters of herbs in the beginning.</p> + +<p>The proper selection will depend upon the young man's predilections and +tastes. If he selects wisely, following out his predilections and tastes +with a degree of accuracy, he cannot go wrong. He cannot go far wrong +even if he doesn't follow out his hunches, for the reason that he can +always swing over into any one of the other branches whenever he sees +fit to do so. The thing is done every day, and will continue to be done +throughout all time. Merely, it would be well for the young man, of +course, to select in the beginning that branch which most appeals to +him, and to stick to it like glue. Success is certain to be his. For in +no other walk of life are the rewards so sure and so ample and so +immediately responsive as in the engineering professions. These—like +the matter of his selection from among the four major branches—are +solely a matter up to the individual.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_38' id='Page_38'>38</a></span></p> +<h2>VI</h2> + +<h3>QUALIFYING FOR PROMOTION</h3> + + +<p>Immediately upon graduating—indeed, often several months before +graduating—the engineering student finds his first job awaiting him. +Frequently he finds a number of first jobs awaiting him and must make a +selection. For it is the custom with large manufacturing concerns to +send out scouts in the early spring of each year to address the +engineering student bodies, with the idea in mind of securing the +services of as many graduates as the scouts can win over for their +respective organizations through direct appeal. What is usually offered +the coming graduate is a brief apprenticeship in the shop, at a living +wage, with promise of as early and rapid promotion in the organization +as the work of the apprentice himself will permit, or improves.</p> + +<p>These offers are generally splendid opportunities. The graduate may +learn much of a practical commercial nature which perforce<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_39' id='Page_39'>39</a></span> has been +denied him in his student days, and also, having entered upon this +apprenticeship, he not only gets acquainted with production on a large +scale, but he is brought into touch with what constitutes most recent +acceptable practice as well. This, provided he be a mechanical or an +electrical engineer. Graduates in civil and mining engineering, while +offered positions from executives in these particular branches also, +have no such large opportunities offered them. The work itself does not +permit it. Yet in any of the branches there is never a scarcity of jobs +open to graduates upon their leaving college.</p> + +<p>To qualify for promotion in any work, but more especially in the +professions, one must know one's business. That is a trite statement, +but it will bear repeating. The young graduate at first will not know +his business. His mind will be a chaos of theories based upon myriads of +formulæ which cannot but confuse him in the early days, when he is most +earnestly trying to apply one or more of them to the more or less petty +tasks which will be assigned to him. All he can do under the +circumstances—all anybody could do under the circumstances—is to wait +patiently, the while doing the best he can. Problems have a way of +working themselves out—the correct<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_40' id='Page_40'>40</a></span> formula will present itself; its +true application will become manifest—and thus the young engineer has +learned something of a practical nature which need not forsake him +throughout the remainder of his engineering career.</p> + +<p>Engineers are especially tolerant of one another's mistakes and errors. +They are much more so than medical men, for instance. In the field of +medicine one must show by many practical cases wherein a certain +treatment has proved effective before the fraternity at large will even +give the practitioner a hearing. This is not so among engineers. +Engineers turn to one another in difficulties with earnest desire to +help if they can help; and when one of their number is in trouble in his +efforts to solve a difficult problem the whole body will turn to him +with friendly encouragement and advice, if the latter is wanted. The +young graduate who is struggling with a problem come up in his daily +work, if he will but make the fact known to the engineers on the job in +association with him, will find himself surrounded by engineers every +one of whom will be seriously concerned for him and anxious to render +assistance.</p> + +<p>So the young graduate need entertain no fears on the ground of possible +errors when starting out. Merely he must go slow; take<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_41' id='Page_41'>41</a></span> his own good +time on a job; ask all the questions possible of his engineer neighbors. +Frankness in engineering, as in any other walk of life, pays. The +bluffer is not wanted. No man knows it all, and certainly no engineer +knows all there is to know about his profession. Time was when this +might have been true; but it isn't true to-day. The work of engineering +research and development has become so complex that engineers are forced +to specialize. The engineering graduate, entering upon his first job, +will discover early that he, too, must specialize. This will not be +difficult, owing to the fact that his engineering education has been +general and designed to embrace in a liberal way all practice. Drawing, +as he will, from this liberal source that which he finds necessary in +the solving of his initial problems, he will find himself within a short +time becoming, willy-nilly, a specialist.</p> + +<p>In the earlier years there should be considerable study done after hours +on the part of the graduate engineer. Because his education has been +general in the field, and he now holds a position with a company +manufacturing steam-turbines, say, he must "wise up," as the saying +goes, on the subject of steam-turbines. It will do him no harm to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_42' id='Page_42'>42</a></span> trace +back to its source all progress made in the field of turbine engineering +and construction. He will find no scarcity of books on the subject, and +with every hour spent with these volumes he will become more valuable to +the organization employing him. Likewise, if he find himself working for +an electrical manufacturing concern, and himself a graduate in +electrical engineering, if the product be only a single line, and so +small a thing as spark-plugs, it will profit him greatly to read +whatever has been printed on the subject of spark-plugs. So with the +mining graduate in the matter of the different processes of recovering +minerals; so with the civil graduate, especially in the concrete field +of construction, which has made rapid strides in the past few years—the +graduate should absorb as much as he can of the available works printed +on the subject. Indeed, this is the profession of it, in that the +practitioner must ever be alive and alert to what is being done and has +been done from the beginning in his chosen line of endeavor.</p> + +<p>Next must come fealty. The graduate on his first job must believe—and +if he does not believe ought to change connections—that the product of +his company is the best in the market. This need not necessarily be<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_43' id='Page_43'>43</a></span> +true; but he must feel that it is true. For only in this way can he put +the best that is in him into his work. Industry—and the engineer is the +backbone of industry—is a hotbed of competition. Any organization needs +all the enthusiasm it can get. Greatest enthusiasm of all must come from +within its own circles. Lacking this enthusiasm within its own family, +the organization as a whole suffers. The graduate must first of all +supply enthusiasm to the source of his employment, because at first he +can supply but very little else. He must be true to his trust in ways +other than the mere doing of what he is told or producing what he is +expected to produce. This attitude cannot but help him qualify for +promotion, and rapidly. It is a very important factor in any engineer's +advancement.</p> + +<p>Then there is the matter of patience. The writer knows of no other +qualification more fruitful of reward than patience. The word control is +frequently used in this regard—self-control. Its other name, however, +is patience—the thing that gives a man to try and try again until he +succeeds. Engineering is a difficult profession, though not more +difficult than other professions, and in the average engineer's +working-day many things occur which, if he be not possessed of<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_44' id='Page_44'>44</a></span> infinite +patience, will serve to try him to a considerable degree. Patience with +those below him—patience with those above him—patience with +himself—these are all necessary and will prove helpful to him in +reaching the top. He must accept the petty tasks with a cheerfulness no +less apparent than he accepts the more important ones. He must present +his own ideas to his superiors with a degree of caution which, where the +ideas are rejected, will yet permit him to withdraw within himself +without giving the impression of being peeved. For engineering is above +all other things the interchange of ideas among men having an equal +training but a vastly different quality of experience. Men of diverse +experience thus drawn together make for a balanced engineering staff, +and a balanced engineering staff makes for a well-organized whole. The +young engineer must conduct himself in such a way that his superiors +will like him for what he is, as indicated by his personality, rather +than for what he knows or does in his daily work.</p> + +<p>To sum up, then, the young engineer, having entered upon his first job, +must do three or four things in order quickly to qualify for promotion. +He first of all must spend time in study after his day's work is +done—absorb<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_45' id='Page_45'>45</a></span> all information having to do with the company's own +product; hold himself ever alert to the company's own methods of +production; watch for an opportunity whereby this production may be +improved upon or the methods of production themselves improved upon. The +young engineer must proceed slowly in everything he undertakes; when +brought to a halt through difficulties he should instantly appeal to one +or another of his associates or superiors; he must be absolutely frank +in all his dealings with these associates and superiors. In this regard, +also, it might be said that the young graduate, following a habit become +almost second nature with him in his school-days, must keep a note-book +covering his activities throughout each working-day, a book wherein he +will jot down everything of value to him which comes up in the day's +work. Such books often form the basis of complete text-books in after +years, and, indeed, are acknowledged to be the foundation of more than +one recognized authority. Though in this regard, further, such a +practice is sometimes discouraged in some organizations, since it is +apparent that these note-books often contain facts which the +organization does not wish to have made public,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_46' id='Page_46'>46</a></span> being, as these notes +often are, in the nature of trade secrets. However, the student with a +conscience will effectively guard the secrets of his employer as +contained in his note-book, holding its contents for his own use in +furthering the interests of the company which employs him.</p> + +<p>And finally—in the matter of personality—patience and regard for the +foibles of others will go far toward advancing the young engineer toward +success. He must never forget in his earlier years that he is embryonic +in the profession; that the profession is a difficult one and with many +ramifications; that if he was able to live through three normal lives he +would yet know only a very little of what there is to know about his +chosen work. Thus he will conduct himself in a manner designed to win +the interest and affection of men who are superior to him. Life to-day +consists more than ever of service, and no man can go the path alone. +Service—assistance one to another—makes up the sum total of life. No +engineering graduate—no young man in any walk of life—can progress far +without assistance, however brilliant as a student and capable as a man +he may be. If he will but bear this last in mind—this and the other +even more important<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_47' id='Page_47'>47</a></span> truth, that as a man gives so shall he +receive—that a dollar spent in charity means two dollars in the bank—I +mean that exactly—then the heights themselves will beckon to him at an +early age.</p> + +<p>"Early to bed and early to rise"; "take care of the pennies and the +dollars will take care of themselves"; "a bird in the hand is worth two +in the bush"—we don't need—the engineering graduate does not +need—that form of admonition. It means nothing and is false. What alone +counts for success is a considerable regard for the rights and +privileges of others, the unfortunate as well as the fortunate. Greed +never brought success that was lasting to any one, and certainly it +breeds unhappiness. Engineering is a work of service—service to +others—and to the graduate who "gets" this truism will come all things +of this life, not the least of which will be material rewards.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_48' id='Page_48'>48</a></span></p> +<h2>VII</h2> + +<h3>THE CONSULTING ENGINEER</h3> + + +<p>The consulting engineer represents the pinnacle, as it were, of +professional success. The inventor is something else—a wilding in the +profession—and as such cannot be considered in a paper of this kind, +save only as to say that he is the presiding genius among engineers, the +Shakespeare or Milton among his kind, a man whose path to the heights is +nowhere known of men. The consulting engineer, on the contrary, +representing, as he does, the zenith of slowly attained power in some +certain branch of engineering, a vantage—point open freely to all, is +the embodiment of the goal toward which all graduates should strive. The +consulting engineer has perfected himself in his chosen field; he has +become an authority in his branch of engineering; his word is accepted +as final in court and privy council. Having gained to this enviable +position only after prolonged study and protracted and wide<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_49' id='Page_49'>49</a></span> experience +in his particular specialty, the consulting engineer has well earned +whatever accrues to him in the way, among other things, of generous fees +for his services.</p> + +<p>Still, there are consulting engineers who have become so through +accident. The writer personally knows a consulting engineer who was +following a general engineering practice when called upon one day to +advise a group of capitalists in the matter of a garbage-disposal plant +of new design for a large mid-Western city. His services were sought not +because he was a garbage expert, but rather because he was expert in +intricate pipe layouts and the like. However, once he got his hand into +garbage disposition on a large scale, he remained in this branch of +engineering, eventually traveling about the country supervising the +design of similar plants whose object was the economical disposal of +municipal refuse. Practically alone in the field, his writings soon +became accepted as authoritative, and yet the whole thing began with +that first call, quite by chance, in a matter foreign to the subject. +Like other professional men, engineers never know when the heavens will +open for their particular benefit.</p> + +<p>Yet these cases are rare. The average consulting<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_50' id='Page_50'>50</a></span> engineer is a man who +has won to pre-eminence only through protracted study and hard work in +one line. He is a specialist with a high reputation for accuracy and +skill in that line. The basis of this skill, of course, lies in a broad +general engineering experience, upon which is built a peculiar knowledge +of a certain, and not infrequently isolated, branch of engineering. +Heating and ventilating engineers are but specialists grown to such +large numbers as to form a definite branch of engineering. Likewise, +automotive engineers are men who have specialized through long years in +this branch. The man who knows more about building dredges, say, than +any other man among his engineering brothers is a man who will be most +frequently sought by industrial powers feeling the need for a dredge, +just as a man suffering eye-strain will seek out the best specialist +known to the medical fraternity. He goes to the one acknowledged +authority in this line, and in doing so but follows a sane inner +dictation.</p> + +<p>And that is consulting work. The individual of money who would launch +into manufacturing, knowing nothing of manufacturing, will, after +deciding as to which branch of manufacturing he wishes to follow,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_51' id='Page_51'>51</a></span> +enlist the services of a consulting engineer big by reputation in this +branch. The capitalist may wish to enter the paper-manufacturing field. +Straightway he will put himself in touch with a consulting engineer +whose specialty is paper-manufacturing plants, and, having informed this +man as to the amount of money he is willing to spend on the venture, +together with the location where he wishes, within certain prescribed +limitations, to have his plant stand, may withdraw from the thing, if he +choose, until the plant is built and in operation. The consulting +engineer has done the rest. He has gone out upon location, seeking sites +with an eye to economy both of power and transportation; he has +supervised the design of the plant and the location in the plant of the +necessary machinery; has enlisted the service of a builder whose task it +is to follow these plans from foundation to roof in the work of actual +construction. For this work the consulting engineer receives a fee, +usually based upon a percentage of the cost, and then turns to other +clients—waiting in his outer office—who would enlist his services in a +similar capacity.</p> + +<p>The consulting engineer has other sources of revenue. Like the lawyer, +he is frequently<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_52' id='Page_52'>52</a></span> retained by traction and lighting interests to guard +the rights of these interests, service for which he receives payment by +the year. His testimony is valued in matters of litigation, sometimes +patent infringements, sometimes municipal warfare between corporations, +but always of a highly specialized nature. He is an authority, and when +I have said that I have said all. His retainer fees are large; his work +is exact; he is a man looked up to by those in the profession following +a general practice. He has his office, and retains a staff of engineers, +usually young engineers just out of college, who, like himself at one +time, are on their way upward in the game. He is rarely a young man; +generally is a man of wide reading; is a man respected in his community +not for what he knows as an engineer, but for the standard of living +which he is able to set by virtue of his income. Besides the sources of +revenue which are his, and as I have set forth above, he is sought by +technical editors to contribute to magazines powerful in his field, and +this is a pleasurable source of income to any man in any walk of life. +The consulting engineer is a man to be admired and emulated by all +engineering students.</p> + +<p>As to the time in life when an engineer<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_53' id='Page_53'>53</a></span> feels qualified to enter upon +consulting work, that is something which must come to him from within. +Usually the engineer knows that he has become a factor in his chosen +branch or specialty when he finds himself becoming more and more sought +in an advisory capacity among his fellows. He can judge that he has +become an authority in his work by the simple process of comparing +himself and his work with others and the work of these others in the +field. If he finds that he is designing a better plant or automatic +machine, or more economically operated mine or more serviceable lighting +station than his neighbor, and, together with this knowledge, perceives +also that capitalists are beating a deeper path to his door than to the +doors of his competitors—to warp an Emersonian phrase—then the +handwriting on the wall should be clear to him—to quote the Bible. +Having sufficient capital to carry him through a year or two of personal +venturing in the consulting field, he will open an office and insert his +professional card in the journals in his field—and fly to it. If he be +a man of righteous parts, he will succeed as a consulting engineer—and +can go no higher in the profession.</p> + +<p>The game is certainly worth the candle.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_54' id='Page_54'>54</a></span></p> +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE ENGINEER IN CIVIC AFFAIRS</h3> + + +<p>Much has been written of late of the engineer as a citizen—of his civic +responsibilities, of his relation to legislation, to administration, to +public opinion, and the like. It is timely writing. The engineer is +about due for active participation in civic affairs other than a yearly +visit to the polls to register his vote. He has not done much more than +this since his inception. His work alone has sufficed, for him, at +least, though the time is past when he can bury himself in his +professional work and, in the vernacular, get away with it. Men of the +stamp of Herbert Hoover have demonstrated the very great need for men of +scientific training in public affairs. Such places heretofore have been +filled with business men and lawyers. These men served and served well. +But since administration of public affairs to-day is largely a matter of +formulation and execution of engineering projects, it is assuredly<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_55' id='Page_55'>55</a></span> the +duty of engineers to take an active part in these public affairs.</p> + +<p>Exact knowledge, which in a manner of speaking is synonymous with the +engineer, is needed in high places in our nation. Men of technical +education and training have demonstrated their fitness as servants of +the people in the few instances where such men have taken over the reins +of administration in certain specified branches of our government. +Trained to think in terms of figures and the relation of these figures +to life, engineers readily perceive the true and the untrue in matters +of legislation and administration, though as a body they have never +exerted themselves to an expression of their opinions on matters coming +properly under the head of public opinion. Engineers have felt that they +have not had the time. Or, having the time, that the public at large, +chiefly owing to the engineer's self-imposed isolation, would not +understand a voice from this direction, and so engineers have kept +silent. The day has arrived, however, when this silence on the part of +engineers must be broken.</p> + +<p>The World War has been an awakening in this as in other directions. +Lawyers and politicians have successfully dominated our<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_56' id='Page_56'>56</a></span> government from +its beginning, with a single beautiful exception in George Washington at +one end and another admirable exception in Woodrow Wilson at the other. +Washington was a civil engineer, and Wilson, while trained as a lawyer, +was an educator. In between these two men there may have fallen a +scattering of others who were not lawyers or politicians; the writer is +not sure. Of one thing he is sure, however, and that is that engineers +in the future will dominate politics to the betterment of the nation as +a whole. For engineers are idealists—otherwise they would never have +entered upon an engineering career—and idealism has come, as it were, +into its own again. The man of vision of a wholesome aspect, the man who +can so completely forget himself in his work of service as to engage in +tasks whose merits nobody save himself and those pursuing like tasks can +or will understand—which is pre-eminently the engineer—is the one man +best fitted to administrate in public affairs. More important still than +this statement is the fact that the world at large is beginning to +realize the truth of it. Engineers as a body stand poised upon the rim +of big things. Nor will they as a body stoop to the petty in politics, +once they are fairly well launched<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_57' id='Page_57'>57</a></span> in active participation of civic +affairs. Neither their training nor their outlook, based upon their +training, will permit it. For engineers, more than any other group of +professional men, are given to "see true." And seeing true, being, as it +is, the essence of a full life, is what is needed in our public +administrators.</p> + +<p>Engineers in the past who have become more or less prominent in the +public eye—and there are some who have—have demonstrated their ability +to see things as they are. Westinghouse was the first man in this +country to foresee the coming of the half-holiday Saturday as an +innovation that promised general adoption. He granted it to all his +employees at a time when lesser industrial captains believed him to be +at least "queer." Ford set the pace for a minimum rate of five dollars a +day in his plant, and lesser captains still frown upon him for having +perpetrated this "evil." Edison, among other things, has told of the +importance of loose clothing—loose shoes and collars and hats—to a man +who would enjoy good health. The list is not long, but the insight of +those who form this short list cannot but be recognized. What these men +have said and done concerning matters freely apart from the subject of<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_58' id='Page_58'>58</a></span> +engineering reveals them as members of a fraternity well qualified to +lead public opinion rather than to follow it, as has been the province +of engineers in the past. Each when he has spoken or entered upon action +having the public welfare in mind has pronounced or demonstrated a truth +which fairly crackled with sanity.</p> + +<p>Engineers belong in civic affairs. The world of humanity needs men of +their stamp in high places. Humanity needs men in control of state and +national affairs who would hold the interests of humanity sacred. +Engineers are such men. Not that engineers more than any other +professional men are sprouting wings—not that. But engineers do see +things in their true light—cannot see them in any other light than the +one imposed by the law of mathematics, which is that two and two make +four, never five or three—and this involuntarily would admit of +decisions and grant graces from the point of view of absolute truth, +which is, of course, the point of view of humanity—the greatest good +for the greatest number. With such men occupying high places in the +nation's affairs, the world of men and mankind would leap forward +ethically and spiritually at a pace in keeping with the pace at which +civilization<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_59' id='Page_59'>59</a></span> has progressed under the impetus of engineering thought +since the days of Watt. Nobody can deny <i>that</i> progress. Nobody could +well deny the fact that ethical progress under engineering guidance +would be equally great.</p> + +<p>I hold a brief for engineers, of course. Engineering has been my major +work for twenty years and more. It has been my privilege to associate +intimately with two men—yea, three—possessed of great engineering +ability. The third man failed of great repute, owing chiefly to his +advanced—rather too much advanced—visionings. He wanted to talk across +the ocean by telephone at a time when the cable interests successfully +prevented him from commercializing his apparatus. And he died a +disappointed inventor. But he had the stuff in him, the thing that makes +for human greatness, just as had the other and more successful two men +with whom I as a designer was privileged to work. All were men of kindly +spirit, of broad outlook, of unselfish devotion to worldly interests. +Each was a humanitarian. Each saw things as they are, and each saw +things as they should be, and each thought much on problems of human +welfare and betterment. Of such men in civic affairs the nation,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_60' id='Page_60'>60</a></span> and +indeed the entire world of nations, has had but a sad too few in the +past. It is to be hoped, and it is the belief of the writer, that +engineers will become more plentiful in civic life in the future.</p> + +<p>I have always believed that the man who reached an advanced age without +a sizable bank-account is a fact which would well serve as a definition +as to what constitutes an idealist. There are many such men—meaning, of +course, men having a level set of brains, and not mental incompetents. +Such men are inclined to things other than the accumulation of +bank-accounts. They strive toward goals which to them are more worth +while—self-improvement, for instance, spiritual growth being a better +term. Of such men were the world's acknowledged saviors. A man who can +wilfully thrust oars against the current of a stream flowing +currency-wise, in such a way as to force himself into a back eddy or +pool more or less stagnant, is a man pronouncedly great among men. The +world is loath to recognize such a man for what he is; yet such men have +lived and still live and will continue to live, always more for others +than for themselves—seeing life in the true, in other and more gracious +words.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_61' id='Page_61'>61</a></span></p><p>Engineers, in the abstract, are such men. The accumulation of money is +secondary with them. Their work holds first place in importance. +Possessed of that professional pride which will not permit a man to set +aside his work and enter a more lucrative and materially satisfactory +field of endeavor—if he starve in his obstinacy—engineers are men of +the temperament, aside from the training, to minister to public needs +and desires. Self-effacement is the engineer's chief characteristic. He +views largely and without bias. He can see things from the other +fellow's angle because he is not an engineer if he has not the gift of +imagination. The successful engineer has this most precious of +endowments, and, having it, cannot but be possessed also of kindliness +and sympathy, which are imagination's own brothers. Kindliness and +sympathy are needed in the high places of our government for the people +by the people. And because men in time gravitate to their rightful +sphere of usefulness through the workings of an all-wise Providence, +engineers already have turned and are turning toward the administration +of public affairs.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_62' id='Page_62'>62</a></span></p> +<h2>IX</h2> + +<h3>CODE OF ETHICS</h3> + + +<p>All engineering societies have a code of ethics for the guidance of +their membership bodies. In each case it is a code based upon other and +older codes, codes long in practice among professional men, such as +lawyers and doctors. It is a code built up on Christian principles, as +it should be, and rarely is it ignored among men of the profession. To +do unto others as you would have others do unto you is the basis of its +precepts, though more concretely it aims to guide the engineer in his +business intercourse with other men in such a way as to give all an +equal chance without transgressing the law. The so-called building codes +in effect in large cities are intended to hold engineers to restrictions +for the greatest good of the greatest number, and the code of ethics in +practice among each of the engineering professions likewise was devised +toward this end. There seems to be need for it.</p> + +<p>Perhaps by pointing out where engineers<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_63' id='Page_63'>63</a></span> sometimes transgress, the +writer more effectively can indicate the need of a code and the +principles of which the engineering code of ethics consists. Even to-day +there are engineers digressing from the path indicated by the +professional body, though in such a way as to benefit still by the +protection of the law, and to be not openly susceptible to admonition +from the engineering societies' committees. Engineers of this stamp at +best are but tricksters. Actually, they should be debarred from +practice, just as the legal fraternity takes effective action against +members of the bar who go outside the pale, though nothing is ever done +to engineers. Engineering organizations in this regard are weak. The +man's name should at least be posted, or, better still, published in the +society's bulletin, so that the fraternity at large could know, and, +knowing, could warn men with capital to invest—the trickster's especial +prey—for its own welfare.</p> + +<p>There was an engineer brought to the attention of the writer whose +activities were devoted to securing for his clients men of no mechanical +knowledge who yet wanted something done by machinery. A manufacturer of +paper dolls, say, having entered upon this phase of manufacturing only +because he had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_64' id='Page_64'>64</a></span> money to invest and not because he was interested in +mechanics, would see the need in his plant for additional mechanical +devices to cut down manufacturing costs. The engineer to whom I have +reference would find this type of manufacturer his particular "meat," +because of the man's ignorance of mechanics, and, after clinching him +with a contract drawn up by the engineer's lawyer, would undertake to +devise for this manufacturer a perpetual-motion machine, if that +happened to be what the manufacturer wanted. The engineer conducted a +machine-shop in connection with his "consulting" office, where, at a +dollar an hour for the use of his machine-tools, he would "develop" his +ideas, as passed upon by the manufacturer who knew no more of +construction or the reading of mechanical drawings than he did of the +chicanery of the engineer, and in this way roll up the costs against the +unfortunate. In the end the engineer might and might not produce a +satisfactory working machine. There was nothing in the contract about +this—save only as it protected the engineer. What was indeed produced +was a list of costs for the development often of several designs of a +given idea that to say the least were heartrending.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_65' id='Page_65'>65</a></span></p><p>Then there is the engineer who for a consideration will bear false +testimony against his neighbor, or his neighbor's ox. This happens most +frequently in municipal traction or lighting wars, set before tribunals +under the caption of "The People <i>vs.</i> the S. S. Street Railway +Company," or in a battle of alleged infringement of patent rights. There +are engineering experts, just as there are legal experts, who deem it +within their code of ethics to address themselves and their energies +toward the refutation of such claims, however wrong or right these +claims may be. Engineering is an exact science. It is based on +principles hardly refutable. Yet there are engineers who will and can +confound these principles before a court of law in such manner as to win +for their clients a decision of non-suit where the facts point glaringly +to infringement—in the matter of mechanics—or to win for their clients +a favorable decision in the matter of costs of maintenance and operation +of a railway, in a case of this kind. As has been said, figures don't +lie, but figurers sometimes do.</p> + +<p>Other instances of breach of engineering ethics, however otherwise +secure from the clutches of the law, occur to the writer, but the two +just cited ought to serve. At best,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_66' id='Page_66'>66</a></span> the topic is unpleasant and by no +means indicates the character of the profession as a whole. Where there +is one engineer who will perjure himself in the fashion as set forth +above there are many thousands of engineers who could not be bought for +this purpose at any amount of money. The profession of engineering is +notably clean; its code of ethics rigidly adhered to; the rights of +others, both in and out of the profession, regarded with something akin +to sacredness. Engineers, as a body, for instance, possess a peculiarly +rigid idea concerning themselves in relation to branches of the +profession outside their own and yet intimately close to their own. +Called in as an expert in the matter of heating and lighting a building, +say, the heating and lighting engineer will rigidly confine himself to +this phase of the engineering venture and to no other, however he may +find his work again and again overlapping the work of the structural +engineer or the industrial engineer—phases concerning which he may +possess important knowledge. He regards these things as strictly none of +his business, and in doing so conserves the esteem and friendship of his +confrères.</p> + +<p>The code of ethics is a liberal one among the engineering groups. It has +been laid down<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_67' id='Page_67'>67</a></span> with an eye to fairness both for the practitioner and +the client. Rigidly held to, it will admit of no engineer going far +wrong in the practice of his profession, and, broken, will not land him +in jail. It is presupposed that engineers are men of intelligence. A man +of intelligence will hold himself to the spirit of the Ten Commandments +if he would attain to success, and to the letter of them if he would be +happy during the declining days of his life. Most engineers realize this +and accept it as their every-day working creed. Life to them, like the +medium through which they give expression to their ideas, is a matter of +mathematics. Two steps taken in a wrong direction mean an equal number +of steps forcibly retraced—or the whole problem goes wrong. Engineers +rarely take the two steps in the wrong direction. When they do take +wrong steps they are quick to right them. For the code is always before +their eyes.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_68' id='Page_68'>68</a></span></p> +<h2>X</h2> + +<h3>FUTURE OF THE ENGINEER</h3> + + +<p>Just at present the future of the engineer is more richly promising than +it might otherwise have been but for the war. Due to the period of +reconstruction now confronting the world, a work almost wholly that of +the engineering professions, engineers for a period of a decade at least +are destined to be overburdened with projects. Nor will any one branch +be occupied to the exclusion of any other branch or branches. Civil and +structural engineers will, as a matter of course, have the first call; +but with the work of these men well under way—consisting of the +reconstruction of towns and cities—mechanical and electrical men will +necessarily be called upon, with, no doubt, liberal demand for mining +engineers. Each branch will have its place and serve its usefulness in +the order as the reconstruction work itself will fall, with the result +that all branches of the profession will be busily occupied.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_69' id='Page_69'>69</a></span></p><p>Manufacturers have been ready or are getting ready for this +unprecedented promised activity for some little time. Representatives +are flocking abroad on every boat sailing from these shores with schemes +and plans for the rapid upbuilding of devastated Europe. These men, for +the most part, are engineers embracing all branches of the profession, +and each is a man especially well qualified to serve in his branch. In a +way he is a specialist. He may represent a giant structural +organization, or a machine-tool manufacturer, or an electric-lighting +and power concern—any one of the many fields of industrial enterprises +whose product is needed to place demoralized France and Belgium back +upon a productive basis. For when the construction period is over with +there will be need for machine-tools and equipment for operating these +tools, such as engines and boilers and motors, all of which come +properly under the head of engineering productive enterprises.</p> + +<p>Engineers—especially American engineers—will be in great demand, as +they are already. Nor will the close of the reconstruction period +witness an abatement of this demand. Having once entered the foreign +field on a large scale, they will of necessity<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_70' id='Page_70'>70</a></span> continue to be in demand +not only for the furtherance of industrial projects, but for purposes of +maintaining that which has been installed at their hands. Machinery has +a way of needing periodical overhauling—even the best of machinery—and +this will entail the services of many engineers for long after the +machinery itself has been set up. The services of erecting engines, +operating engineers, supervising engineers—known more properly as +industrial engineers—following, as the need will, close upon the heels +of the constructing and selling men—will keep the many branches alive +and in foreign trade for much more than a decade—or so it seems to the +writer. Other nations may, of course, whip into the field and in time +crowd out the more distant—meaning American—engineers and engineering +products. But I don't think so, because of the acknowledged supremacy of +American engineers in many directions. The war itself taught the world +that we possessed such a supremacy, and the world will be slow to +forget—especially the purchasing side of nations themselves so crippled +of man-power as to be for a generation well-nigh helpless.</p> + +<p>So the immediate future of the engineer is richly promising. It is so +rich with promise<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_71' id='Page_71'>71</a></span> that a young man could hardly do better than to enter +upon engineering as a life-work, provided he has no particular choice of +careers, and would enter upon an attractive and scopeful one. His work +is already laid out for him. Taking up a course of study leading to the +degree of M.E., or C.E., or E.E., in four years, upon graduating, he can +retrace his way, or the way of his brother, over the battle-fields of +Europe, a constructive rather than a destructive agent now, a +torch-bearer, a pilgrim, a son of democracy once again advancing the +standard in the interests of humanity. He may do this as a mechanical +engineer, as a civil engineer, as an electrical engineer, as a mining +engineer; it matters not. What does matter is that he will be carrying +Old Glory, in spirit if not in the letter, to the distant outposts—the +especial province of the Anglo-Saxon race, anyway, from the beginnings +of this race—and so serving to maintain the respect and affection +already established in these countries by our soldiery. To the writer +the thing looks mighty attractive.</p> + +<p>Yet the young engineer's future need not lie in distant places +necessarily. He may stay at home and still have his work cut out for +him. The promised unparalleled activity<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_72' id='Page_72'>72</a></span> in the field of engineering on +the other side cannot but enlarge and accentuate the activity on this +side of the water. Plants will be operating full blast to catch up with +the demand imposed by this abnormal activity, and thus the engineer will +perforce bear the burdens of production. He will bear them in all +directions, since industrial activity means engineering activity, and +the work of production cannot go on without him. In the mines, the +mills, the quarries, the foundry, the machine-shop, the pattern-shop, +the drafting-room, the engineering offices, the consulting +divisions—all these, necessitating as they do the employment of one or +more engineers in at least a supervising capacity, will have urgent need +for his services. Constructive work always, he will grow as his work +grows, and because the growth of his work under these abnormal +conditions will be of itself abnormal, his own growth under these +conditions will be abnormal. He will find himself a full engineer before +his rightful time.</p> + +<p>Right here it would be well to point out to the young graduate the +importance of getting under a capable engineer. For, much as the writer +dislikes to admit it, there are engineers who are not capable and who +yet occupy positions of great responsibility. The<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_73' id='Page_73'>73</a></span> young engineer, fresh +from college and a bit puzzled as to the game as a whole, if he accept a +connection under an engineer, for instance, whose inventive ideas are +impractical, will unwittingly absorb such a man's viewpoint on +construction, and so spoil himself as an engineer for all time to come. +Cases like this are not rare. The writer personally knows of more than +one young man who enlisted under an engineer whose ideas on +administration probably accounted, being as they were good ideas, for +his position of authority over matters not strictly of an administrative +nature. The man wanted to exercise his authority over all things within +his department—not the least of which was machine design—with the +result that the young graduate's normally practical viewpoint on matters +of construction became warped into that of the man over him, and +continued warped for so long as he remained under this man, and +frequently longer, indeed, to the end of his engineering career. The +young engineer must pick his boss as our young men are facetiously +advised to pick their parents. The wrong selection will prove disastrous +to him in after-life.</p> + +<p>Which is but an aside—though a very important one. To emulate a +weakling in<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_74' id='Page_74'>74</a></span> whatever walk of life, be it painting or writing or +engineering, means to begin wrong. Everybody knows the importance of a +right beginning. It is no less true of the young engineer than of +others.</p> + +<p>And what with the example set by Herbert Hoover and other dollar-a-year +men, mostly engineers, in the nation's administrative affairs during the +war, the future of the engineer looks bright in these quarters as well +as in quarters embracing engineering constructive work wholly. The +engineer of the future undoubtedly will take active part in municipal +and national affairs, more likely than not in time entering upon a +political career as a side interest, as the lawyer enters upon it +to-day, within time—so it seems to the writer—members of the +engineering professions occupying positions of great trust, such as +state governorships and—who knows?—the Presidency itself. Certainly +the hand points this way. More and more engineers are coming into +prominence in the public eye, and with every member of the profession so +coming, the respect for men of his profession multiplies among laymen. +It is not too much to say, therefore, that engineers are destined to +fill places of great political power. It is to be hoped that they<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_75' id='Page_75'>75</a></span> are. +Whether they do or not, the future at this writing amply promises it, +and so forcibly that it may well be included as existing for the +engineer, as being a part of the future of the engineer.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_76' id='Page_76'>76</a></span></p> +<h2>XI</h2> + +<h3>WHAT CONSTITUTES ENGINEERING SUCCESS</h3> + + +<p>A graduate of Cornell, in the class of '05, after placing away his +diploma where it could not trouble him through suggestiveness, accepted +a position with a large manufacturing concern in western Pennsylvania. +He was twenty-three years old. He went into the shop to get the +practical side of certain theories imposed upon his receptive nature +through four long years of study in a mechanical-engineering course. The +concern manufactured among other things steam-turbines, and this young +man, having demonstrated in school his particular aptitude for +thermodynamics—the study of heat and its units in its application to +engines, and the like—entered the erecting department. Donning +overalls, and with ordinary rule in his hip pocket—as against the +slide-rule with which he had worked out his theoretical calculations +during his college<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_77' id='Page_77'>77</a></span> years—he went to work at whatever was assigned him +as a task by his superiors—shop foremen, assistant superintendent, +occasionally an engineer from the office.</p> + +<p>This young man did many things. He helped to assemble turbine parts; +carried word of petty alterations to the proper officials: assisted in +the work of making tests; made detailed reports on the machine's +performance; screwed up and backed off nuts; in short, got very well +acquainted with the steam-turbine as manufactured by this company. He +knew the fundamentals of machine construction, and an understanding of +the details of this particular type of turbine therefore came easy to +him. He worked shop hours, carried his lunch in a box, changed his +overalls every Monday like a veteran. Usually his overalls more than +needed changing, because he was not afraid of the grease and grime with +which he came into contact throughout the day. He liked the work and +went to it like a dog to a bone. He was applying in a practical way what +he had learned in college of a theoretical nature, and finding the thing +of amazing interest.</p> + +<p>He made progress. In time his work was brought to the attention of the +chief engineer, and one day, when the president of the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_78' id='Page_78'>78</a></span> company, who was +also an inventor of national repute and responsible for the design of +the turbine being manufactured by the organization, wanted to make +certain bold changes in the design, the chief engineer sent for the +young engineer whose work in college in thermodynamics had won for him +certain honors, with the result that our hero found himself presently +seated opposite the president at a table in the latter's office, engaged +in working out calculations on his slide-rule—calculations beyond the +powers of the president, because he was not a heavy theoretician. This +call was a big advance indeed, for it marked him as a man of promise—a +"comer"—in the concern. The president liked the ease with which the +young engineer "got" him in the matter of the proposed changes, and +quite before either realized it both were talking freely, exchanging +ideas, in the field of turbine construction generally. The young man +unconsciously was driving home the fact that he was a capable engineer, +one who, while still lacking in broad experience, was nevertheless +possessed of the proper attitude toward engineering as a whole to compel +the interest and attention of his superior.</p> + +<p>The young man eventually was sent out upon the road as an erecting man. +In this<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_79' id='Page_79'>79</a></span> work he discovered certain operating faults in the design, and, +reporting these faults to the home office, observed that not a few were +remedied in subsequent designs. He moved about the country from place to +place, setting up and operating steam-turbines, until there came the +blissful day when he was called back to join the engineering staff in +work covering design. Laying aside his overalls, he emerged as a crisp +young engineer in a linen collar and nifty cravat—although not till +later did he don a cream-colored waistcoat—and thereafter his hours +were seven instead of nine. With a desk and a stenographer he entered +upon work of a somewhat statistical character. He followed the designs +of rival companies as best he could through their advertising and +articles covering their respective designs appearing in the technical +journals, and about this time also applied for admission, and was +granted it, in the foremost engineering society embracing his particular +branch of the profession. He was still making progress.</p> + +<p>Likewise, he was rapidly becoming an expert in the field of +steam-turbines. His work in the shop, together with his experience on +the road, both as an erecting man and operating engineer, had eminently +fitted him for<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_80' id='Page_80'>80</a></span> valuable service in the home office as an engineer +overseeing design. His work in charge of design, where his knowledge of +what had given service both good and bad in details of construction +while he was in the field, was extremely valuable to the designer +himself, was rapidly rounding him out as a steam-turbine man. His salary +had gone up apace with his progress; he had met the right girl at a club +dance in the suburban town where he had taken modest quarters; he was +rapidly headed toward success both as an engineer and a citizen. He had +been out of school probably six years, and was still a very young man, +with all the world practically before him.</p> + +<p>One day he was asked by the chief engineer of the concern to journey to +New York, and read a paper before his engineering society at one of the +regular annual meetings, on the subject of thermodynamics in its +relation to the company's own product—the turbine. He tipped over his +chair in his eagerness to get out of the office and on the train. He +realized the importance of this opportunity. He was to appear before his +fellow-engineers—the best and most capable and prominent in the +profession—and to appear as an authority on his subject! The thing<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_81' id='Page_81'>81</a></span> was +another step forward. He prepared a paper, basing it on his six years' +experience in steam-turbines, and when he reached New York had something +of value to tell his brother engineers. The meeting was held in the +afternoon, and, dressing for the part, he stepped out upon the platform +before a gathering of some eight or nine hundred engineers and delivered +himself of his subject with credit to himself and to his organization. +Not only that. In the rebuttal, when engineers seated in the auditorium +rose to confound him with questions—engineers representing rival +turbine concerns—he proved himself quick at the bat and more than once +confounded those who would confound him.</p> + +<p>He was making his mark on the industrial times. His paper was reviewed +in the technical journals and almost overnight our young hero found +himself recognized as an authority in his chosen branch. He was sought +out for other articles by technical editors, his associates in the home +plant generously commended him for his work; his salary received another +elevation; he called on the girl that night and had her set the date. +Then he plugged for salvation—further knowledge as a turbine +man—harder than<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_82' id='Page_82'>82</a></span> ever. Having won the full confidence of the officials +of the company by this time, he was given free voice in all matters +having to do with the design of their product, and shortly after his +first little boy was born was promoted to the position of assistant +chief engineer. He served in this capacity for two years, and then, +realizing that he had gone as far up in the organization as it was +physically possible to go, owing to the fact that the chief engineer was +the president's sister's husband—or something like that—he accepted an +offer from one of the rival concerns manufacturing turbines and entered +the organization as chief engineer at a salary too big to mention. Our +young friend had at last arrived.</p> + +<p>Yet his success was not quite complete, nor will it be complete, until +he sets up, as he assuredly will some day, as a consulting engineer. +When he at last does this, when he swings out his shingle to the breeze, +he will then have attained to the maximum of possible success as an +engineer. Already recognized as being possessed of a fine discrimination +in matters of engineering moment, especially in thermodynamics as +related to turbines, he has but gone up in channels early laid out for +him, and indicated to him, in<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_83' id='Page_83'>83</a></span> his college days. His direction even then +was clearly marked. All he had to do, and all he did do, was to develop +himself in this single direction. He did nothing that would be +impossible to any other engineering graduate. Merely he hewed to the +line—persisted in remaining in the one branch of the game—met with his +reward in time just as any young man would meet with it. There was +nothing of phenomenal character, nothing of the genius, revealed in what +he did. His way is open to all. And it is a way both worthy and +admirable, for to-day this engineer stands high in his profession and is +meeting with financial reward in keeping with his position among +engineers.</p> + +<p>There you have in the tracing of one engineer's progress to success +precisely what constitutes engineering success. The details may differ, +but the principles and the rewards will be the same, whether you enter +upon civil or mechanical or mining or electrical engineering. Success in +engineering constitutes certain satisfactory money rewards and an even +more satisfactory recognition by one's associates and fellows. Success +in anything is that. A man must work for them, however. There never was +and never will be a rainbow path to the heights. Toil and an abiding<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_84' id='Page_84'>84</a></span> +faith in one's own capabilities—these make for success. Success makes +for happiness, and happiness, as everybody knows, is all there is to +this life.</p> + +<p>I wish all men happiness.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_85' id='Page_85'>85</a></span></p> +<h2>XII</h2> + +<h3>THE PERSONAL SIDE</h3> + + +<p>As to the personal side of engineering as a career, if it would be a +source of gratification to you to know that you were helping to build up +the civilized world, then you should enter the engineering profession. +Because men differ in their ideas as to what constitutes a full +life—some placing ideal homes above all things, some seeking +continuously diversified sources of pleasure, some wanting nothing +better than a fine library or freedom to cultivate taste in pictures, +some wishing only to surround themselves with interesting people, some +wanting nothing but an accumulation of dollars, some wishing but for +power of control over others—all men would not find the full life in +engineering. Yet the majority of men would, because the profession holds +that which would appeal to a great many different ideas as to what a +complete life consists of. Engineering as a profession is scientific, +idealistic, constructive,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_86' id='Page_86'>86</a></span> profitable. It is combative—in the sense +that it shapes nature's forces—and it calls for a sense of artistry in +its practitioners. Added to these, it embraces a certain kind of +profound knowledge the possession of which is always a source of pride +to the owner.</p> + +<p>Let me explain this last. The engineer, being as he is a man who views +things objectively, notes details in everything that comes under his +eye, be it dwelling or automobile, or bookbinding or highway. The layman +does not. The layman, outside his work, sees only the thing itself, when +looking at it—the general outline. But the engineer, trained to note +details in construction, observes detail at a glance, and does it almost +subconsciously, if not immediately after leaving school, then assuredly +later, after he has been practicing his profession for a time. His +outlook is objectively critical. Entering a house for the first time, +and trained as a mechanical engineer, he will note the character of the +woodwork, the decorations, the atmosphere, the arrangement of the +furnishings, all with the same facility that he will note details upon +entering for the first time a power-station or a manufacturing +plant—things within his own province.</p> + +<p>Nor is this faculty confined to the concrete.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_87' id='Page_87'>87</a></span> Engineers are of that +deeply instinctive race of folk who perceive cause in effect with the +lightning swiftness of a wild animal. If they are not this when entering +upon the profession, assuredly they become so after a period spent in +the work. Something about the practice of engineering breeds it—breeds +this objective seeing and abstract reasoning—and to be possessed of it +is to get more out of life than otherwise is possible. Which possibly +accounts for the fact that engineers as a group seem to have a +common-sense viewpoint of things, one that is frankly acknowledged and +drawn upon when needed by men in other walks of life. Engineers are +extremely practical-minded, and this makes for a certain outlook that +will not permit of visionary scaring away from the common sense and the +practical on the part of its possessor. Engineers know why things occur +without having witnessed even the occurrence itself. Their powers of +reasoning are developed to degrees beyond the average—or they seem to +be—and out of this comes one of the sources of gratification on the +personal side to the man who pursues engineering as a profession.</p> + +<p>The thing spreads out as I contemplate it. I would make so bold as to +say that the man<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_88' id='Page_88'>88</a></span> of engineering training will see more at a glance when +first viewing the Grand Cañon, say, than will any other professionally +trained man. Should the Cañon collapse, he would know instantly why it +collapsed. He could give an opinion on the wonderful color effects that +would interest the artist, and he would know without hesitation how best +to descend to the bottom and wherein to seek the easiest trail. All +this, without his being a civil or a mining engineer, understand; merely +a man trained in constructive mechanics. On the other hand, the mining +or the civil man would view the wreckage of a locomotive accident and +see in the debris, select from the snarl of tangled wheels and +driving-arms and axles a ready picture of the nature of the accident and +how much of the wreckage offered possibilities for repair. Again, the +engineer sees in a tree, with its tapering trunk, the symbol of all +tower construction, just as he sees in the shape of a man's arm the +pattern to follow when devising a cast-iron lever for an automatic +machine. He sees things, does the engineer; sees objectively; follows +nature throughout.</p> + +<p>All this being true, the engineer has a rather interesting life of it. +For not only does he see a little more clearly than otherwise<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_89' id='Page_89'>89</a></span> would be +possible to him without his education and training, but also he does +things with his hands that come easy to him without previously having +undertaken them. The engineer can do much around his own home, if he so +choose, that of itself is a source of great satisfaction. Engineers can +swing doors, build fireplaces, landscape, erect fences, make garden, and +can perform these tasks with a degree of neatness and skill that brings +favorable comment from journeymen whose vocations this work is, and do +the work without training whatsoever in the work. Wall-papering, +painting, carpentering, laying up of brick, or the placing of a dry +wall—plastering, glazing—the list is endless that as side-plays are +possible to the man with an engineering training. He need not do these +things, ever; but if he wants ever to do them, he finds that he can do +them and do a creditable job of each, and this without his ever having +turned his hand to the work before.</p> + +<p>Which sums up in a measure the personal side. The engineer is not a +superior being. Merely he is a man possessed of a highly specialized +education and training which peculiarly fits him for any practical work, +and out of this work, for practical thinking<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_90' id='Page_90'>90</a></span> of the kind known as +constructive. Being constructive with his hands, he cannot but in time +become constructive with his brain. Being constructive as a thinker +first, he cannot but become constructive as a doer later. The one hinges +closely on the other, and having both, as the engineer must who would be +a successful engineer, he has as much of the world under his control as +comes to any man, and, in a great degree, more than is the favorable lot +of most men. For the engineer is both a thinker and a doer. Ponder +that—you. Men are either one or the other—most men—and rarely are +they both. Either side of their brain has been developed at the expense +of the other side. Not so with the engineer. The successful engineer is +both thinker and doer—must be in his profession. It seems to me that +engineering has many beautiful attractions as a profession.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OPPORTUNITIES IN ENGINEERING***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 24681-h.txt or 24681-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24681">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24681</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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