UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING BERKELEY.

CALIFORNIA

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

VOCATIONAL SERIES

THE ENGINEER

VOCATIONAL SERIES
THE TEACHER
By
Francis B. Pearson

THE ENGINEER

By John Hays Hammond

By
Talcott Williams
Slattery

In preparation

THE NEWSPAPERMAN

THE MINISTRY

By Charles Lewis

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

VOCATIONAL SERIES

THE ENGINEER
BY

JOHN HAYS HAMMOND

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1921

TA Hz
Library

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published April, 1921

THE 8CRIBNER PRESS

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.

PAGE

THE PROFESSION OF ENGINEERING

i

II.

ADVANTAGES AND SHORTCOMINGS

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER
ABILITY
.

n
24

III.

IV.

WHICH

MAY BE

AC39

QUIRED
V. VI.
VII.

GENERAL EDUCATION

....
...
.

49
65

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ING

THE FOUNDATIONS OF ENGINEER78

91

VIII.

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

CIVIL ENGINEERING

IX.

....
.
.

107
121

X.
XI. XII.
XIII.

THE MINING ENGINEER

THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

134

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

THE MARINE ENGINEER
.

146
161

XIV.

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

CONCLUSION

172

XV.

188

THE ENGINEER
CHAPTER
I

THE PROFESSION OF ENGINEERING

ENGINEERING
it

is a profession so old that never been traced to its beginnings. has

When we get back to the misty boundary between the earliest accurate historical records and that vague time which we know as
"pre-history," we find extraordinary monuments to the genius of engineering which

have already been standing

for centuries.

All the recent progress of archaeological discoveries has not brought our knowledge of

the pyramids of Egypt, for instance, beyond the speculative stage, yet they are among the engineering marvels of all time. The methods employed in the construction of the Grand Canal of China, a waterway 700
miles long, with 75 locks, built 30 centuries
ago, can only be guessed at.
toric draining of

The

prehis-

Lake Copaias by a tunnel

ENGINEER
''4

Wi^S'1bng,: Qt'.fiiiJshed workmanship, penof 150 feet, is etrating sometimes to a depth

shrouded in mystery.

Stpnethe erection of the Egyptian obelisks, henge, the building of the great monuments recently discovered in Yucatan, Peru, and Mexico, the tunnel under the Euphrates dug probcountless other ably 4,000 years ago, and was engineerexamples, prove that not only
ing exceedingly times, but that

The

triliths of

important
it

in

was practised on a

prehistoric scale

and with an ingenuity that is perfectly knowlastounding in the light of our modern
edge of applied science.

The modern

of engineer, given the job

with all the new building a Cheops pyramid, and all the best methods of construction

and inventions of modern machinery drills railroads and dynamite to quarry the rock, to transport it, and cranes steam navigation that he to lift it into place would realize that would was confronted with a problem effort. Imagrequire his most concentrated
ine his position, however,
if

you took from

him every device based on such simple memovements as that of the wheel
chanical

and the

pulley,

all

power derived from

THE PROFESSION

harnessing the forces of nature, and gave him nothing but the crudest cutting tools,

wooden

sledges, ropes, the lever and the inclined plane, and the services of 100,000

men

He would

then be in somewhat the

same

situation as the engineers of the fourth dynasty in Egypt, who nevertheless per-

formed the feat which has endured from

their

day to ours through

all

the growth of
is

our

civilization.

The study

of engineering archaeology

so

fascinating that

many men have devoted a

it,

large part of their lives to

and countless

books have been written on it. Here it can only be touched on in the light that it throws on the instinct to build and to use the resources of the earth which has persisted through the life of mankind. It has been so strong that the most amazing difficulties have been met and overcome, and the development we have to-day is the result of a very slow but perfectly irresistible persistence.

Man first distinguished himself from the lower animals by the use of tools. He began with the weapons of the chase and the
implements of agriculture to satisfy his most

THE ENGINEER

Yet even beprimitive instinct of hunger. fore the beginning of agriculture he began
to construct temples for his worship, tombs

and monuments for his dead, shelter for himself and his family. The relics of the
stone age, the Stonehenge temple, the dolmens, the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, are brilliant examples of the working of primitive constructive instinct.

In these early

we see the constant effort of all the human faculties to live up to the vision of the dreamer. The imagination of the stoneage man worked on a large scale. The dream of the man who conceived the idea
times
of the

Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, or the Wool worth Building was nothing in

magnitude to the conceit of the sun-worshipper who planned one of the early monuments
of the stone age, because the available resources for the accomplishment of his ideal

were
cut

infinitely less.

by

His tools were rudely stone from stone, while the modern

engineer works with steam hammers and drills; the stone-age engineer depended on
of steam

man-power alone, while we have the forces and electricity to do our work. The stone for the Great Pyramid was

THE PROFESSION

quarried a hundred miles up the Nile, and transported by barges down the river, and

by man-drawn sledges, to its destination. The stones were probably lifted into place by ropes, aided by earth ramps, rockers, levers of the crowbar sort, rollers, and other primitive devices. The rude boulders were shaped and finished by blows from rude stone mauls. Yet with all these difficulties the will of the builders was strong enough
to achieve during the reign of one king a monument 481 feet high, covering 13 acres
of ground,

and containing (if, as is generally the Cheops pyramid is a solid believed, mass) 85,000,000 cubic feet of stone.

The achievements of Greek and Roman antiquity are more familiar to us through
accurate historical records: the aqueducts throughout the empire, some of which are
still

in an almost perfect state of preservation fortresses, roads (many of which formed the bases of the present routes nationales in
;

France), engines of war, works of military engineering, such as Caesar's famous bridge across the Rhine, which has bothered so

many

generations

of

schoolboys,

and a
re-

thousand others which are even now

THE ENGINEER

spected and studied by modern engineers as

examples of extraordinary skill and workmanship. The study of these things, however, is interesting not so much from its technical information as for the sense of the value of his profession it gives to the man who is about to become an engineer. The realization that it is one of the oldest, most dignified, most
vitally
sions,

important to

life

and that the work

of all the profesof engineering has

been the expression of one of the fundamental human instincts, is a very real inspiration. After this glance at the achievements of antiquity, it seems a little startling to say
that the engineering profession
infancy.
true.
is still

in its

Yet

this

statement

is

undoubtedly

past century is out of all proportion to its progress during all the preceding ages, and the discoveries made during this period have opened broad vistas of infinite length in all directions. The railroad, the wide use of steel, the methods of construction which depend on the use of steam machinery, the use of electricity for light, heat, power, and

The development during the

communication, the internal-combustion en-

THE PROFESSION
gine, the submarine,

and the aeroplane are

products of a century of unparalleled activYet no one can assume that any of ity.

With each these has attained perfection. new invention has come realization of unlimited future possibilities for improvement and endless ramifications. The telegraph
wireless, the balloon
gible,

suggested the telephone, both led to the made possible the diri-

which in turn suggested the heavierthan-air machine, made feasible by the invention of the gas-engine. Throughout all
this progress

we

see a succession of ideas

breeding ideas and each multiplying tenfold; of new necessity giving birth to new
invention, until to-day we are confronted with so many possibilities that we have not

anything

like the necessary

number

of en-

gineers to realize them. Such fields as wireless telegraphy, for example, while they have attained what seems

a remarkable degree of perfection in a few The war years, are really only beginning. new directions, such as the control pointed of torpedoes and vessels from the shore and the air, in which almost unlimited progress might be made and naval warfare revolution-

8
ized.

THE ENGINEER
The
and
use of wireless for the protection is a product of the last few
practice

of vessels at sea years,

its

was greatly multiplied

during the war. The progress of aviation owes much to the war, because of the new interest aroused in it and the perfections which have come through the necessities the war has imposed. The mining engineer has before him the
vast,

almost untouched resources of the

of Siberia, of China, of Korea, as well as some of the more backward nations of

East

Europe.

South America, so

little

known

to

of the people of the United States, is a vast storehouse of treasure which is practically virgin.

most

The opening up

of these re-

sources offers, of course, equal opportunity In to the railroad and the civil engineer. South America the railroads are still in so
primitive a state that a standard-gauge track

has not yet been adopted, and communication between the neighboring republics is extremely difficult. Never were the opportunities for

American engineers so

brilliant as

they are to-day. The future of the world's commerce depends upon the development of
the resources of the backward nations, and

THE PROFESSION

the capital required must come, in the near This future, at least, chiefly from America.

a great field for the activity American engineers.

assures

of

Reconstruction in the devastated countries of Europe demands the work of trained Consideration of the engineers of all kinds.
difficult

economic problems which confront

these nations has led

them to

realize that

manufacturing must be greatly increased. In France new textile mills, sugar plants, rubber and automobile factories are being All this work requires mechanical as built. The mechanical enwell as civil engineers. gineer must constantly keep pace with his
brothers in the other
fields,

and every new

new requiredevelopment ments from him. The manufacture of such new substances
of theirs exacts

as synthetic rubber, the making of dyes and drugs which the war has made necessary in

has created opportunities for the chemical engineer, one of the newest branches of the profession and one in which there is almost no end of usefulness. Examples could be multiplied far beyond the limits of this book. My purpose in this
this country,

io

THE ENGINEER
is is

simply to show that engineerand youngest of the It is limited only by the laws professions. As our knowledge of these laws of nature. is even now only elementary, the constant
introduction
ing
at once the oldest

research

by

scientists into

unknown

terri-

probably never cease to disclose new realms for the originality and imagination of the engineer to work in. For the young man who is by temperatories will

ment

vigorous, adventurous,

and aggressive,

who loves a roving life in quest of new things,

whose
tive
I

instincts are curious, inventive, creacan think of no profession more in-

spiring than one in which he is constantly in close association and conflict with the ele-

mental forces whose conquest terment of mankind.

is

for the bet-

CHAPTER

II

ADVANTAGES AND SHORTCOMINGS

SHORTCOMINGS
is

like to leave it out,

an ugly word; I should but we meet it wherever

we look for a career.

ing,
I

am

In the case of engineersure the disadvantages are tempo-

rary, and for the man who is in earnest about his profession they should be part of his in-

On him as an individual depends spiration. in some measure the good of his whole profession;

he

may

raise or lower its standards

according to his will and performance. But I am going to begin with the advantages.

Our material civilization, the product of a few intensely active years, has made us, whether we like it or not, entirely dependent on the engineer. Our activity is largely industrial, and the greatness of our industry is due to the abundance of our resources and the perfection of our machinery for utilizing them. Even in those parts of the world given over to agriculture the engineer has penetrated with machinery to speed the
ii

:
:
-.

12

THE ENGINEER

work, with devices to save labor and eliminate waste, with railroads to transport the produce of the farm. If we eliminate any one of the engineering elements which underlie our present civilizaLet us tion, the entire structure collapses. for instance, that the mining engisuppose, neer is suddenly removed. The most immediate effect would be the lack of fuel for our

manufacture and

commerce.

Machinery

could no longer be made, because there would be no metal. The use of electricity

because there would be no Education which depends on printcopper. ing, literature, the arts, all the luxuries and conveniences and most of the necessities of life would come abruptly to an end, and we should be plunged immediately into the darkness of the stone age. Take away the civil engineer and you prevent the construction of railroads, water-

would

cease,

ways, roads, buildings, the development of our cities. All transportation by land is Without this directly dependent on him. transportation the population of the world

would

starve.

The

present

condition

of

starvation of

some

of the

European nations

ADVANTAGES
is

13

tation

due more to the interruption of transporby the war than to any other single
of the constantly increas-

factor.

The dependence

ing population of the world

on machine-

made products has made

the work of the

mechanical engineer indispensable. Agriculture, the manufacture of clothing, the preparation of food, must be carried on on an enormous scale to keep pace with the inIn order that this crease of population.

work may not drop behind, every

effort of

the mechanical genius is necessary in the constant perfection of efficient, labor-saving,

rapid machinery.

communication throughout the world, on which, as much as on any

of

Our means

other element, the structure of our present civilization is built, would cease to exist

without the work of the electrical engineer, as well as our lighting, heating, power, much of our transportation, the X-ray, so essential to modern surgery, and a thousand other

developments of the past hundred years which have become necessary to our life.
Shipping, the

means

of

commerce upon
its

which the world now depends for

food,

is

14

THE ENGINEER
A

entirely the result of engineering achievement. glance at the history of the World

War shows that the success of the Allies was,

in the last analysis, determined cess of their shipping. But if

by the

suc-

war
the

in

sible it

any of its aspects, would become without the work of Without a commensurate engineer.

we consider we see how impos-

force of able engineers the supplies of the vast armies which are put into the field could

not keep up with an attack for a single day. Here, too, we find the work of the chemical engineer in the making of munitions, gas, drugs, and medicines for the relief of the

and wounded. These truths and the reasons for them need no long explanation; they are obvious
sick

at once.

It is also evident that the

work

of

any one kind of engineer depends on that of all the others. But the important fact that we may derive from such statements is that the demand for engineers can never grow less; there can never be too many of them, and there is no limit to the ways in which they can benefit humanity and make it possible for

The

more people to live in the world. engineer need never fear a time when

ADVANTAGES
there will not be

15

Far from decreasing,

work enough for him to do. his work becomes con-

stantly larger because it is so linked up with human needs, and as long as humanity conits needs will become and more complex. greater There are certain advantages of the profession which make it peculiarly attractive to the American boy. These are its scope

tinues to increase,

for pioneer work, for developing

unknown

lands, with
it;

the adventure that goes with the opportunity for invention and disall

covery; the chance for originality, and the

The American boy exercise of imagination. of to-day is the product of generations of

fought their way across a continent. Their fight required all the ingenuity they possessed, and only the resourceful survived.

men who have

So our boy

is

ingenious, adventurous,

still full

inventive, of the pio-

neer instinct, longing always to get beyond the immediate environment he is born in,

and ambitious

for achievement.

He

finds

in almost every kind of engineering a direction in which these instinctive forces may

work.

The

profession of engineering should be

16

THE ENGINEER

An engineer is likely peculiarly broadening. to be thrown into contact with every other
sort of business

and profession and into the of every condition of men. He comradeship is necessarily in co-operation with the busi-

man the capitalist, the promoter, the manufacturer, the merchant, the industrial and commercial man; on the other hand, he is always close to the laborer at every turn.
ness

the lawyer

He must work with men of other professions: who must instruct him as to min;

ing laws, building laws, contracts tect with whom he may be in

the archi-

immediate

collaboration; the physician who safeguards the health of his men or takes care of the

sanitation of the

community the newspaper

;

keeps the public informed as to the importance and success of his particular undertakings; the chemist; the statistician;
the politician; the economist; even, in cases in which the engineer is more or less in charge of a large community, the schoolteacher and the clergyman. Again, engineering often takes a

man who

man

into

foreign lands, where he must know the laws of the country and to some extent its government, the customs of the people, the Ian-

ADVANTAGES

17

guage, the international relations with other countries, the history of the country, and
especially its
pects.
If

geography and physical ashe is given important work abroad

to

he

will

come

know

foreign business

men

and business methods, economic situations, exchange, export and import trade, natural resources, the railroads and the shipping, and a thousand other details which will give him a large international education, combining the knowledge of

many

One opportunity which

professions. in the past has

been largely confined to the profession of the law will come in the future, I think, to be more and more the engineer's. That is
the opportunity of public life. The engineer who has been in charge of important work seems to me peculiarly well fitted for

He has the knowledge and which present-day statesmanship experience

statesmanship.
requires.

He knows men
of

of all kinds.

problems

labor

are

familiar

from first-hand experience. about business and business conditions.

The him He knows much

to

He

has followed industrial development closely of the country's reHe is probably abreast of shipsources.

and knows a good deal

i8
ping,
tions.

THE ENGINEER
commerce, and foreign-trade condiIf he has worked abroad he knows

something of the temper of foreign peoples, international law and international relationHe probably knows something about ship. He has been dealing with things railroads. on a large scale; he is at once capable of big
conceptions and practical in carrying them If he has been successful in engineerout.
If he is almost certain to be honest. has been in charge of large, difficult undertakings he is probably courageous. He is calm in crises, and is very unlikely to lose his head in confusing situations. Perhaps, most necessary of all, he knows human psychology and is a leader of men. These are a few of the advantages. A volume of them might be written. Now for the deficiencies which it will be the duty of

ing he

the future

members of the profession to Some are the fault of the engineers themselves, some are due to the pubOne of the latter is lack of appreciation lic. for the work of the engineer. Compared
overcome.

with the statesman or politician, his glory is very small in proportion to achievement.

Very

little

newspaper space

is

given to praise

ADVANTAGES
of the engineer.

19

He works

labors,

public uses and enjoys but takes for granted his part in

quietly, and the the result of his

them. His name does not appear. Very few people, if asked offhand, could mention the names of the engineers who have been responsible for some of our greatest engineering feats. Ask the man in the street who was the engineer who built the first tunnels under the Hudson River. The name of the

come

promoter of that enterprise will probably instantly into his mind, but it is very probable that he has never heard the name
of the engineer.

In the past the financial compensation which the engineer has received has been far below the importance of his achievement. This has been partly the engineer's fault; he has not demanded a proper compensation for his work, with the result that the capitalists and promoters for whom he works have fallen into a habit of paying him too little. For the good of his profession, the engineer must be more assertive, and insist upon a compensation commensurate with the importance of the work and the profit which accrues therefrom. An engineer cannot be

20
paid, as
is

THE ENGINEER
does.

work he

a mechanic, for the amount of He must be paid for the value of his judgment, the responsibility he

assumes, and his importance to the man who employs him. Thus, for example, a mining engineer may make a decision in a

few weeks in regard to the value of a mine and may receive a larger compensation than a civil engineer who spends a year building a bridge. But the former is paid for his trained judgment, which is valuable to the

owner or promoter
value of the mine.

in

proportion to the

Another unfortunate condition

however, improving
ture
is

which is, a lack of general cul-

among engineers. Of course there was a time when the distinction between the engineer and the miner or mechanic was less marked; when it was believed that an engineer's education required merely practical it is conexperience of his specialty.

Now

ceded that the engineer must have a technical-school education. Furthermore, except in rare instances, some of which I shall describe later, the men who have risen highest
in the profession are those whose educational foundation that is, in the part of their edu-

ADVANTAGES

21

cation which has preceded the work of the has been broad. technical school

Of course, in the preparation for any career which requires long and highly specialized technical training, there
is

a tendency

to get into the technical part of it too early, thereby slighting some of the fundamental
subjects in arts
tory,

and

letters,

economics, his-

philosophy,

guages; in short,

and lanwhat are known as the

government,

humanities which are essential to general

A good many engineers, therefore, culture. have a one-sided education. Many of them emerge from the technical schools with degrees as mining, mechanical, civil engineers who cannot properly speak or write their
Still more of them can no language besides their own. A speak larger percentage have no grounding in government or history, little knowledge of literature, an insufficient foundation in economics. These men will find themselves

own

language.

I shall prove in later chapters, to a certain degree of success in their profession unless, as has happened in exceptional

limited, as

instances, they are possessed of certain rare natural gifts which enable them to get these

OF CALIFORNIA
,

.ENT

OF

CIVIL ENGINEERINC

22

THE ENGINEER
ways than through
their

essentials in other

school or college courses. The tendency is a natural one.

boy

who has
earn his

money, who perhaps has to education, who is anxious to get on

little

quickly, does not like to spend his time on things which he believes he will have no

stage in his very likely not to be able to foresee a future use for this sort of knowledge, and
life

practical use for later.

At that

he

is

the time element seems to

him

all-important.

For

this reason I believe (and I

have

fre-

quently suggested this to the engineering faculties of a number of the universities) that
the engineering schools should so revise their
curricula as to allow for the study of the humanities without further encroaching on

the student's time, and to

make these studies

compulsory. A glance back over the pages of this chapter will quickly reassure the reader who is a prospective engineer that the shortcomings are heavily outweighed. They are all of them temporary and will probably be overcome by the engineers of the future; the advantages at least those few I have pointed out are for all time. The appeal

ADVANTAGES

23

of the necessity of engineering, the appeal of its adventure, of its unlimited opportunity, of its infinite reach, of the power of its achievement, are not for to-day alone.

are greater to-day than in the time of the Ptolemies; greater than a century, a half-century, even a decade ago in the time

They

to

come they will be greater still. The profession is growing; that, perhaps,
its

is

bilities of its

And the possigreatest fascination. future growth are unbounded.

CHAPTER

III

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER
BEFORE
gineering for his life-work,

deciding on the profession of ena man should

self-examination to

make a thorough
another direction.

make
not in

sure that his bent

and

abilities are

Many young men

have

gone into engineering because of a superficial fondness for adventure, a desire to

"get rich quick," a boyish interest in machinery, who have had few of the necessary
natural qualities to make them successful in the profession. By doing this they have
closed to themselves the other vocations in

which they might have done valuable work had they taken the time to analyze their real
fitness.
I

spoke in the
is

of engineering to the

appeal

chapter of the appeal American boy. This so natural and so strong that it
last

may sometimes be misleading. He must realize if he can that a desire for adventure and for a roving life is something that is
24

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER
peculiar to his age

25

endure.

and will not necessarily But he must also know that these inclinations in themselves, however much a part of his temperament they may be, do

not in themselves make a successful engineer. Neither does an interest in machinery nor an aptness at mathematics. It is true
that these things are often important in

arousing

first

interest in engineering,

and

these aptitudes have found, after carefully investigating the subject, that they had the others as well.
ture

many men who have had

The important qualities with which namust have endowed the prospective

engineer are imagination, integrity of purpose, accuracy of thought, capacity for judgment, ingenuity, curiosity, tfhe creative instinct,

of natural laws.

and an innate interest in the workings These are the essentials.

There

are, of course, special aptitudes for the special branches, and there are a large number of qualities which may be acquired, and

which I shall describe in the next chapter, but a man who has these essentials need have no fear of making a mistake if he takes

up engineering as his life-work. Nothing is more false than the more or

26

THE ENGINEER
that imagination
is

less prevailing belief

only

useful to the poet, artist, or philosopher,

and

should be suppressed by the practical man as dangerous. The engineer, practical as he is, must at the same time be as much a

dreamer as any of these if his work is of any magnitude. He must have the power to see a thing before it exists. In all his work of inventing and planning he must be able to see a need and its remedy before the need arises; he must forestall difficulties and overcome obstacles before they appear; but especially he must have the power to visualize the completed work in all its details, whether it be a new kind of valve or a suspension

At each stage of the construction bridge. he must be able to see in his mind's eye
exactly

how

the

work

will look at

the next

These are dreams as much so as stage. the dreams of Coleridge or Michelangelo or Kant. But when the dream has been formed in his mind the engineer brings all his technical knowledge and practical experience into play and makes of it a tangible
fact.

Newton, watching the fall of the famous Unnumbered apple, used his imagination.

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER
millions

27
1

had observed the same phenomenon, supposing, as some one has said, "that the apple fell because its stem was too weak to hold it." Newton, always curious about causes and effects, thought about it until he was able to see in his mind a force invisible to the eye which constantly pulled the apple (and all other objects) toward the The story of this discovery and its earth. consequences is a very old one, but it serves
to

show the psychology

of the scientific

dreamer.

The man who

first

conceived of the Pan-

ama Canal
ably had

used his imagination.

He

prob-

dream or mental picture while looking at a map. He saw the narrowness of the isthmus and drew an imaginary line across its narrowest part. Then his imagination worked more in detail, and he dreamed of the surveying, the levelling,
his first

the digging; finally of the finished canal, with its locks and navigation; of ships cutting off the long trip round the horn; of the economy that would result from the junction
of the

two oceans.

Then he came back

to

the practical, every-day, utilitarian life, with the memory of the dream persisting,

but

28

THE ENGINEER

and he brought all his practical sense into the work of its realization. It is the same process with every great
accomplishment in this field. Men will cross a river in boats for hundreds of years, until some dreamer conceives the idea of throwing a bridge across it. To many of those who had crossed in boats the bridge idea had never occurred practical men, they were accustomed to look only at the existing material things, so they saw nothing but boats. Others had thought vaguely of the bridge, but it had seemed impossible to them; their imagination had not worked on a large
;

enough

scale.

The man who

finally built

the bridge not only had an imagination big enough to form a conception of the completed bridge as a real possibility but he

was

able,

by

capacity, to live

his practical knowledge up to his dream.

and

Many

of our great inventors

have been

laughed at because their dreams apparently transcended possibility. So Fulton with his first steamboat and Morse with his telegraph, so Langley in the early days of heavier-than-air machines, were ridiculed by
the people and the press because of

what

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER

29

was considered the absurdity of their conWhat these men and their succeptions. cessors accomplished was due to the very magnitude of their vision, which was able to work beyond the limits of the senses and to
invent in the truest sense of the word. In all of these cases the inventor's mind had to picture to itself something which was nonexistent.

The unimaginative

public

who

could see only with the eyes and not with the mind ridiculed because they were asked
to believe in the possibility of something for which there was no precedent, which they

had never physically seen. Another quality which must be innate

in

No amount of brilthe engineer is honesty. liant and clever argument will enable him to
ignore

the simplest laws of physics and mathematics. If he were not inherently honest, he would soon become so or retire
as a failure in his profession. One cannot juggle with the forces of nature. All at-

tempts to cheat nature and get round her laws result in disaster. Facts must be faced; materials of construction must be used for purposes for which they are best
fitted; efficiency

must characterize the per-

30

THE ENGINEER

formance of a machine; analysis must prevail instead of guesswork; tradition must be abandoned in favor of absolute knowledge;

reason must prevail and law must be obeyed. A clever lawyer may be able by juggling of

words to persuade a jury that two and two make five, a physician can convince a perfectly healthy patient that he is ill, a writer can make his public believe the incredible; but the engineer whose figures are juggled, whose materials are imperfect, whose work is cut at the corners, can deceive no one; the bridge falls and he pays the penalty. If he makes a mistake he cannot hope to conceal Luck is always on it by luck or cleverness. nature's side, and she is difficult to outwit. There are many ways in which an engineer's reputation may be jeopardized by unscrupulousness. A mining engineer may be tempted by large offers of money to give a

yJ

false opinion in regard to the presence of gold, silver, oil, in certain localities, in order
sell stock in a dishonest chance. Any kind of an engineer may be called on at any time to give expert testimony on the witnessIn such a case he might be open to stand. temptation to support one side or the other

to

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER
in return for

31

some

financial or otherwise.

sort of compensation, In his relation to

the investing public an engineer assumes a responsibility as the indorser of a proposed undertaking. The investor has not the

and perhaps not the technical knowledge, required for a thorough study of a He risks his money upon his prospectus. belief in the ability and integrity of the engineer, who is, therefore, bound in honor
time,
is

to be especially careful that his indorsement clear and precise, without mental reserva-

tion or opportunity for misunderstanding. f/ Another temptation to the engineer who \&

acting in the capacity of purchasing agent or adviser for a company is a commission

by the manufacturer or dealer from whom he buys. The acceptance of

often offered

such a commission, though sometimes condoned by engineers, is really unscrupulous and dangerous.

An engineer who does these things, or is even suspected of doing them, soon becomes an outcast in his profession. There is no profession in which dishonesty is so difficult to conceal or in which it is more disastrous
in its effects.

No amount

of financial

com-

32

THE ENGINEER

pensation can possibly make up to the engineer for a loss in his reputation for integrity. He must, like Caesar's wife, be above suspicion.

Of course there have been cases in which a lona-fide error on the part of an engineer has been mistaken for dishonesty. There are cases in which mining engineers have " been deceived by sal ted" mines and have given favorable opinions in which at the time they themselves believed. These men have lost their reputations because in cases where the temptation to dishonesty is so
great the public
in hand.
in his
is

not easily convinced.

Honesty and accuracy of thought go hand

A man who
is

thought

is naturally accurate to be a lover of truth. likely

This

is

essentially

an inborn quality.

Many

people lack it entirely, seeming to be born with an incapacity for seeing things as they are, for realizing and understanding facts, and often for thinking and speaking the truth. Seeing the world always through the
colored glasses of his own romantic illusions, such a man has no sense of reality and little
faculty for true interpretation of cause and It is obvious that he can never sueeffect.

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER

33

ceed in a profession in which he works under inexorable laws which admit of no individual
interpretation.

The
about

engineer must be naturally fastidious

figures.

be dissatisfied with rough approximations. He must be so anxious to arrive at the truth that he is really interested in repeatedly checking himself, proving his data beyond the possibility of an error. He must be capable of handling a large number of small details accurately and of seeing error in the smallest of them. He must be patient in careful work and like
it

He must

for its

own

sake.
essential in a

good engineer, be acquired in some degree through experience; the capacity for it must be inborn.

Judgment, an

may

The power
cisions
learn.
is

of

making
all

definite, accurate de-

one which some

men can never

With
and

they become impotent at the

cision,

the experience in the world, moment of de-

hesitation seems to be
ical

judgment hesitates. Such an inherent psychologdefect or weakness in character which is

their

difficult

who have

or impossible to overcome. Men it seek always a compromise and

cannot bring themselves to take any definite

34
step.

THE ENGINEER
They

" are eternally weighing the evidence on both sides" and postponing the moment of choice until they lose confidence
in their own decisions. Such men should avoid the profession of engineering. Capacity for judgment implies the ability to take in a situation at a glance, to compare two conditions, one or both of which may be

imaginary, and to discriminate between them. It implies, also, a native self-confidence and a courage of convictions. It implies the ability to

make quick,

accurate
all

esti-

mates on which to base

decisions.

Of course
judgment

the knowledge necessary to

comes through study and

I

practical work, as

when

shall explain further in the next chapter, I describe some of the ways in which

judgment is used. The words engineer and ingenuity have the same origin. Ingenuity which includes resourcefulness and adaptability is a real essential. The conditions under which an engineer has started work may change so that he is obliged to alter his entire plan

when

half-way completed. Landslides, earthquakes, cave-ins, upset the work of the civil or railroad engineer; the mechanical

it is

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER
engineer
is

35

often obliged to

during his work, because

make changes he has found too

etc.,

much
ples

friction,

too

little efficiency,

in

the working parts of his machine.

Exam-

be multiplied indefinitely, because in which there are so many difficulties to be overcome during any sort of experimental or preliminary work. The joy of conquering these obstacles is one

may
is

there

no profession

of the incentives of the profession. The development of the gas-engine, the aeroplane,

the wireless telegraph, in fact of any of the inventions of the past century, shows a con-

tinuous succession of improvements, the result of inexhaustible engineering ingenuity,

pressed
I

by

necessity.

suppose the need of this quality is nowhere more obvious than in the operations of the military engineer in the field. Here he is obliged to use whatever material is at hand, and to invent every sort of device to cope with the unforeseen emergencies created by the enemy. He has no carefully prepared timber to build and repair his bridges; often he must cut down his own trees wherever he can find them, or secure his materials from piles of debris. Some of

36
the time he
ture
is

THE ENGINEER

is working under fire, his strucdemolished before it is completed while he is in the very act of building it his work must be rapid, done with the crudest instruments and materials, generally under
;

the least favorable conditions, yet it must stand the strain required of it as well as the

Speed being the most the military engineer important requisite, must think out his devices on the spur of the
finished work.

most

moment. The work of the American engineer in the war received the greatest admiration from the Allies, and was often a source of amazement to the Germans. There was probably no branch of the service in which Americans so distinguished themselves, and in which the peculiarly American trait of quick adaptability bred of our pioneer civilization was
so effective.

The
desire.

engineer must have a strong creative

By instinct he must want to produce and construct, to create something where nothing was before, to watch it grow under his hands, to take pride in it as originating within himself. The engineer has much the same impulse as the artist. His

QUALITIES OF AN ENGINEER

37

canal, machine, or formula is as truly the creature of his brain as is the sculptor's statue, the composer's sonata, or the writer's
It is this impulse that so dignifies story. his profession and differentiates it from one

limited

by

tradition, convention,

and man-

rules. However rigid the laws of nathey are far broader than any code which man can construct, and permit an infinite number of combinations. It is unlikely that any one who has not

made

ture,

want to make engineering Without a natural love of planning, developing, building, and expanding, he will have no will to undertake the difficult preparation for his profession. With it and with a large capacity for original thought he will have the most fundamental, positive, and aggressive trait of the successthis instinct will

his life-work.

ful engineer.

have made a superman of my engineer. Obviously, I have outlined the ideal temperament. Many engineers have been successful with some of these qualities little developed. Few men have risen to the top of their profession who have lacked
Perhaps
I

any

of

them

entirely.

Some branches

re-

38
quire

THE ENGINEER
more
of

some and
for

less of others.

The
less

mining engineer,
ment.
the
I

example,

needs

imagination and more capacity

To

for judgthe military engineer working in

is

field,

ingenuity

more important than

accuracy.

have intended this chapter to be a guide by means of which the prospective engineer can determine his fitness. In the chapters which follow I shall briefly explain the acquisition of other necessary qualities which need not be inborn, and give a general idea
of the educational preparation the engineer
will require.

CHAPTER
ABILITY WHICH

IV

MAY BE ACQUIRED
traits

BESIDES the few fundamental

which

the last chapter has briefly summed up as the native virtues of the engineer, there are

a large number of other characteristics which come to him as the fruits of his training. These are accuracy of practice, judgment, inventive ability, thinking ahead, the ability
to analyze

and to estimate, handling men, patience and concentration. At first glance

the

list looks very like my summary of the inborn qualities; as I describe them further, however, my distinctions will become more obvious.

accuracy of practice differs from accuracy of thought in that it may easily be acquired in fact, it must be acquired through With all the temperamental extraining.
First,
;

actness in the world, a man is bound to make mistakes in the details of his work if

he has insufficient practice in the actual mechanical processes he is required to per39

40
form.
tural

THE ENGINEER
The working out
or mechanical
of data, of struc-

problems, which are the daily work of the engineer, is accurately

and

efficiently

done only after much

practice which gives a
first

re-

hearsal.

The

man

the means of solving an infinite

of
different

number
through

problems comes

his technical-school training and afterward through his actual professional work. The

fact that a

man

is

thinking straight velopment of accurate practice is easy. It also gives him a desire for accuracy, a willingness to spare no pains in making himself
careful

is

born with the faculty of a basis on which the de-

and exact in practice; the impulse to "check up" on all his figures becomes part

of his conscience.

The capacity for judgment is part of a man's heritage, but the actual concrete judgment itself comes only from experience. For example, one would hardly trust the opinion of a schoolboy on an investment of
judgment in a baseball crisis He must have the capacmay for judgment or he would fail even in a ity matter in which he is experienced, but withmoney, yet
be
his
infallible.

out the necessary knowledge his capacity

is

ACQUIRED ABILITY
of

41

His It is so with the engineer. comes only with experience. Long judgment training and carefully acquired knowledge enable him to tell a "salted" mine from a real one no matter how clever the trick; to estimate on the strength of a dike to hold back a river flood to tell whether or not certain rock strata are favorable to a particular

no

avail.

piece of construction work.

based on ingenuity, is a natural gift, there is no doubt that the engineer who has behind him a long career of practical work is able to think more quickly of remedies for
Inventive ability and while ingenuity
is

improvements, necessary changes suddenly imposed by changes in conditions, than a young man who has just finished his
difficulties,

technical-school course.
his jobs the

The more difficult more ingenious the engineer becomes. An engineer who has worked in the field during the war has gained greatly in intice in

ventive ability through his constant prac-

overcoming difficulties. Natural adaptability enables a

man

to

gain this facility much more quickly. Thus, when the United States entered the war it

was evident that the American engineer

suf-

42

THE ENGINEER

fered from his lack of experience in

comparison with the French and English, whose three years of difficult warfare had taught

them many devices for overcoming the obenemy threw in their way. Yet because of the native ingenuity and adaptability of the American engineer he was able in a few months to become the equal of his
stacles the

European brothers in inventive ability. In thinking ahead the engineer is like the chess-player always three or four moves ahead of the game. He is able to do this
through his imagination, then through his technical training and practical work. To the man who has the imaginative capacity, the habit of thinking ahead comes quickly enough. It is a habit of supreme importance to the engineer. Many a brilliant project has been delayed in its execution because the engineer failed to plan beforehand for some detail of an advanced For example, he must stage of the work. arrange for the timely delivery of his material; he must not begin his work until he is
first

sure that

all

the necessary material

is

avail-

able, and that at no stage of the operations will the work be halted because of the lack

ACQUIRED ABILITY
of

43

In mining work, espeis sometimes of the and the least delay is greatest importance, likely to be very costly to the owners or ruinous, perhaps, to the investing public. I remember in the work in the deep-level mines of the Consolidated Gold Fields of
delivered.
cially, the time element

some have not

essential

which the contractors

South Africa

it

was necessary to dig expe-

ditiously in order that the investors should make good on their investment. Any delay

caused by lack of material or a failure of any kind due to insufficient foresight would

have meant a

loss to these

men who had

staked their money on their confidence in It was a case in which, the engineers. once the job was started, it must continue without interruption to its completion, and
the engineers who had it in charge were responsible not to a single capitalist or a small

group of stockholders or to the government, but to a large public composed of individual

investors.

The ability to analyze is based on the instinct of curiosity which is almost universal, but which is especially keen in men whose
tastes lead

them to

engineering.

A boy who

44

THE ENGINEER

has the promise of success in the profession is, even in childhood, intensely interested in cause and effect. We all know the type of

boy who

is

continually asking

why

things

happen, what makes the wheels go round, where does the thunder come from, and a dozen other questions which we often tire of answering. He has the inquiring mind if he is keen and intelligent in his inquiries and
;

persistent in his desire for exact explanation, it is a distinct engineering symptom. Such

a boy never sees a machine but he analyzes its parts, tracing their interactions back to the original motive cause until he is perfectly familiar with every detail. He will not tire till his instinct is satisfied and he has found
out

"how

it

works."

He

has the desire to

analyze inborn.

The

ability to analyze requires experience.

A skilled

mechanic or a mechanical engineer from a glance at a complex machine, can, follow through the sequence of cause and effect and understand the details of its

working. This is because he is intimately conversant with all the fundamental mechanical movements and can reason from watching the effects produced how the de-

ACQUIRED ABILITY
tails are

45

This faculty of quick analysis is perhaps most important to the mechanical and the chemical engineer,
out.

worked

though to some extent

branches.

it is

necessary in

all

The

ability to estimate is entirely

an ac-

quired one, and one which any one may learn. As the expert range-finder can judge the distance between two points beclosely

cause he has had so much exercise in it, so the engineer can estimate with near approximation the cost, materials, time required for
construction,

and capacity

The first time bridge. hit wide of the mark,

he but in time he

of a prospective does this he may

will

develop great accuracy. prospective engineer need worry very little about this easily gained power of estimating, because
it will

The

inevitably

come

to

him

in the practice

of his profession.

Handling men is based on leadership, one of the elements of the engineer's personality. born leader has native force of charac-

ter

he is master of has a magnetic influence, times, and is sympathetic with his fellow men. Besides these fundamental traits, he must
of discipline
;

and a sense
all

himself at

46

THE ENGINEER

have learned something of human nature, human psychology, and the average human
limitations.
It
is

difficult

perfectly the handling of has been in their position.

to be a general who Men who begin lieutenant.

man

understand unless one It is hard for a has never been a

to

men

life by commanding men but who have had no experi-

ence as subordinates are likely to be severely handicapped in this respect, though they are born with many of the qualities which For this reason I adcharacterize leaders. vocate a period of hard manual labor for engineers to give them an opportunity to see and learn the conditions of labor, the atti-

tude of the laborers toward each other and toward their employer, their limitations, and the common mistakes which are made by the men who handle them. A man can easily learn these things from the bottom; he can never perfectly learn them from the Besides a knowledge of men, such top. training gives practical experience which can be got in no other way and which is of the greatest value later. Many men can acquire the ability to handle men, though they may not be born lead-

ACQUIRED ABILITY
ers.

47

There are, however, some people who are naturally so unfitted for leadership that they can never acquire it, and these men

find their deficiency in this respect serious handicap, and should consider

may

a
it

carefully before taking

up the profession. Patience and concentration, two essentials to any careful work, are hard to learn.
real interest in the sub-

They presuppose a
ject

and an ambition to achieve.

To

culti-

vate them requires a good deal of character and much effort and hard work. The engineering courses at the universities and technical schools teach these things, and a man

who

unable to learn them is dropped. one reason why the engineering training is so valuable as a character builder and so useful even to men who decide afterward to go into other professions. These complete the list of mental tools needed by the engineer in general, regardless
is

This

is

of his specialty. It is encouraging to realize that most of them may be acquired. When

he comes to specialize within the profession he may find a need for others, but a study of these will answer his first and most important questions:

"Am

fitted

by nature

for

48

THE ENGINEER
I

the work, and can

If

acquire the necessary

he can answer the first in the ability?" the second need trouble him affirmative,
little.

CHAPTER V
GENERAL EDUCATION
FIFTY years ago the university graduate with a degree in engineering was often looked down upon by those in charge of engineering operations. His education was believed to be largely theoretical and minus the hard knocks that come to a man whose knowledge is gained from work in the field. There was a time, especially in mining engineering, when the practical miner who had grown up in the mines was given a job in
In preference to the technical-school man. those days a man's judgment in mining was

supposed

to

"hunch" we

a sort should call it

be

of

intuition

now

bred of the

intimate knowledge gained in long periods of manual labor. Then, also, there was talk
of the "softness" of the college man, of his incapacity for hardship, roughing it, work-

ing in dangerous and difficult country, and conquering the stumbling-blocks that na-

ture threw in his path.

49

With your hard-

50

THE ENGINEER

headed, hard-muscled miner you were taking no chances; he was sure to come through most jobs intact, and never lost heart when confronted with physical difficulties, because

he had lived and thrived on them from

childhood.

first

I remember meeting the prevailing prejudice against the university man when I returned from the School of Mines in Freiburg

and applied for my first job. I was given the job only after I told my prospective employer that I had forgotten most of the
knowledge that I had learned at Yale and in Germany, and that I was quite willing to work as long as he saw fit to keep me at the hardest kind of manual labor in
theoretical

the mines.

And, while

know now

the real
its

value of

my

technical

education and

later benefit to

work
it

put in

me, I shall never regret the From as a practical miner.

learned to
its

know

details of the
in

work

I I

could

have gained

no other way.
its

learned of

hardships and

dangers

first-

hand; most important of all, I got to know the men and to be able to "speak their Knowledge of men gleaned from language.
' '

such simple personal relationships as came

GENERAL EDUCATION

51

to be part of my life in the course of this work is the soundest asset a mining engineer can have, and it is of the same value in the

other branches where labor

is

employed on

large scale.

Of course there have been men of genius who have risen to the top of the profession
without a college or technical-school educaI remember a young man who apto me for a job when I was in charge plied He had of the Sonora mines in Mexico. no technical education outside the limited practical knowledge of a miner; he had
tion.

some experience in assaying, and had picked up a little information about smelting. I liked his intelligent, alert appearance, and After a Jitstarted him on a small salary.
tie trial
I

began to discover that besides

natural judgment, ability, and skill, he had an intense interest in every detail of his

work, and

I saw that his knowledge of it was increasing out of all proportion to the I found that he experience he was getting. was spending all his spare time in study, getting every book on the subject that he could

find,

picking

up information
to,

of all

kinds

from every one he talked

working late

52

THE ENGINEER

into the night perfecting himself in the details of work far outside the province of his

own

Within a year he had become superintendent of an important mine in Idaho, and eventually he rose to the first rank of mining engineers. This is an exceptional case; it is one in which the combined elements of an indomitable will, a high intelligence, a retentive memory, quick, keen judgment, and an instinctive, all-absorbing craving for knowledge worked together to overcome his educational handicaps. But his was one of those almost uncanny destinies which seem
job.

inevitable; like some of the familiar geniuses in the realms of art and literature who were

born with no advantages but grew into immortality because of a particular inborn twist of the mind which forced them to persist in spite of every hindrance in a certain
definite direction.

To-day the attitude toward universityeducated engineers is very different. In every department the demand is for men who have a technical-school course behind them. This is due partly to the vast increase in the

number

of

American technical

GENERAL EDUCATION
schools,

53
in

and partly to the improvement

the standards and teaching of these schools. They are more highly specialized and more
practical, more adaptable to the constantly changing conditions in every province of

applied science, and more available to men of small incomes than ever before. There is

no question

in

my mind that for the average

make great sacrifices to secure this education, espenecessary cially in these times when he will be obliged
it is

man

advisable to

if

to compete with the men who have it. Assuming that every prospective engineer

who reads this book will have specialized school training in the particular branch he chooses, I intend this chapter to be a guide
to his general rather than his particular education. I believe that every professional

man, no matter how specialized his work, or perhaps the more so the more specialized it is, must have a foundation in the humanities.
Literature, fine arts, history, government, economics, political science, foreign lan-

guages these' are part of the equipment of every professional man, whether he be physician, lawyer, architect, engineer, or

not.

what Without them he can never properly

54

THE ENGINEER

express himself in any direction, and is not able to stand on the same plane with the
best of his co-workers.

Engineers have been criticised in the past because the tendency to specialize has stood in the way of their general culture, and they

have emerged from their technical course letter-perfect in their specialty but lacking in educational balance. This one-sidedness has shown itself in an inability to express
themselves properly, ignorance of other subjects than their own, inability to be at ease and congenial with other professional men,
insufficient

knowledge of the world, business

Largely narrowing

incompetence, and provincialism.

this is the fault of the schools in

study of special subjects, neglecting the broad background. Partly it is due to the attitude of the engineers themselves, who have not demanded anything more than a knowledge of their
their

curricula

to

the

branch.

There are two points of view from which

we may

cation: one

discuss this question of general eduis that of the profession as a

whole, the other that of the individual. From the first of these let us consider what

GENERAL EDUCATION
distinguishes a profession

55

above a trade,

and

specifically

what

distinguishes the engi-

neer above the mechanic. We can elements up somewhat as follows:

1.

sum

the

The

engineer

is

an

originator.
else.

The

mechanic
tions of
2.

follows the specific direcis

some one

The

a thinker. The meengineer chanic works out the thoughts of

others.

3.

The engineer is an
chanic
is

executive.

The me-

an employee.

4.

The

engineer receives his commissions from non-technical people. The

mechanic gets
5.

his orders entirely in

technical language.

The

engineer,

if

successful, has certain

necessary social relations which the

6.

The

mechanic has not. engineer has business relations which the mechanic has not.
fulfil

In order to

these obligations

and so

raise himself to the level of the professional

man, he must have certain equipment which he can get only from education in the sense of culture; that is, a broad and general

56
course.

THE ENGINEER
Among
other things, he must acfollows:

quire ability

somewhat as
clearly,

l.*To
2.

think

logically,

and

in

3.

To To command by
To give

proper sequence. construct and compose mentally.

his culture,
intelli-

4.

gence and poise, his subordinates. orders that can be immediately and properly understood.

5.

To

translate at sight from non-technical to technical thought and lan-

guage, and vice versa to talk about his profession non-technically, so

;

that the layman can perfectly understand him. This is one of the

handicaps under which many technical men work; they are so imbued with the jargon of their profession that they are unable to make the

man who employs them understand what they are talking about. This is true not only of
business
engineers;
6.
it is

often true, also, of

To be congenial with all

physicians, lawyers, architects. kinds of people

;

outside his profession to be able to

GENERAL EDUCATION
talk intelligently

57

on most subjects, have a good fund of general information, be perfectly at ease everywhere, and have a large acquaintance
7.

among

cultured people.

To

understand the principles of economics and business methods; to know a good deal about finance and the money market, and to be able to see the business man's point of
view.

These are the bare

essentials to the engi-

neer as a professional man which raise him above the plane of the skilled laborer. With-

out them he limits the possibility of his professional success

ping-place in his progress.

by making a definite stopBeyond a dishe one

tinctly subordinate position in which carries out the technical details of some
else's

plan,

he

will

find himself over his

depth.

It is therefore his

acquire at least these fundamentals.

duty to himself to But an

engineer's duty does not stop with himself. He has an obligation to improve and sustain

the reputation of his profession. As a profession, engineering is sure to lose standing

58
if it is filled

THE ENGINEER
with half-baked

men

men who

every technical detail, yet be unable to say a dozen sentences without a

may know

grammatical mistake, who have no facility for conversation that is not "shop," who have no fund of general information,

no knowledge

of

men

of

whom

their

public affairs in short, fellow engineers are

I

ashamed.
Besides the fundamentals which
listed

have

above, and which I believe necessary to every engineer, there are others which to
the

man who

expects to branch out on a

in

large scale

and become interested

a num-

ber of different sorts of enterprises, or who expects to do very much important independent work outside of salaried positions, are For instance, the knowledge indispensable.
of foreign languages Spanish, German, or French will aid him in reading technical

books not published

will discover

in English, of

which he

many

in

most

careful research

work; furthermore, his enterprises may take him to foreign lands, where an ability to get on with the natives will be desirable. Spanish is of great importance in the conduct of engineering work in Latin America a most

GENERAL EDUCATION

59

important field. Knowledge of foreign governments, histories, laws, customs, literature, economic theories, etc., are also useful. European technical men, especially on the Continent, are likely to

have outside

interests

and it American engineer to be able to meet them on these as well as on the

in arts, letters, education, or politics,
is

well for the

purely professional grounds. Economics, especially the branches of the subject connected with finance, markets, industrial

management, commerce, foreign trade, foreign exchange, imports and exports, tariff, duties and customs, are extremely important. Government, especially the studies which concern public utilities, control of corporations, etc., sociology in its bearing on
problems of labor, conditions of the working

man,

social hygiene, philosophy, for its prac-

tice in thinking, including, of course, logic

and psychology, are very valuable. It would be a good thing if every one who intended to be an engineer could go through a college course first, but as many men cannot afford the time and money to do this,
certain subjects should be given in the technical schools in connection with the other

6o

THE ENGINEER
To sum
:

up, the most valuable of these are (in order of their importance)

work.

1.

English:

Language and Literature.

(Spanish
pre-

2.

Composition. foreign language

ferred).

3.

Economics: Finance, Commerce.

4.

Government: Theory and

Science.

Political

5.
*

Domestic and International

eral course).

Law

(gen-

6.
7.

General history. Sociology: Labor.

fare.

/"

Community

wel-

8.
9.

Philosophy: Psychology. Logic. Fine arts: Architecture (general

course),

10.

Physiology: Anatomy.

Hygiene.

Some of these courses are insisted on in many of the technical schools at the present The object of this chapter is to show time.
the engineering student that these subjects are worth giving time to, whether they are If it is possible to optional or compulsory.

take a college course before the technical training, they can be liberally covered.

GENERAL EDUCATION
Some

61

universities give a course of five or six

years, beginning with the general foundation

and working gradually into the specialty, and devoting the last two years almost en-

A course of this tirely to technical work. kind gives a good liberal education in a reasonable time. I have discussed this subject with the faculties of some of the leading universities, expressing my belief that more general studies be introduced into the curriculum by condensing or abbreviating some of the techI have always contended, for nical work. that in most branches of engineerexample, ing too much emphasis is laid on mathematics and too much time given to it which might be devoted to such extraneous subjects as I

have described

in this chapter.

Many good, promising frightened or discouraged out of engineering by the burden of mathematical study which
was put upon them
in the technical courses,

men have been

especially in theoretical

work which was of no great usefulness. Mechanical drawing is sometimes overemphasized. I have known cases in which young men have been believed incompetent and disqualified for engineer-

62

THE ENGINEER

ing because they were unable to pass the

mechanical-drawing tests required of them,

and yet possessed exceptional qualifications in other respects. These tests were genno indication of engineering ability, erally and the men were otherwise splendidly

As a matter of fact, a man needs more than the conventions of mechanical drawing, and the ability to understand quickly plans, working drawings, etc., and visualize from them the completed project. A reasonable amount of practice will deequipped.
little

velop this in any one of ordinary

gence.
It is

intelli-

a good thing to remember that genis extremely valuable to the engineer. Spare time spent in reading books, magazine articles, newspapers, no matter what the subject is seldom wasted. If he can get away from his own province in this reading, so much the better. He should never pass by an opportunity to add to his
eral information

Knowledge apparently usebecome valuable under different may circumstances. When war broke out, men in all branches of the profession civil, mestore of facts.
less

chanical,

mining

got into the service as

GENERAL EDUCATION

63

The men who had military engineers. learned something of military work naturally had the advantage. Useful outside reading
for the engineer includes articles and books on other kinds of engineering than his own,

on remote and little-developed lands, on important public questions of the day, on economic conditions at home and abroad, on new inventions, on manufacturing, and
countless other topics.

With the background that a properly

directed college education gives plus the training of a technical school, a man should

be equipped to stand well in his profession. If this is not possible (though I think every sacrifice should be made to make it so), then as much of this kind of work should be included in the technical-school course and
reagot by means of outside reading. son for dwelling on this at such length and with so much emphasis is that I wish to

My

counteract the tendency to which engineering by its nature lays itself open the tendency to specialize to the exclusion of the

broadening influences of a catholic educaI believe, however, that every day tion. marks a new step in this direction, and that

64

THE ENGINEER
demand the

the engineer of the future will

culture which depends on this sort of background from his co-workers, and that our
technical schools will properly adjust their courses to meet such a demand.

CHAPTER

VI

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

IN nothing
guage.
is

education (or the lack of

it)

so obvious as in a man's use of his

own

lan-

And

here again

mean, of course,

general rather than special education. Many an engineer, expert in his chosen branch, has totally neglected training in English in order

to hurry on with his specializing. ficiency "sticks out," as it were,

His deall over

him.

He blunders

through his conversation,

progressed

and

his letters are as incorrect as those of

the tradesman

who has never

beyond grammar-school.

Men

meeting him

are forcibly struck with his blunt errors, and assume, quite naturally, that he has no education.

This

first

impression often persists,

obscuring his real technical ability. Lacking in its most obvious essential, they assume that all his education is equally deficient.
of English in conversation is, of the most obvious and, therefore, the course, most harmful fault, both to the individual and the profession. Conversation is the
65

Abuse

66

THE ENGINEER
of

most human intercourse, and the uneducated man demonstrates his ignorance as soon as he begins to speak. Such mistakes as "I do it like he does/' "get to go," "where is he at?", "it's me," misuse of "will" and "shall," "I" and "me," show

medium

incomplete training in English. It should be part of every professional man's duty to

eliminate these defects of speech if they have survived his preparatory-school training.

which shows itself in writing makes almost as bad an impression as errors A man's letter is taken as an of speech. indication of his culture and his intelligence. A man who writes a bad letter is supposed by its reader to be lacking in proper mental
Illiteracy

equipment. A professional man who writes such a letter often gives the impression that he is unfit to be trusted with important work. Unfortunately, however, bad letters are extremely common, not only among engineers but among men of all professions
and, especially, among business men. With the engineer illiteracy shows itself in contracts, specifications, orders to subordinates, rules and regulations, reports and other doc-

uments, as well as in his

letters.

am,

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

67

therefore, going to devote this chapter to the use of English in the kind of writing the

engineer will have to do in his daily work.

Whether in letters, orders, specifications, or what not, there are a few cardinal principles that apply whenever a man expresses
himself in written English.

These are

(i)

arrangement,

(2)

accuracy, (3) variety, (4)

economy, (5) naturalness. These are especially important for the engineer, and most of them should be easy for him to learn, because he possesses naturally most of the Arqualities from which they are derived. rangement is not difficult for any one whose

mind must

naturally orderly, as the engineer's be; accuracy and economy are fundais

mental in engineering, while naturalness merely means straightforwardness without

affectation or dishonesty.
in a

Arrangement is the process that goes on man's rnind before be begins to write. Normally his thoughts come to him in random fashion in no particularly logical sequence, and it is necessary for him to rearrange them before he begins to express If he fails to do this he will prohimself.

duce a mere hodge-podge of

ideas, out of

68

THE ENGINEER
it will

which

be very

difficult for

the reader

to disentangle the intended meaning. In arrangement there are two essentials to

remember:

first,

that some things are more

important than others; second, that some

things happen before others. Thus we get emphasis and chronology, the tools of arrange-

ment dum,

in writing.

In any

letter,

memoran-

report, or other piece of writing there is generally a big central idea which the writer wants to impress strongly on the

reader's

mind and a number

of other ideas

The force with which of less importance. the central idea will impress the reader depends on where the writer puts it. He may
put it at the beginning, following it with his other thoughts in the order of their importance, or, which is generally better, he may put it at the end, leading up to it gradually
in reverse order.

The

latter

method leaves

the important idea as a last impression on the reader's mind. For example, suppose you are writing a
letter to a man suggesting several methods of carrying out a certain piece of construction work of which one was superior to the

others.

It

would be a

logical

arrangement

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

to begin with

69
least

what seemed to you the

advisable, and thus proceeding by a process of elimination until as a climax you reached

the best, and then brought the letter to a The reader would have no doubt of close.

your meaning, and when he finished reading, the emphasis would be on the last method
described.

Now for chronology. Suppose your letter to be a description of a certain project which involves several different stages or steps.
Here you would naturally describe the
ous steps as they actually occur.
the reader will
fail

vari-

Otherwise to understand the proper

In any description or report of sequence. a series of events the order in which they occurred should be strictly adhered to. In
giving
specifications

for

building

you

should begin with that part of the building which will be constructed first. In giving instructions to a subordinate you should write them in the order in which they are to be carried out.

There are probably no

faults so

common

as those of arrangement. This is because the writer will not take the trouble or time to

make a

plan beforehand of what he

is

70

THE ENGINEER

going to write. An engineer would never think of starting to build a dam, for instance, without first making a plan of the construcYet he frequently starts a report, a tion.
letter,

to guide

even a magazine article, with nothing him but a mass of thoughts which

he wishes to express. He feels qualified to write merely because he possesses the necessary information. The result is generally a tangle which requires a long and tiresome effort on the part of the reader to straighten out. Important facts are lost in a maze of unimportant detail. Details which apply to one phase of the subject are left out of the
part of the article describing that phase and
inserted
is

somewhere

else.

The time element

neglected.

extra effort devoted to making out a plan or brief beforehand will do away with this confusion. A skeleton giving a
little
list

of the

main subjects to be discussed

in

their

effective order (which is based on the instruction given in most freshman com-

most

courses) will not only result in proper arrangement in the article but will do a great deal toward clarifying the subject in the reader's mind.

position

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Accuracy of words
to
is

71

nearly as important
of
figures.

the

engineer

as

accuracy

There are many words commonly misused, so that they convey a meaning other than " that intended. Such are transpire," commonly supposed to mean "happen," but

meaning "become known"; "infer," which is frequently confused with "imply" or "insinuate"; "unique," which means "only" and not "strange," and others more
rightly
glaring, such as

"set" for "sit," "affect" for "effect," "statue" for "stature," "leave" for "let," "proscribe"

"lay"

for "lie,"

for "prescribe,"

and too many others to

at-

tempt to enumerate. Much discussion and misunderstanding are caused by such misshowing ignorance or carelessOften a prolonged interchange of letters results, which would have been quite
ness.
use, besides

unnecessary had the original correspondent been sure of his words. Confusion often results from putting words into a sentence in the wrong order. We have all laughed at the "Help Wanted" advertisement which called for a girl to "sew buttons on the fifth floor," and the "terrier desired by a gentleman with clipped ears,"

72

THE ENGINEER
it is

yet

amazing how usual such mistakes are among supposedly educated men. Sometimes they are merely ludicrous and destructive of dignity; more often they are danger-

ous in their ambiguity. Variety requires a large vocabulary. This is helpful in avoiding repetition, which al-

ways causes dulness and monotony of style, but especially in making it possible to describe technical details in non-technical lan-

guage.

The

professional

man

with a small

vocabulary generally knows only his professional "jargon," and is quite lost without it.

A common
cian

who

figure in burlesque is the physimystifies and frightens his patients

by

describing some simple disease in long, unfamiliar medical terms. An equally familiar object of satire is the lawyer who constantly resorts to the Latin phrases of the law to the bewilderment of his clients. The

engineer with only a technical vocabulary is as handicapped as either of these. In letters,

cles, lectures,

proposals, prospectuses, reports, artihe is constantly being called

on to explain his work to laymen who have little or no knowledge of engineering jargon. A good exercise is to write out a list of terms

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

such as
late,

73

slope, lode,

strut,

dephlogislicale,

bushing, boss, trianguand define them

can be understood has no technical by Exercise of this sort is never education. wasted time, especially if it forms the habit of constantly acquiring new words. The who can translate at sight a docuengineer
in ordinary language that

the business

man who

ment written
that
it

entirely in technical

words so

can be understood by the man in the street is more likely to succeed than one who, because of his scanty vocabulary, must
leave the
ist

work

of translation to the capital-

or promoter

who employs

him.

But the possession

of a large vocabulary

does not mean that it is necessary to use all the words in it all the time. Men who know

many words often make

plicating their style

the mistake of com-

by what

"verbosity,"

or

wordiness.

known Economy
is

as
of \j

words

is

one of the most important yet one

of the hardest things to learn. It is often hard to convince a man that by cutting down

words he increases the force of what he Yet a single example proves it. Take one or two sentences that might occur
his writes.
in

a business

letter:

74

THE ENGINEER
work
at
in connection

The proposed
tion

plan for the projected construcwith the new concrete

dam

presents a somewhat unusual In taking up the discussion in regard to this project let us first divide it up into the

problem.

various phases of construction which volved in the work.

will

be

in-

Applying the simplifying process, we have

The proposed
concrete

construction

work on the new

dam

at

problem. In discussing into its various phases.

it let

presents an unusual us first divide it

None
one
will

of the

meaning

is lost

deny the greater

here, yet no force of the simpler

sentence.
sary.

The deleted words are unnecesThe sentence gets to the point quickly,
inter-

and the reader feels a certain vigorous est in what is to follow.

is to go over a letter or with a blue pencil after it is written, report It is surpriscutting out superfluous words. ing how much dead wood you will find. Some phrases are redundant, that is, they contain two or more words having the same meaning, such as recalled back, complete and

good exercise

finished, ultimate end, have got, fastened

and

secured, fixed

and

definite, false

and untrue,

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

75

proposed project, last and final. Sometimes such expressions are more emphatic, as "identically the same/' "one and only,"

but generally the single word has more force. Any of the above italicized words would be stronger if its partner were removed. Another disadvantage of wordy writing is that it is often hard to understand. The meaning is sometimes lost in the abundance This is equally true of long and of words. involved sentences, though the worst effect
of this
is

that

it

destroys the naturalness of

any piece of writing. Pompous, stilted, affected, or self-conscious writing is never easy
to understand worse than that,
;

it

creates
is

impression of insincerity.

Nothing

an more

contemptible than pretence in writing; the attempt to "show off" by the use of long

words and high-sounding expressions

is

what

referred to in the text-books as "fine writIt

ing."

has been

common

oratory July and other patriotic outbursts) and has been used to cover a multitude of sins. But His profession it is not for the engineer. deals mainly with facts, and his statement of these facts should need no embellishment.
political

(especially

in the past in in Fourth of

76

THE ENGINEER
it
it with words the more and the reader gets the becomes,

The more he adorns

obscure

impression that the truth is being concealed or perverted. The best models for simplicity in writing

combined with great force are Lincoln's speeches, notably the Gettysburg address, which has been called the greatest speech of its kind ever delivered. Of the 267 words 200 are of one syllable. No one who used,
understands English at all could fail to see Take a typical sentence "The its meaning. world will little note nor long remember what we may say here, but it can never for:

get

what they did

here."

It

is

easy to

imagine the verbose and flowery style in which this idea would have been phrased by
of Lincoln's political contemporaries. has been expressed in many ways at many times and places, in all sorts of oratory, yet Lincoln's, the simplest, clearest, most AngloSaxon, with the least words and maximum

many
It

of force, survives

them

all.

possible for the engineer of great ability to succeed in spite of faults of But it is not helpful to the proexpression.
it is

Of course

fession.

The more

successful he

is

the more

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

77

the dignity of the profession will suffer. If the men at the top of it are illiterate, it will

among the profesHappily, this is not true, and the successful engineer who preserves his illiteracy throughout his career is under a severe
naturally lose standing
sions.

handicap.

lectures, articles, etc.,

Frequently called on for speeches, he is obliged either to

refuse or to make himself ridiculous, simply because he has never taken the trouble to

learn his

own

language.

of giving a thorough grounding in English to the man who wants a special technical education in a short time is the

The problem

same as that

in the last chapter.

First,

the

technical school

must demand more of the high school by making the requirements in English for admission more difficult; second, the technical school must make room for the
study of English in its curriculum, and make it a compulsory subject. Surely, of all that

makes up the background of any professional man's education, English is by far the most important, and I can promise the prospective engineer who reads this book that he will never regret an hour spent in its study.

CHAPTER

VII

THE FOUNDATIONS OF ENGINEERING

said: "After all, not the amount of technical information that is of importance. What is needed is so to train the mind that it can grapple with reasonable hope of successful issue the various problems that will arise in after-life and this is accomplished best by a thorough grounding and mastery of the theory of the fundamentals."
it is
;

GENERAL GOETHALS once

The most important part of an engineer's education is not the massing of information, but rather the knowledge of where to find the information that he needs in any situation that may arise. For example, no one should overburden his memory with a quantity of mathematical formulas as long as he
sure of the fundamental theory on which they are based; knowing this, he can derive
is

any formula he requires as soon as the need It would also be useless to try to appears.

THE FOUNDATIONS

79

remember a vast number of chemical processes; once he has looked them up, it is only necessary to remember the source of his
information.
If an engineer's training has been thorough he will have learned the basic laws and the fundamental theories of physics, chemistry,

and mathematics, and the knowledge of where to look for information. Knowing "where to look" implies, of course, a sound judgment as to authorities; he must have no doubt of the book or expert he consults. With this knowledge his equipment is comHe is far ahead of the man who has plete. accumulated a fund of details and must trust
to his

memory

for their accuracy.

With this schooling, too, he has acquired the habit of sharing his labor with others; of consulting specialists instead of trying to be
a specialist in everything himself. No man can be an expert in all the "auxiliary arms" of engineering no one expects an engineer to be a faultless surveyor, a perfect draftsman, memathematician, chemist, physicist, chanic. But we do expect him to know
;

how

experts,

to parcel out his work to these various and to give to each of them general

8o

THE ENGINEER

instructions which they

by their specialized His job training may carry out in detail. is to keep constantly in mind the general

scheme he is working out, never allowing the whole to be obscured by its parts. This faculty of detailing work to others is far more difficult than it seems. Many a man has remained at the bottom of his profession because he has been unable to learn Some men try to do all the work themit. selves, because they are afraid to trust it to any one else; others are unable to pick the right man to help them a still larger number never learn to give proper instructions to
;

their assistants; while some become so absorbed in a subordinate phase of their work

that they become minor specialists themselves. Remember always that the fact that

you can do a particular job better than some one else is no reason why you should do it
Doubtless you can take care of your furnace better than the furnace-man, or add up a column of figures more accurately than your bookkeeper, but if you spent your time doing these things you would never be
yourself.

able to

do anything

else.

An

executive

is

primarily a

man who knows how

to divide

THE FOUNDATIONS
labor; the ideal executive has this

81

power

in-

born, but to a large extent

in early training.

it

may be

learned

These principles should govern the attitude of the engineering teacher toward his student and the attitude of the student toward his technical education. The teacher should devote to any subject only such time as is necessary for a thorough grounding in its fundamentals. Much time is wasted in our technical schools in unnecessary drill in Many hours are spent insignificant details. in perfecting men in mechanical drawing who, after they graduate, will never touch a
drawing-board. Of course some men learn so slowly that constant repetition and much exercise is necessary to teach them the fundamentals, but these do not form the maHere, again, the schools are at fault jority.

not recognizing differences in individual We group our men in large classes according to the year they enter the school, and require the same amount of time from each man in a class regardless of his ability. The pace is usually set by the mediocre man, so that the man with exceptional facility is
in
skill.

held back.

82

THE ENGINEER
The remedy is a little
difficult to

suggest

perhaps some system modelled on the French schools but such a discussion is outside the
province of this book.

My object here is to

student' of engineering what is necessary as the basis of a sound professional education. His attitude toward his work

show the

must be first of all one of seeking to understand the basic scientific truths. If he thoroughly grasps the logic of a natural law he
will easily learn its application. No phase of the steam-engine is difficult to" the man

who

perfectly understands the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. With these alhis reasoning power will the working out of efficiency readily grasp formulas and other details when he comes

ways

in his

mind

to them.

He must

never

make

the mis-

of skipping lightly over the beginnings of a subject. Once he has fallen be-

take

hind on the fundamentals he

will

have the
with the a law he

greatest difficulty in catching up details. Every new application of

has never understood

will

be increasingly
is

confusing. Failure in mathematics

often due to
in the

an incomplete understanding early

THE FOUNDATIONS
course.

83

student should never let himself be hurried beyond a point he does not underI should advise any student who stand.
finds analytic

geometry or calculus a stum-

bling-block to take his troubles to the instructor or even to the head of the department. He may thus be able to get a new

view of the entire subject by discovering some important fundamental that he has missed or misunderstood. Often an instructor, in the privacy of his study, with time at his disposal, can help a man to see something which in the hurry of the recitation would seem hopelessly confused.

But

let

me

again

caution

the

reader

against a dread of mathematics.

Natural in this subject is, of course, a help, ability but many an engineer has succeeded famously who has been far from proficient.

The
call

executive engineer

is

generally able to

on an expert mathematician for difficult problems. For the civil engineer analytic geometry is more important than calculus. Most construction work is done by graphic
representation rather than

by

algebraic for-

mula.

Mechanical,

electrical,

and marine
civil;

engineers use calculus

more than the

84

THE ENGINEER

mining and chemical engineers rarely have

use for either.

As to the required courses

at the technical

school, there are, of course, differences in curricula at the different schools, but there

are certain subjects which

must be com-

pleted by any student, regardless of his branch, before he can begin to specialize. The following list has been compiled from

the catalogues of a number of schools, and may be useful as a guide. The headings "Freshman Year" and " Sophomore Year**
are
applicable to the ordinary four-year In the five and six year courses course.

given in
there
is

many universities which aim to combine the academic and technical studies,
a different arrangement.

The

first

years in these contain

jects

more general subdeferred.

and the technical courses are

In some universities almost no mathematics, physics, or chemistry are required in the

freshman and sophomore years.

case
is

But

in

no

specialization allowed to begin until

is

the student

assumed to be equipped with

list.

the basic knowledge indicated in this

THE FOUNDATIONS
FRESHMAN YEAR

85

Mechanical and free-hand drawing (elemenThis includes the use and care of intary).
1
.

struments, drafting-room conventions, scales, the geometrical devices used in drawing, dimensioning,
(detail
2.

machine sketching, working drawings and assembly), lettering.

chemistry.

General

The nature

of

this

course will depend on what preparation in chemistry the student has had. Assuming that he is a beginner, it will include the fundamental principles of chemistry, theoretical conceptions, nomenclature, formulas, equations, practical use of

elements, processes used in metallurgy, engineerThe more advanced course for freshing, etc.

men

first five of these subjects, and further with the others. The freshman proceeds chemistry course is exceedingly valuable and in-

omits the

teresting to any one, whether or not he becomes an engineer. A man who changes his mind about engineering after a year or two of technical work need never regret the time he has spent on these preliminary courses in chemistry and

physics.

Laboratory work which consists in experiments showing properties of the more important substances and their manipulation occupies the bulk of the time devoted to this course.

86

THE ENGINEER
analysis.

3. Qualitative

more

specialized

chemistry course which generally comes the second half of the freshman year, and consists in
separation and tests for metallic and non-metallic ions, and the study of ions and the theory of
separation.
4.

College algebra, beginning with quadratics,

through variation, proportion, the progressions, binomial theorem, series, partial fractions, principle and use of logarithms and quadratic equations.

may be, of course, in engineering generally The course conis, taken in preparatory school. sists of definitions of the trigonometric functions,
5.

Plane trigonometry. This

and by boys interested

derivation of trigonometric formulas, with applications to trigonometric identities and equations;

the use of logarithms, solution of right and oblique triangles,

with practical applications.

These practical applications, by the way, are something that a student is not likely to get in
the secondary school.

The representa6. Plane analytic geometry. tion of points, lines, and curves in a plane; careful study of the graphs of equations, and investigation of the line, circle,

and conic

section.

THE FOUNDATIONS
SOPHOMORE YEAR
1. Differential, integral,

87

and applied
;

calculus.

This includes problems showing the relation of calculus to physics and mechanics the expansion
of

functions,

indeterminate forms, curvature,

areas, lengths of surfaces of revolution, volumes of solids curves, of revolution and other solids, centres of gravity, by single and double integration, elements of
rates,

maxima and minima;

differential equations.

In the teaching of mathematics, especially calculus, the instructor should constantly show its practical application to engineering, and the stu-

dent should bear in mind the fact that he is studying it entirely with this practical end in view. The engineer is not interested in mathematics for its own sake, but rather as a tool in his work. It is in this way that he differs from the mathematician, to whom the theory is as

important as the practice. 2. Mechanics and heat. This consists of the fundamental principles and their applications: force, work, energy, and power; also the laws of
simple mechanics, gases and liquids. An experimental course in sound, 3. Physics.
heat, light, magnetism,

and

electricity.

This
in

course

presupposes an elementary physics taken at preparatory school.

course

88
4.

THE ENGINEER
Statics.

Principles of pure mechanics as

;

applied in engineering
of rigid bodies
ity

problems involving statics

and

and moment

flexible cords; centre of gravof inertia.

In addition to these subjects, which form the beginning, most of the technical-school and university courses in surveying, mapping, railroad work, etc., may be taken in the summer. Many of the universities have

summer camps in which these subjects are taught. A summer spent in practical surveying is useful for the man who intends to
become a civil engineer. Any sort of practical work during the summer mining, mawork, laboratory work dependchine-shop ing on the individual specialty, is always
valuable.

After the foundations of engineering have been thoroughly established, the work of specializing will come very easily. Any one who has the traits described in the earlier chapters of this book will have little diffiIf he finds by culty in the fundamentals. the time he comes to the specializing stage that he has not been able to cope with the elementary subjects; in other words, that he is not naturally suited to this profession, he

THE FOUNDATIONS

89

should unquestionably give it up. No one should start to specialize unless he is sure that he has acquired a sufficient background.

A man who has not properly learned elementary

physics will
find

advanced thermothis

dynamics almost insurmountable.

A man who

gives

up engineering at

stage need not worry about having wasted his time. What he has learned in the study
of elementary engineering will be extremely valuable to him throughout his life, no matter

what

his occupation.

It gives

him a

fund of general information on which he may draw at any time with great usefulness. The courses in chemistry give him a knowledge of the processes of manufacture of many of the commodities in daily use, and a grounding in the atomic theory which is as necessary a part of every man's education
as the theory of evolution or the elementary functions of the solar system. The work

shows him the workings of the laws of nature. The work in mathprimary ematics and drawing teach a mental discipline that is valuable for almost any kind of work.
in physics

Certain

it is

that a

man who

has concen-

90
trated for

THE ENGINEER

two years on engineering is better to take up another subject than if equipped he had scattered his energies during this
time

among a

diversity of studies in

an

effort to "find himself."

CHAPTER

VIII

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

MECHANICAL applications have the way back to pre-history. It
to discover the
first

existed all
is difficult

uses of the machine ele-

ments, the lever and the inclined plane, but we know that both of them in some form were used in the engineering construction The beginnings of the various of antiquity.

mechanical movements adapted from these elements may be determined roughly. We have discovered many ancient monuments which we can prove antedate the wheel and
the pulley, two important adaptations of the lever. The screw which combines the lever and the inclined plane is attributed to
tion purposes

Simple machines for construcand such war devices as the were used through ancient times, catapult yet there was no profession of mechanical engineering; in fact, it did not really come into being as a recognized profession until
Archimedes.
after the invention of the steam-engine,
91

92

THE ENGINEER

It is impossible to estimate the value of this invention to material civilization. Pro-

viding a source of power to replace the men and animals who formerly did its work, it

produced a complete industrial revolution. It made possible a new rapid transportation by land and sea, manufacture by machinery,
and, later, the generation of electricity. In the beginning the engines were crudely made

by mechanics to serve some immediate purpumping water out of a mine, and improvements were added by the people who operated them. One very notable one the automatic operation of valves was invented by a boy who had been employed to turn the valves on Newcomen's engine by
pose, such as

hand.

When the steam-engine was realized as an accomplished fact, men began to study mechanics and thermodynamics, and there came an exceedingly rapid progress in the making of machines of every variety for
every purpose, until the art of designing

them came to
Thus,
in the

require

extensive

study.
profesof the

middle of the

last century, it

became one of the dignified scientific sions, and passed out of the hands

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

skilled

93

mechanic into those

of the trained

engineer.

The

universities instituted courses

in mechanical engineering, and it became the convention for boys to get their education in this way rather than by becoming an apprentice in a machine-shop. To-day mechanical engineering is one of the most necessary of the applied sciences. The other branches of engineering have become entirely dependent on it. The civil or

mining engineer derives from

tation, his cranes

and

his transporderricks, his excavatit

ing machinery, every tool with which he works. The electrical engineer depends, of
course, on the heat engine for power to opThe industrial chemist erate his dynamos.

depends on the mechanical engineer's machines to carry out his processes. But, most
all, the public, in every phase of its daily life, uses commodities made by machines of his design. Thus he will al-

important of

ways be

in

demand and the

opportunities

for invention are unlimited.

Mechanical engineering has greatly advanced all the other branches. It was primarily responsible for one of the greatest
civil-engineering achievements, the railroad.

94

THE ENGINEER
mechanlocomotives on the

It is interesting to trace the effect of

ical

improvements in problems of railway-building. The locomotive was invented in England, and the first American locomotives were modelled on the English pattern. These were practical enough on a straight, smooth track, and could go round gentle curves; sharp curves or rough tracks caused accidents. The re-

was that railway-building became enormously expensive; tunnels and bridges were necessary which might have been avoided
sult

by curves

of shorter radius the road-bed re;

quired the greatest care; in short, money was spent on perfection rather than length
of track.

In England,

where the distances were

comparatively short, this was financially possible, but American railroad engineers soon saw that the companies would become bankrupt unless cheaper construction were made practicable. They turned to the mechanical engineer, who soon solved the difficulty by improving the locomotive. First, he invented the swivel truck, which made it possible for a locomotive to go round a curve of almost any radius. Next, he devised the

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

equalizing

95

beams or levers which kept it from running off a rough track. Further improvements increased its flexibility, and hence its adhesion to the rails, giving better
climbing power, so that it could go up steeper grades. This is a striking historical example of the assistance given by the mechanical to the civil engineer in economizing his work.

With the discoveries in electricity a vast new field was opened to the mechanical enHe was called on for engines to gineer. generate electricity, but some of his greatest
achievements were in the use of water-

power

for this purpose, as in the

famous

"harnessing" of Niagara. The invention of the internal-combustion engine made possible the rapid improvement and vastly increased usefulness of the motor vehicle, and

an

entire

new

industry began, demanding

thousands of mechanical engineers. So it is with every new invention or scientific discovery; no sooner is it conceived in the mind of the inventor than hurry calls are sent out for mechanical engineers to give it form or

make

possible its development.

is

nowadays the inventor

neer himself.

Generally a mechanical engi-

We hear a good many roman-

96

THE ENGINEER

wonderful inventions by laybut as a rule they are made practical men, by engineers. It is natural that it should be so; a man who has at his finger-tips all the mechanical movements and standard devices, and who works constantly with machines, must, if he have any originality, detic stories of

vise

new ones, or at least improvements. Mechanical engineering depends primarily on the principles of mechanics and thermodynamics. Mechanics is a mathematical study of the action of force upon matter to produce motion or a tendency to motion. It includes statics, the study of force without motion; kinematics, the study of motion without reference to force, and kinetics, which deals with the relations of force and motion to each other. Thermodynamics is that branch of physics which concerns the relations between heat and mechanical work. Both of these studies are fundamental in the education of a mechanical engineer, although in his later work he may find little use for thermodynamics. He may devote himself to the design of some such machine as a cashregister, in which case he will not be concerned with heat or power. Yet he is re-

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

nical-school course, just as he

97

quired to study heat engineering in his techis required to

study surveying, although he may never need it. These requirements are a good thing, because they keep a boy's education from becoming too narrowed. It is perfectly possible that an engineer may be obliged in
later life to

change his specialty.

In the re-

cent decrease in production the shutting down of mills has forced many an engineer who had devoted years of his life to a particular sort of
else.

machine to take up something

Mechanical engineering may be divided broadly into three classifications as follows: (i) That which concerns prime movers, (2) that which deals with the transmission of power, and (3) that which concerns powerutilizing machines.

The

first

means all kinds

of heat engines

steam, oil, or internal-combustion; the second includes gearing, shaft-

and water-power engineerthe third covers all pieces of mechanism ing; which create no motive force of themselves
ing, belting, etc.,

but are operated by some outside source of power. Each of these broad divisions is infinitely subdivided, so that we have a list of

98
specialties

THE ENGINEER

ranging all the way from the power-plant to the typewriter. The dominating problem with which the engineer has always to contend is that of efficiency. To derive the maximum of power from the minimum of fuel, or to reduce fric-

has been his principal goal in all the development of machinery. As in civil engineering, the element of expense enters into everything he does. He must conserve fuel, make every possible use of its waste products, devise means for lubricating by which his lubricant may be used again and again,
tion,

contrive to get the greatest heating surface for a boiler or the greatest cooling surface for an internal-combustion motor; problems

such as these and others

plex are part of his daily

much more comTo solve life.

them he must know perfectly the natural laws underlying all the mechanical processes. More than this, he must have proper judgment; he must not economize so much in one direction that efficiency is reduced in
another.

Economy

of

construction

may

cause wastefulness of fuel; an effort to obtain lightness, as in an aeroplane motor, may reduce durability. Primarily he must

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

99

keep the purpose of his machine always in Sometimes the nature of this purhis mind.
justify some reduction in absolute in order to cut down construction efficiency The two-cycle gasolene engine, for cost.

pose

may

example, is more wasteful and less powerful than the four-cycle, but it is useful where great power is not necessary and where the cost of construction is a more important factor than economy of fuel. The great emphasis on efficiency that has become necessary in all our industry has

brought into being a new kind of engineering in which mechanical engineers are pecuThis branch is known as liarly qualified.
sist of

industrial engineering, and its functions conthe careful scientific supervision of a

plant with regard to

tion.

economy

of produc-

industrial engineer is employed as a research worker and partly as partly an executive, to investigate, organize, improve, rearrange, and systematize every de-

The

partment of an industry in order to increase production and lower costs. He will recommend new methods of storing raw material,

changes in the relative positions of machines, provisions for utilization of waste,

ioo

THE ENGINEER

different systems of bookkeeping, alteration of personnel, eliminating superfluous posi-

tions or departments, reorganizing labor; in short, discovering every possible situation in

which there

is

waste or inefficiency, and try-

ing to redirect the energy that is lost or making new use of the material that is wasted.

good industrial engineer must have, in addition to a mechanical engineering education, some knowledge of electricity and technical chemistry; accounting, business

administration and economics generally, but, most important, he must have had experience in some sort of factory management.

A man who has been

in

the head of several de-

a plant and who has made a partments careful study of both the technical and the business side of the industry is equipped to begin as an industrial engineer. No one can hope, of course, to get into this phase until experience has fitted him for it. In some works electrical or chemical engineers
are employed as industrial engineers, depending on the nature of the industry. As

an industrial engineer is a salaried employ of a company; sometimes, however, he is a consultant and works
a
rule,

man

in the

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

independently.
engineering

101

The

future

in

industrial

men who do well as mechanical engineers. The business side of manufacturing often attracts men away from the technical, and we find many directors of large corporations who began life as engineers. Unquestionably, any business man who goes into the
is full

of opportunities for

manufacturing industries would be enormously aided in most of his work by a

technical education, so the engineer is most excellently fitted to take a business posiIt is natural, too, that tion of this kind.

an engineer who has had much to do with the manufacturing processes in the production of some article who may, in fact, have invented or designed the machinery or the finished product should want to have an interest in the business and to measure his income by its success. There are plenty
all

of chances of this kind for a

his job

man who knows

and does

it

well.

There are some en-

gineers whom their employers cannot afford to leave out of an interest in the business.

The mechanical
life

engineer has less outdoor and less adventure in the solution of his
civil

problems than the

and mining

engi-

<02
neers,

THE ENGINEER
but his work
if it is

is

intensely absorbing,

an experimental nature and concerned with design. There are phases of his work which require great origiespecially
of

nality of thought, invention, resourcefulness, and careful research. The results when suc-

always exceedingly gratifying, bethey are so obviously productive. There is a quality about a mechanical creacause
tion

cessful are

which no work of the civil engineer possesses; its motion makes it more alive, more aggressively active; to produce an engine which develops power by means of which something is manufactured or transported, or light produced, or a ship propelled, a satisfaction is felt akin to that which we should
feel

could

we

create

life

by

intellectual

effort.

great achievements of the civil engineer are impressive by their massive and durable qualities a road which has survived through centuries, a lighthouse which resists the force of wind and waves, a dike which
:

The

holds the flood in check.

characteristic
is

But

in all these the

is

static

motion

resisted but

not produced. A great dam is suggestive of vast potential energy, because the water behind it is being restrained from its natural

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

103

course, but the energy of an engine is kinetic at a touch its wheels revolve, it moves, and its motion accomplishes results that are im-

mediately visible. Of course no engineer spends all his time in producing things that are entirely new; in fact, the greater part of his work consists in improving on the designs of others, and in this is much of the fascination of the pro-

Every device which increases the efficiency of a machine is a new triumph for
fession.

the engineer
if

who

devises

it,

as

much

so as

he had produced a new machine. In all the history of mechanical invention it is difficult to discover

who are the actual inventors, men who devised the improvements which have made possible the presbecause the
ent efficiency of machinery have really been of as much service as the inventors themselves.

to

The steam-engine, for example, seems have been first made practical by New-

comen, whose engine was actually in use as a pumping-engine in coal-mines for nearly three-quarters of a century without substantial change; yet Watt has received most of the credit for this invention because of his improvements. Watt, to be sure, used

io4

THE ENGINEER
New-

the expansive power of steam, while

comen used atmospheric

pressure by conthe steam and producing a vacuum, densing so neither of them can rightly be called the

inventor of the steam-engine. One special ability the mechanical engineer must possess is that of a quick analysis of any mechanism into the elements of cause

and

effect, so that at a glance he can understand perfectly its working. He gains this by a thorough study of the mechanical

movements and

their applications.

He must

have enough imagination to think in mechanism without seeing it. He must think clearly, systematically, and be capable of He must have infinite great concentration. patience with details. He must have confidence in himself, much of which will come with his knowledge and training. He should have a good memory. He must have strong instinctive curiosity, otherwise he will never
gain a real interest in his study. His education will consist of the usual

preliminary

engineering

studies

plus

ad-

vanced study of mechanics, heat and waterpower engineering, electrical engineering with laboratory work, materials, machine
design, a
little

surveying, hydraulics, tur-

THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER

bines

105

and centrifugal machinery, powerAs postplants and industrial engineering. work he may take a number of graduate
specialized subjects, such as internal-com-

bustion

motors,

mechanical

refrigeration,
v

advanced thermodynamics, heat measurements, etc. Factory management is an

excellent study for post-graduate

work

for

any mechanical engineer.

The

studies outside the formal technical

education which are especially necessary are business administration and accounting,

such fundamental prinand revenue, maintenance and depreciation, cost accounting and their

which

latter includes

ciples as capital

This course is often preapplications. scribed for engineers. foreign language is also usually prescribed and is important.

A student
make good
work
in

of mechanical engineering must Practical use of his summers.

is

particularly valuable because of the experience it gives of labor as

a factory

well as the information about details.

Shop-

work and surveying may generally be studied in summer. Some universities have made
arrangements with industrial plants in the
vicinity for training for the engineering stu-

dents in factory work.

The Harvard Engi-

io6

THE ENGINEER

neering School has recently instituted a sys-

tem by which the year is divided into six two-month periods, three of which are devoted to classroom and laboratory work and the other three to industrial training. The system is to alternate these periods
throughout the year. No one should be discouraged from taking up the career of mechanical engineering by the present unfortunate conditions in proThe field is so broad and the necesduction. sities of life which have come to depend on the work of the mechanical engineer are so many and varied that there can never come a time when the demand will materially deCivilization has reached the point crease. at which the inhabitants of the greater part of the world must be clothed, fed, and transported by machinery, or do without. Economic maladjustment is an inevitable byproduct of war, but with a period of peace a return to stable conditions is equally inevitable, and we may be confident that the future will be bright enough for production of all kinds, and hence for that master producer, the mechanical engineer.

CHAPTER IX
CIVIL ENGINEERING

BOY who has the

creative

instinct

strongly among the other engineering virtues should consider the profession of civil
engineer, in which
it

will

have

full

play.

Primarily the work of the civil engineer is constructive: he builds roads, bridges, water-

ways, dams, tunnels, factories, breakwaters, lighthouses, harbors, docks, water-supply, railroads, sewers, and a vast quantity of other things too numerous to mention. It is the oldest branch of engineering, because construction began before the sciences which have made the other branches possible were
discovered.
It

has persisted without inter-

ruption in its development, from the stone age to the present, increasing its efficiency of method as it came to be aided by the

mechanical and electrical departments. Dependent first on man and then on animal
power, speed of construction has, of course, been vastly increased by the application of
107

io8

THE ENGINEER
electricity to hoisting,
etc.;

steam and
tion,

excava-

transportation,

but the fundaold.

it

mental principles are very Civil engineering, where

concerns roads

and railways, depends largely on the principles of surveying; where it deals with
canals, locks, sluices, barrages, water-supply,

based on the laws of hydraulics whereas construction depends on the equilibrium of forces. It is so broad a subject that we cannot call it a speirrigation,

dams,

etc.,

it

is

cialty in itself; we must subdivide it again into road, railroad, hydraulic, construction,

and sanitary engineering.

particular subdivision to which the engineer will devote himself is generally de-

The

cided on after leaving the technical school; he will be influenced in his decision by the nature of the work in which he starts (which,
of course,
lead.
is

stance) and the

cialties before

largely dependent on circumdirection in which it may

A man may

try several different spe-

he can make up his mind in which he has the most ability or inclination. It is better that he should make his decision in this way rather than beforehand, because
the work in various fields gives

him good

CIVIL

ENGINEERING

109

Furthermore, a man who narexperience. rows himself to a very specialized choice

graduates will probably find it a job than if he is willing to try any one of several branches. Then, of course, it is possible that he may
first

when he
more

difficult to get

find after

little

chosen direction

is less

practical work that his to his liking than he

supposed it. There are some men who seem to be born with a genius for some special kind of engiThere are men who, from their neering.
childhood, are fascinated by rivers, waterways, dams, locks, etc., so there is never any

minds as to what sort of want to do. Such a man engineering they

real

doubt

in their

very likely get immediately into his specialty, but even he will not be wasting his time if he begins with something else.
will

Civil engineering of any sort will lead to an outdoor life, probably under primitive conditions and in conflict with nature in all her moods. The railroad engineer will build his embankments, dig his tunnels, and lay his track in every kind of wilderness, up and over mountains, across rivers and swamp-

lands,

overcoming

all

sorts

of

obstacles.

io

THE ENGINEER

There is hardship from weather and danger from landslides, snowslides, cave-ins, falling The rock, and a hundred other causes.
physical robustness demanded of the engineer must make it possible for him not only to survive these

conditions but to

work

can endure privations, but not every one can keep his mental efficiency from being lowered by them. Instrument work, mapping, calculating, in cold or wet weather is espe-

accurately under them.

Many

man

cially liable to error.

an engineer's work he take his sights from

In the early stages of is often obliged to

tree-tops,

uncertain

rock ledges, perilous heights. Sometimes engineers have been suspended by ropes

from mountain-tops, swung out over precipices, and obliged to make their measurements while in the air. All this work presupposes a cool nerve, a steady hand and eye, a strong heart, and little susceptibility
to nervousness.
of a road or railroad engineer a fascinating one to any one who has a touch of the gypsy or exploring instinct. His work is always moving; he picks up his
life

But the

is

camp every few days and moves on

to a

CIVIL
new
place.

ENGINEERING

in

If he is working in unfamiliar he must always be ready for the country unexpected; each new move discovers a

hundred perplexing difficulties steep ascents that must be reached by easy grades, the avoidance of tunnels and cuts, the necessity
:

of protection against snowslides and washThe "location'* of a line, as the preouts.

liminary work of the railroad engineer is called, is the most important step in the building of a railroad from the point of view
of expense,

and

West many a

in the pioneer days in the line had to be abandoned when

half completed because a bad location required such enormous financial outlay.

This brings up the most important problem with which the civil engineer must contend, no matter what sort of work he does
the problem of expense.

Most

of the defi-

nitions of civil engineering include the element of economy. John Bogart, in The

American Railway, has defined

it

as the

"economical adaptation of the means and opportunities existing, to the end desired." Ashbel Welch, a former president of the

American Society of

"That

is

Civil Engineers, said: the best engineering, not which

112

THE ENGINEER

splendid, or even the most work, but that which makes a work perfect that answers the purpose well, at the least
cost."

makes the most

Another president of that same

so-

ciety said: "The high object of our profession is to consider and determine the most

economic use of time, power, and matter." Before he can begin any actual construction the engineer must have estimated and
re-estimated, introducing every device for economy consistent with the necessities of

he must thoroughly understand all the uses to which his projected work will be put; then he must economize in the construction as far as possible with It is in this these uses constantly in mind.
his plans.
First,

sort of figuring that the engineer uses his calculus; for example, in determining the

most economical dimensions

oil

for a water or

tank.

will often find that

In the work of saving expense the engineer nature will assist him,
of
offers.

and he must be quick to take advantage

her

For instance, he can use the law of gravity in transporting stone from a higher level to a lower one by letting the He can filled cars pull the empty ones up.

CIVIL

ENGINEERING

113

for his track,

use a narrow gorge to make a hanging bridge and thus avoid cutting into

the rock; he can often use water-power instead of steam; he can make use of the

siphon principle.

The Romans

built their

aqueducts straight across valleys at enormous expense, because they did not know
that water will seek and find
its

own

level;

the hydraulic engineer of to-day lays his pipes up and down the hills, following the contour of the ground.

More often, however, the engineer will find nature working against him, and he will be obliged to use all his ingenuity to outwit her. Thus, the bridge-builder will sometimes encounter great difficulties in the material of river-bottoms which are unsuitable for the driving of piles, or he will discover tiny insects in the

water that destroy the wood, or the material of the bottom will "scour"
to great depths in flood-time.

The

railroad

engineer making a tunnel will find natural seams in the rock through which he bores which interfere with his progress, or that the material through which he is penetrating suddenly alters its character, changing from solid rock to soft material. Expedients have
f

TV

OF'

CALIFORNIA

OF

CIVIL

ENGINEERING

114

THE ENGINEER

all these difficulties, and the engineer will probably always continue to overcome the natural obstacles he finds in

been found for

,his

way.

history of the Panama Canal, which the reader will find well told in Joseph Bucklin

The

Bishop's
of

"Panama Gateway/'
difficulties,

is

a suc-

cession

the overcoming of

which are among the greatest achievements of science. In the period of the French attempt the engineers and laborers were seriously hindered by the scourge of yellow fever, then rampant and unrestrained in the
isthmus.

Although

this effort of the

French

was accompanied by scandalous

graft and criminal inefficiency, the heroism of most of the technical men who worked against the

most appalling odds, constantly facing and often meeting death, make an inspiring record. The overcoming of the cause of the
yellow fever, due to a discovery made at the expense of the lives of many doctors, was
the prelude to the American work on the
canal.

greatest difficulty encountered by the Americans was in the Culebra Cut, where
their

The

work was interrupted again and again

CIVIL
scribed

ENGINEERING

115

by breaks and slides. Some of these are deby Mr. Bishop as follows:

Scarcely had the Americans begun excavation there in 1905 when the slide began to move again
in the first in the succeeding wet season. 1907, after a period of very

wet season, and to resume movement On October 4,

heavy

rains,

it

started afresh in the night. Without warning, it shot almost completely across the canal prism,

overwhelming two steam-shovels

all

in its course,

covering for ten days maintained a glacier-like movement of fourteen feet each twenty-four hours. Dur-

the dirt-train railway tracks, and

ing that time it filled the canal prism and piled up a mass of material thirty feet in height on the west bank. Nearly half a million cubic yards of

material were thrown into the canal prism by this movement, and the operation of dirt trains

through this part of the Cut was delayed for about a month. In January, 1913, during the dry season, it again became active, carrying about 2,500,000 cubic yards more into the Cut,
blocking
all tracks in the bottom of the canal, and bringing the total slide excavation at this point up to about 7,000,000 cubic yards. There were at various times during canal construction 22 slides of different kinds, covering an area aggregating 220 acres, and compelling an
. .

ii6

THE ENGINEER

excavation of about 25,000,000 cubic yards, or about one-fourth of the excavation required for the Culebra Cut. In addition to the extra work
required for removal of this material, the inter-

ruption of work and general annoyance caused by the slides must be taken into account.
of

Colonel Gaillard, the division engineer in charge the work in Culebra Cut, estimated the amount of railway track that was destroyed by

them within 8.8 miles of the Cut at fully 200 miles, and that they delayed the completion of the excavation in the Cut by at least a year and
This delay did not affect the date of half. canal completion, however, because that depended upon the concrete and gate work in the
a
In spite of the addition of the 25,000,000 cubic yards of slide excavation, the Culebra Cut was ready for use when the condition of the lock
locks.

work allowed the water

to be turned in.

tial qualities of

Obviously, ingenuity is one of the essenthe civil engineer. Imagiis is

extremely important. Executive necessary if he is to be put in of large-scale work. All the qualities charge described in the general chapter on native ability are especially desirable in the civil In his education the civil engineer branch.
nation
ability

CIVIL

ENGINEERING

117

should study economics, because in some form it will be an element in all his work.

He must
geology.

also

have a broad knowledge of

foreign language, preferably In matheSpanish, will be useful to him. matics, although a civil engineer may succeed up to a certain point and in certain

kinds of work with nothing beyond analytic geometry, it is better for him to know calcu-

He must know trigonometry lus besides. and analytic geometry thoroughly. Study and practice in accounting will be of value to him in figuring costs, making out payrolls,

drawing up estimates, reports,

etc.

He

should be able to read and understand

balance-sheets.

During his course in technical school he should spend his vacations in practical work
surveying, railroad location or construction, or anything which will give him a working knowledge of the details of the jobs he will
later

be called upon to manage.

What

said about

my
is

as a miner
gineering.

experience of manual labor equally applicable in civil ensalaries paid civil engineers It is a profession

The average

are unfortunately small.

ii8

THE ENGINEER

which a man enters more from love of the work than a desire to get rich. Yet it opens remarkable business opportunities. Engineering is coming to be a business as well as a profession. Engineering companies are

being formed on a large scale, and it is often easy for an engineer in the employ of one of
these to get into an executive position, and he may eventually come to have an interest

In a large or a partnership in the business. company of this sort there are countless
ramifications; a trained engineer

may

be-

come engaged
prises

in securing contracts, in interesting prospective clients in various enter-

he

may become a

promoter, and

eventually, perhaps, a capitalist himself.

The

opportunities for civil engineers

may

vary somewhat with conditions, but there is never likely to be any real lack of demand At the present moment in Amerfor them. ica production is on the decline, factories and plants are closing up, and almost no

new ones
material

are being constructed.

is

Building

fabulously high in price. For this reason there may, during the next few years, be a decrease in the demand for civil

and mechanical engineers.

There can be

CIVIL

ENGINEERING

119

no doubt that this condition is temporary. With a decrease in prices there will come a
decrease in wages, costs of production will

go down, and manufacturing and industries will get back on something nearer their old During the next few years the best footing. opportunities will probably be in such work as road-building, of which there will be a
great deal in this country. Any opening up of Mexico, South America, or some of the
hitherto unexploited regions of Europe will

produce an instantaneous demand for American civil engineers. They are necessary to

any mining or
kinds.

agricultural exploitation to construct railroads, roads, and plants of all

boy who is seeking inspiration in the feats of civil engineering need not go far afield. If he lives in the city he may see steel construction on all sides of him ; a short
railway trip, especially one through mountainous country, will discover magnificent achievements of skill and daring; most of the
incidents of daily life the prosaic running water if he trace it to its remote source will lead him through a veritable

common

romance of adventure and conquest.

To

120

THE ENGINEER
is

any one there

day by day

a thrill in watching any great process of construction to see it grow

until
it

crystallizes in solid

form

the thought of the master engineer. How much greater is the satisfaction of the masWith good equipment and a ter himself!
will that is as strong as his desire, the

boy

about to enter the civil-engineering career may look forward with confidence to seeing his own dreams take form under his hand and grow into great and tangible facts.
is

who

CHAPTER X
THE MINING ENGINEER
IF a mine were always conveniently situated at the end of a railroad-track we could cut down largely on the list of qualities re-

quired of the mining engineer. Physique, endurance, physical daring, the spirit of adventure, infinite resourcefulness, would be of value to him only as they are valuable to

the lawyer or merchant whose life is regular and conventional. Always in touch with his

base of supplies, that uneasy sense of not knowing where his next meal was coming from would be quite foreign to him. Able

always to command the best of labor, equipment, and advice at a moment's notice, he would never be called on for quick improvisation of instruments and materials, for the
handling of bodies of alien men suffering hardship; in short, for the working out of his own salvation under every adverse condition of nature.

Happily, however, such In general the mine comes

121

not the case. , y first, the railroad V

is

122

THE ENGINEER
Essentially the mining enis

long afterward.
gineer

a pioneer.

Alone he makes his

way

through the difficult conditions imposed by the promoter or capitalist who employs him,

and success or failure hangs on his sole judgment. He works generally in wild and often
he suffers long periods of physical discomfort; he is beset by danger from weather, animals, hostile natives, and sickness; he works often against time, sometimes in conflict with strenuous competition or the opposing forces of a hostile governin alien country;

He may people. be the victim of a bandit raid or a conspiracy

ment or an antagonistic
of fraud.

The

success of his

imperilled or ruined

work may be a lack of material or by

for improvising

supplies

and an incapacity

them.
Obviously, mining is no career for the "safe player." The man who is unwilling to "take a chance," who cannot, as Kipling

has put

it,

"Make one heap of

And
the
risk
it

all his

winnings,
toss,"

on one turn of pitch and

man who must know,

how he
is

before he starts,

exactly

coming out, must keep

THE MINING ENGINEER

away from
to spend Not that

123

this profession unless he is willing his life in a subordinate position.

I

mean to imply that the mining a reckless gambler; far from it; he engineer plays from start to finish a game of the utis

most skill, matching his brains against the chance turns of circumstance; ready at any moment to outwit both nature and his fellow man. The "chance" he takes is the staking of his mental forces and equipment
against the perils of an unknown situation; the greater his faith in himself the less the

danger of
sist?

loss.

In what does his natural equipment con-

he must be physically robust, with great endurance. Then he must have the restless temperament of the explorer, keen for new discovery, inFirst,

preferably athletic,

terested in

unknown places, at home in wilderness, adaptable to strange and uncomfortable conditions. He must be a leader of
men, human and humane,
thetic, interested in

tactful,

sympa-

man psychology, familiar

life

with labor conditions and

on the bare

"living wage," self-confident but never selfconscious, equal to sudden mob emergencies,

and without prejudice

of race, creed, color,

124

THE ENGINEER

or nationality.

He must have sure, instantaneous judgment, based partly on intuition but largely on training and experience. He
must have endless courage, physical and moral, which means not only the fearlessness of the soldier but equally an indifference to criticism inspired by animus and to erroneous He must have a constant public opinion.
sense of responsibility, knowing that the fortunes of thousands of men and women stand

or

according to the accuracy of his proMost important of all, he must be honorable and honest beyond all suspicion, meticulously scrupulous in the
fall

fessional opinion.

handling of public trusted to his care.

or

private

property

Perhaps no branch of engineering (unless

we

except the military) demands as much ingenuity as mining, because of the almost constant adversity of conditions. To transport supplies over trackless country, to de-

methods of speed and efficiency when working with a limited money outlay against time for the sake of the investors, to find inducements for the encouragement of the
vise
laborers, to

make

shelter

and sanitary conditions

living endurable, provide for many

THE MINING ENGINEER

families, to

125

make

use of material picked up

at random, to economize on every detailall these things tax the resourcefulness of the

mining engineer to the utmost limit. I was never more conscious of the constant need of invention of this sort than during my

work

in the deep-level area of the Consoli-

dated Gold Fields of South Africa. Here the veins ran obliquely down from the surface, and the laws of the country provided that while a vein might be followed from a single shaft to its conclusion without the purchase of more land than the original excavation required, new land must be bought for each
additional shaft.

A little quick figuring con-

vinced
less

me that the purchase of land was far expensive than long digging underground, so I bought enough additional land to sink a quantity of shafts along the line of
the vein.

The time element played an important part in this expense computation, as it was necessary for our investors to realize
on their investment within a few months.
I

then realized that the required speed demanded wages to my labor which under other conditions would have been exorbitant, but which in a concentrated effort against

126

THE ENGINEER
justified

time were sure to be

sults.

by the

re-

Yet even with this expedient I found that the digging was not reaching the necessary distance of 125 feet a month. superintendent and I inspected the work in the

My

shafts,

and found that while each bucket of

earth was being hoisted to the surface the men below in the shaft were standing idle.

We

shaft, so that during the hoisting of

then supplied an extra bucket for each one the men could keep at work filling the other. This doubled the amount of work done in a

given time.

But the greatest result in speed was accomplished by instituting competition

among

the various shafts.

We

offered a

bonus to the men who accomplished the most digging in each day. This immediately turned the work into a game; the actual bonus itself was nothing compared with the glory of winning it. The most primitive human instinct of competition was strong in these African natives, and the drudgery of the labor was soon forgotten in the excite-

ment

of the race.

With the union

restric-

tions generally imposed in our industries of to-day, such a scheme would be difficult to

THE MINING ENGINEER

initiate,
it

127

but in the South African gold-fields worked well and saved far more than the

cost of the bonuses.

These were a few of the devices we used

to speed and economize the work in the deep-level mines. There were many other

There was a large number of native laborers to be housed and fed, kept well, and, most important of If, in an intensive work all, kept contented. of this sort, you can get the men interested in the outcome, the battle is half over. This was a work which required the continued concentration of every one connected with
needs for inventive thought.
because it is typical of the general kind of work a mining engineer has
it.

tell of it

to do.

Judgment is a vitally important attribute of a mining engineer, whether he be consultIf he be ing engineer or mine manager. called upon to give an opinion as to the value

mine he must not only be sure of the soundness of his opinion but he must be
of a

proof against fraud.

Young and

inexperi-

enced engineers have sometimes been deceived by "salted" mines and afterward accused of dishonesty. His judgment must in

128

THE ENGINEER

terest, or conditions.

no way be affected by prejudice, personal inA man will sometimes

be tempted to hurry his decision because of the difficult circumstances under which he has to live. Judgment is quickly warped by hardship in some men. But it is not only in
giving opinions that judgment is required of the mining engineer; he must have good eco-

nomic and

financial

judgment, knowing

how

to spend in the various phases of the development of a mine, and how to

much money
spend
it

know

to the best advantage, and he must a great deal about mining investment

and he must have good business judgment in the management of mines. By temperament a mining engineer must be cool and equal to difficult emergencies.
in order properly to advise investors,
in mines is always subject to dangers from fire, flood, gas, breaking ropes, rock and earth falling, carelessness of the miners, and in accidents like these the man who keeps his presence of mind and cool nerve is often able to save himself and others where the nervous or high-strung person would be lost. A man with a weak heart, an incurable

Work

fear of high places, or subject to dizziness or

THE MINING ENGINEER

fainting,
ing.

129

must keep out

of

mining engineer-

Many men are affected by fear, nausea,

rapid heart action, and nervousness on their first descent into a mine; if they are unable to get over this they are obliged to give up the profession. In the mines, quickness of movement, agility, suppleness, in short, the more or less athletic qualities, have saved

many a man's life. Modern machinery has done away with some of the accidents that used to occur when men were lowered in a bucket hung by a rope and all the equipment was of the crudest sort, but the life of the miner is still full of dangers and uncertainties which the mining engineer must sometimes share.
Even with all our modern perfection of mining apparatus, there are still mines being worked with primitive enough equipment^
often for the reason that, as I said at the beginning of the chapter, transportation for
ately available.

not always immediengineer of the future will work in Mexico, South America, Siberia, the mountains of the Balkans, and many another wild country that is now waiting to be developed, and in these lands he will
elaborate machinery
is

The

130

THE ENGINEER
his preliminary

work without rail and with little in the way of transportation modern conveniences. We get in the habit of looking on the world from our vantagehave to do
if it were all a finished with no "new worlds to conquer." product, But a glance at a physical geography shows us immediately the vast undeveloped stretches which in the future must be the source of subsistence for the always increasing population of the earth.

point of civilization as

Much

of these little-known stretches are

rich with ore of all kinds, so that for the

mining engineer during the next century there will be adventure enough. All the dangers and "chances" of these lands which I have stressed in this chapter are naturally alluring to the normal American boy because of their romance. Then there is the additional inducement of large financial possibilities, but I should caution any one against
allowing this consideration to play a large
It is an insidious part in his final decision. and dangerous attraction which may over-

balance his better judgment and induce him to enter a profession unsuitable to his talent and real inclination. Unquestionably a boy

THE MINING ENGINEER

who makes up
his

131

mind under these circum-

stances will not be a successful mining engineer. If he adopts this career he must do
it

from pure love of the work and conscious-

ness of his potential ability. In his technical education, in addition to

the subjects listed in the last chapter, the

mining engineer must have a broad knowledge of geology and metallurgy, quantitative analysis, assaying, mineralogy, metal and coal mining, ore-dressing, mine surveying, mining projects and design, leaching processes, petrography, the economics of mining, mine examinations and reports, and various problems in treatment of ores and ore deposits.

Additional studies outside the purely

\

technical which are extremely advisable are sanitation and hygiene, business administration, finance,

and the money market.

The

preparation for this profession involves a great deal of hard, continuous work, which

must be

inspired

and maintained by an

in-

tense interest.

So far I have dwelt largely on the difficult and dangerous aspects of mining, because I have wished the reader to realize its strenuous nature, and also because I know that the

I 32

THE ENGINEER

man will be attracted rather than repelled by them. There are other The sides that are extremely pleasant. life among mining engineers is community nearly always congenial. I doubt if there is a profession whose members can live together in close association in a small community with so much friendship, so little petty jealousy and underhand rivalry, such complete absence of scandal of any kind.
right kind of

They

are generally frank, honest, intelligent men, who, in their association with nature, have grown out of habits of petty thinking,

and

in their close relation

with

men

in all

demand human. Their wives, who with ocratic, the men have shared a primitive and outconditions of hardship are friendly,

door
life.

life,

who make a
The

are generally the kind of women pleasant and healthful home

opportunities which come to the mining engineer are very diverse, and limited

only by his capacity. He is in an excellent position always to buy interests in the best mines. He has the chance to discover new mines and to open up new areas rich in minThis work will in the future take him erals.

THE MINING ENGINEER

133

abroad and give him an opportunity to He can learn much of international travel.
government, economics, etc., and himself for public life, which he may enter when he is able to retire from his proHe has the opportunity for a great fession.
politics,
fit

thus

work in the development of young or back- v ward nations (for it is in these that the mines of the future must largely be sought), such states as those resulting from the new partition of the Balkans, the Latin American reHe may become a v publics, Russia, China. financier of great wealth and power, and an
international figure.

he must be a good mining In the early part of his career he engineer. must not allow any dreams of future power to stand between him and the work of perfecting himself in the details of his profesBut,
first of all,

sion.

And, most important of all, he must himself be lured by any inducement into this career unless he is sure beyond all reasonable doubt that he has the necessary Like most romantic purqualifications. suits, there is peril for the unfit in the advennot
let

ture of mining engineering.

CHAPTER XI
THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
KNOWING
electricity,

we have developed

nothing of the real nature of in a few years

an astonishingly rapid progress in its application, so that to-day we are dependent on it for most of our light, some of our heat, and a good proportion of our power, not to mention communication, which has advanced further than any of the others. Our
ignorance of the theory of electricity leads us to believe that we have scarcely tapped its

and that there will be an almost unlimited extension of its usepractical possibilities,
future, closely affecting the details of our personal life, but also the life

fulness in the

of nations, their interrelations; in short, the

whole of future civilization. Already the telegraph and radio have knit the nations together in a closer association than any political instrument could possibly do; the pulses of the world beat together, distances have shrunk, and space is rendered impotent against the transfer of our thought.
134

THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

One might
sophical and
civilization,

135

discuss indefinitely the philopolitical aspects of electrical

but they are outside the intent of this book; here I have touched them only to open a glimpse of the future of this science. Communication, however important, is a small part; the aid of electricity extends to
every other kind of engineering, to chemistry, to surgery, to all manufacturing industry, to automobiles, to the navigation of ships, to a multitude innumerable of the
arts, sciences,

and ordinary

activities of

life.

The

effect of discoveries in electricity

has

upset and revolutionized scientific theory and altered our interpretation of natural

laws so that in

many

fields

we have had

almost to start anew, as, for example, with the atomic theory in chemistry. The revolutionary condition is the department which
coveries
still

in progress,

and

in the greatest state of flux is that of electricity itself; new disis

may at any time upset our bases and reverse our thought. But as any time
of revolution

ent

is a time of beginning, the presa point from which many roads branch out, and we must be of open mind to choose one which will not lead us backward into the
is

136

THE ENGINEER
of uncertain tradition

maze

from which we

are emerging.

An open mind
biassed,

and thought
is

then, with a capacity unfree of traditional enfirst

native quality of the In the Bulletin of Information of the Columbia University School of Engineering, a short general sketch of

cumbrance,

the

electrical engineer.

the electrical engineering course brings out

this point in the following words:

young man may have

in high degree the

qualities which in general are essential for an engineer and yet may not have the type of mind which is necessary for the successful practice of electrical engineering on its technical side. There is required a quality of mind and imagination which is able to visualize into practical form the
It therefore follows results of electrical theory. that the mind should be of a type to which the

Due to the analytical theory is not repugnant. great and rapid advance in theory and practice, any one with a strong, conservative tendency is
at a disadvantage in electrical engineering.

Broadly, electrical engineering, which has been defined as "the control of electrical energy for human service with the highest

THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

efficiency compatible

137

with economic invest-

ment," divides itself into generation, transmission and utilization of energy, and these
apply to
cations
tion
light, heat,

power, communication,
Bringing these applinarrower specializaop-

and electrochemistry.

down to a still we have: design, construction, and

eration of (i) lighting plants, illuminating circuits, lamps; (2) furnaces and kindred

heating appliances;
tors,

(3)

use of water-power

for generation, power-plants, railways,

mo-

electromagnetic machinery, machinery

of all kinds operated

by

electricity

(4) tele-

graph, telephone, radio and signalling; (5) chemical processes concerned with electroly-

The last classification has lately become the province of the chemical engineer,
sis.

a recently established branch of the engineering profession described in detail in another

chapter. To the ingenious there
is

chance for inven-

tion, for independent, original

work

in all

these specialties. When we look back down the history of electrical invention through the primitive but important work of Galvani,

Volta,

Franklin,

Faraday, Oersted,

Ampere, some of whose names have been

38

THE ENGINEER

preserved in electrical terms, and especially the vast productive work of Edison, we see the difficulties these men were under in

comparison with ourselves, and appreciate what they have done to make easy for us the work of electrical experiment. Of course
for the electrical engineer of to-day

more

education

is

necessary

before he can begin

any

original work he must be thoroughly familiar with all that has gone before, and he must climb up all the rungs of the ladder

these others have built for

him

before he

can make new ones for himself.

the equipment and

But

in

facilities at his disposal,

and especially with the broad, open-minded, and encouraging attitude of the public toward invention, conditions are vastly better.

Probably the greatest

is

field of

the fuis,

ture

that of radioactivity

that

from

the point of view of original invention because it is the youngest. With the
old, it is
less than thirty years obvious that only the surface has been scratched. Experimenters are every day evolving new uses and improvements for wireless telegraphy and telephony, and application of the principles underlying

Marconi invention

THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

them
in other directions

139

than that of mere

communication.
Electric railways will

undoubtedly be an
of the future.

The important development of electric over steam transporadvantages tation lack of smoke, no need to transport water and fuel, ease of operation, etc. are, of course, obvious, and great steps have been taken of late years in "electrifying" considerable portions of railway systems, as, for example, that part of the New York, New

Haven, and Hartford road running between New Haven and New York. A network of
trolley

systems has covered the country; the

operation and constantly increasing construction of these will require the services of

numbers of electrical engineers. But this replacing of steam by electricity is a process which is going on in many another
increasing

sphere than that of railroads;

sorts of

we

find all

by

electricity

manufacturing machinery operated because it is easier to transmit,

cleaner, and often cheaper. neers in various fields are

We

find engi-

coming to use
titles,

"electro" as a prefix to their

is

because

electricity creeping into every branch and becoming indispensable to it. The electro-

THE ENGINEER
chemical, electromining, hydroelectric engineers are examples of these.

advantages of electrimechanical energy are not far to find. Consider, for example, transmission. Imagine the difficulties of mechanically transmitting the energy derived from Niagara Falls. It would have to be carried by a series of shafting, belts, and
cal over chemical or

The reasons

for the

gears prohibitively expensive to construct,

involving much loss of power, and difficult to keep in repair except for very short distances. That is why so many of the
great waterfalls of the world man's earliest source of power continued untapped until the beginning of the electrical era, or were

used simply to operate local mills. Many these falls were so situated that mills turned by their power could not be greatly
of

successful or of wide usefulness.

transmission of electrical energy reThe conquires nothing but copper wires. of mechanical into electrical energy version
requires only a dynamo, an exceedingly simThus, when dynamos came to ple device.

The

be operated by Niagara, we had a source of light, heat, and power of which a vast terri-

THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

tory could avail
itself.

141

It also

produced a

quantity of electrical energy which could be used for electrolysis, and many chemical

became

processes of incalculable value industrially possible on a large scale, as the

reader will see in the chapter on chemical Of course the electrical energy engineering.

obtained in this
far cheaper

way was for most purposes than the same amount of energy produced by the combustion of fuel.
Electrolysis

the analysis

by

electricity of

a compound into its component elements is not, however, the only aid electricity has given to chemistry. The electric furnace has given us the carbides, silicon, acetylene, cyanimid, and aluminum. It has had a

most important
their ores
sible in

effect on metallurgy, making the reduction of certain metals from possible

(aluminum, for example), impos-

the blast-furnace.

The

relation of

electricity to

an intensely fascione. It is so close that both subjects nating must be carefully studied, both by the chemical and the electrical engineer. It must be remembered that electrical energy is genchemistry
is

erally chemically produced; that is, either by the combustion of fuel or in a chemical

142

THE ENGINEER

battery, the latter, of course, being out of consideration as a source of power. Production

by water-power means universal.

is,

of course,

by no

Steam-plants are going out because of the

elaborate equipment necessary to transmit the power, the necessity for crowding the

machinery, the liability to accident from the multiplicity of belting, shafting, etc.,

and

electric

all this, all

of

motors are taking the place of them being connected with a

central steam-operated
itself

dynamo,

either in the

plant tance away. The design, construction, and operation of these plants will require many
electrical engineers for

or in a power-station some dis-

every phase. This summary of the possibilities of future electrical development is simply to show that the embryo electrical engineer has good opportunities and a long list of specialties from which to choose. To advise about these
specialties is as difficult in this as in the

other kinds of engineering; every boy who is interested enough to become an electrical engineer at all must have some strong perIf he has not if, for instance, sonal leaning.
;

railway work

is

no more appealing to him

THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

143

than illumination, or vice versa, he will do well to stay out of the profession entirely.
sities

of the technical schools and univerhave good courses in electrical engineering; it is a popular subject, and the sup-

Most

ply in education is rapidly being brought up to the demand throughout the country. Of course teaching varies somewhat; laboratory

equipment markedly. If a man can go to one of the universities which provide for industrial training he will be better off; in the first place he will gain valuable practical knowledge of a technical, economic, and social sort; but if he be a man of moderate

means such a system materially helps him

through his period of study. The courses he will study for a degree in
electrical engineering that is, those courses in addition to the general engineering re-

quirements are about as follows: resistance of materials, elements of alternating

currents, direct-current machines,

thermody-

namics, mechanical and hydraulic laboratories,

water-power machinery, direct-current-machinery design, electric communication, theory of electricity and magnetism, technical alternating currents, electrical

144

THE ENGINEER
laboratory,

machinery, alternating-current laboratory,

standardizing
steam-turbines,

steam-power, theory of alternating-current

circuits, electrical railways, electric plants,

alternating-current-machinery design, illumination, gas-power, and advanced electrophysics.

The

electrical

engineering profession

is

peculiarly one in which study is always a part of the engineer's work. The state of rapid flux in which not only the theory but

the application of electricity will continue for many years yet will make the engineer's

whole

very largely a period of schooling unless, of course, he occupies some subordinate position in which his work is routine,
life

cut and dried, and offering no original opIn the period immediately after portunity. graduation the engineer is likely to occupy
just

such a routine position, with much little pay; if he is worth his salt, however, he will lift himself out of it by study. In this direction he can do as much or as little as he likes his achievement For the ambitious will be in proportion. man this period is often difficult and sometimes discouraging; after the years spent on

work and

THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

his technical education

145

he hopes and expects to see quick results in terms of compensation and position. If he is as awake as he is ambitious

and

his

judgment reasonably sound,

opportunity.

he

will shortly discover

As all engineering is becoming more closely

with business, the electrical branch is no exception. In many of the great electriallied

cal plants there are opportunities of getting into the administrative end, but this is more likely to

be true in some of the smaller and

growing businesses. Here, of course, comes the element of remuneration, which is greater in the administrative than the purely technical side. But whatever work he does in this branch, he should never be able to
ascribe failure to paucity of positions; the demand is great, and will increase until we

discover a force which shall supplant electricitybut that time is yet afar off
!

CHAPTER

XII

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

To mention chemistry in the same breath with war starts most people thinking of
destructive things.

Poison-gas and gas de-

fense, high-explosive shells

fruits of the war,

and smoke-bombs
of

these seem to be the principal chemical

and none

them

is

of

great usefulness in the era of productive peace on which we are about to enter. But

the war has produced more than these, indirectly,

perhaps, by depleting supplies of food and raw material, and making necessary the exercise of every ingenuity known to chemical science to find substitutes.

Thus came the artificial production of soap, textiles, gum, and rubber in Germany, and the vast number of "ersatz" foods w hich made it possible for the German people to In this country, while we suffered subsist. less than the European nations, we were hard-pressed for drugs and dyestuffs and other chemical products which we had forr

146

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

147

merly imported from Germany. From this lack we found escape in learning to make these things here. We were assisted by the fact that many of the materials from which dyes were made were also used in the production of explosives, so that it was possible for war research to reveal and improve processes
for

making these important peace-time comA large dye industry has sprung modities. up during the period of the war, which proin

duced

1918 45,977,246 pounds, as con-

trasted with imports in 1914 of 45,840,966.

These dyes
those of

compared favorably with German manufacture, and many

all

were proved by test to be superior. Large laboratories were established in connection with munitions plants, and great numbers of research chemists were engaged. These resources and men can now be turned to account in industrial research, and we may confidently expect a quantity of revolutionary discoveries during the next decade. The war has served to wake American

chemists to a full realization of the vast value of synthetic processes in every field

and to prove
cessfully with

their ability to compete sucEuropean experts. With this

48

THE ENGINEER

impetus, industrial chemistry will come to be one of the most indispensable fields of usefulness in all the category of applied science,

and one
endless

which the opportunities will be of wide variety. Not only in the purely chemical industries has the chemin

and

ist become indispensable. When we consider that the making of steel, textiles, rub-

all

every sort of food, paper, glass, use of paints, oils, gas, and even the combustion of fuel involve chemical processes, we
ber, fertilizer,

can see that there are few industries in which the advice and research of the chemist is not of great economic value. Thus, in plants where the chemical processes are important
there are trained chemists
lysts,

who work

as ana-

research and control chemists.

The

analyst "samples" raw materials, comparing those offered by various companies in order to find the best; he does the same with fuel;

he also analyzes finished products of

his

own
basis

and competing companies, and on the

of these analyses his employer seeks to make improvements. The research chemist works
in the laboratory,

processes,
esses,

and seeks new chemical improvements on present procpossible new by-products, and means

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

of eliminating waste.
is in

149

The

control chemist
;

an administrative position he organizes

the units of the plant, supervises the introduction of processes, institutes new economical

methods

much

of his

work

is

that of an

industrial engineer specializing in chemistry. He is not merely concerned with the technical side of the industry; the purely adminis-

trative

is

equally part of his business.

He is

of accounting, organization of labor, storage of stock, etc.

interested in

methods

So

far

we have kept within

is

the

field of

the

industrial chemist,

and the reader

of this

probably beginning to wonder has to do with engineering. Suppose a research chemist working in the laboratory of an explosives works discovers a new dye by the distillation of some form
chapter

what

all

this

of coal-tar.

If his

employer becomes

inter-

ested in the process and believes it will be to his advantage to make it part of his industry,
is

he

will call in

a consulting chemist who

and

specialist in dyes or coal-tar products, ask his advice. The consultant may

approve of the process, and advise the establishment of a new plant, possibly in a new locality, where the raw material needed is

150

THE ENGINEER
markets
easier.

more available or transportation to particular

We have now taken the theoretical steps. We have decided to adopt the process which
has been successfully shown in the laboratory by the research chemist and to build a new
plant in which to put it in force. The next step is to design the plant, install the special kind of machinery required so that the process can be carried out, yielding the largest results at the lowest cost.

At
in.

this point the chemical engineer steps

The chemist cannot be expected

is

to de-

a specialist in laboratory experiment, knowing thoroughly the reactions but unskilled in construction and operation of machines. The mechanical and electrical engineers, however they may know the applications of mechanics and electricity, have only a general knowledge of chemistry, and cannot be expected to design machinery especially adapted to chemical The very materials which must processes. be chosen require particular properties to withstand the contact with chemical substances which only the man with a detailed knowledge of chemistry can be familiar with.
sign the plant, because he

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

151

So we must combine the chemist and the engineer in proper proportion, and thus we evolve this new profession to fill an imperative need. Without the chemical engineer, the new process must remain in the beakers and retorts of the laboratory. Many processes discovered long ago have been obliged to wait years in the form of formulas until
the chemical engineer

came to give them

shape in finished products produced on a large scale, with profit to the producer. However wonderful a process may be found in the laboratory, it can have no usefulness
until it is put into practice economically enough to be worth while both to the buyer and the person who puts it on the market.

engineer, given a reaction and told to go ahead with a plant, uses his chemical knowledge first. He carefully stud-

The chemical

the reaction; the effects of the chemicals used on the materials of various apparatus, the conditions of heat and pressure under
ies

which it is produced most effectively and most economically. If he has a semi-manufacturing-scale laboratory to work in, so much the better. He may discover that

some

of the reagents used will,

on contact

152

THE ENGINEER

with iron, form a compound which would impair the purity of his product, in which case he must eliminate iron from that part of the apparatus through which these chemicals He may even find that a variation in pass. the process may enable it to be produced with less heat or less pressure or with simpler machinery. When he has carefully investigated the reactions from the chemical and physicochemical points of view, he sets about making all the necessary machinery to put the process into practice. Here come in His his mechanical and electrical training. work will be easily understood when we remember that formerly it was done by a metion were supervised

chanical engineer whose design and construcby a chemist. Some-

times the supervision by the chemist was inadequate or conflicted with the engineer's ideas about machinery or possibly the chemist was insufficiently skilled in the physical
;

side of chemistry; at

any

rate, there

were

many unfortunate and expensive results of this combination. Enough has been said to suggest the qualities and education required of the chemical The analytical instinct is not engineer.

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

enough; neither
structive.
is

153

the mechanical or conall

He must have

the natural

qualities of the engineer education of the chemist.

and much of the His work is really

a highly specialized kind of mechanical engiHe must know all about manufacneering. turing machinery, and this includes excavators, conveyers, cranes, everything in connection with the movement of materials,

such as are used in any manufacturing indusHe must also know all the devices for try. making chemical reactions on a large scale
vats,
stills,

evaporators,

how they

are

made

and how operated.

understand combustion of

He must thoroughly He must know electrolysis.

fuel in detail.

a plant requires more grounding in accounting is necessary in his estimation of costs, for a chemical engineer engaged in such work must be able to show a businesslike costof

But the design

this.

than

sheet before the construction begins. He must have experience with labor conditions,

be able to divide labor properly and organize This comes under the head of adminisit.
tration,

and the chemical engineer who is a good administrator and executive will not

154

THE ENGINEER
life in

a subordinate position. He must also know a good deal about hygiene. This is especially important in designing a chemical plant, so as to prevent accident, poisoning from gases, fumes, etc. A mistake spend his

due to ignorance of hygiene and the effect of chemicals on the human body may cost lives.

The

technical-school

course in chemical

keep a man busy all the year round, except for a few weeks' vacation in the summer. It should provide for some practical experience in a factory, or at least
engineering will
for factory inspection.

This profession

is

so
it

comparatively new that the courses in

differences in detail.

have not become standardized, and there are

The

list

of courses

given at Columbia is typical enough to give as an indication of the ground that must be

covered

First Year: Industrial organic chemistry, or-

ganic chemistry, quantitative analysis, principles of electrical engineering, statics, physical

laboratory, chemical factory equipment, engi-

neering chemical laboratory, power, dynamics. Summer: Factory inspection (two weeks) fac;

tory practice (six weeks). Second Year: Industrial

organic

chemistry,

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

draulics, elements of alternating-current

155

physical chemistry, resistance of materials, hy-

machin-

ery, direct-current-machine laboratory, engineering thermodynamics, treatment of water and

sewage, synthetic organic chemistry, machine elements, and one course of the following: analytic organic chemistry, assaying, minerals used in

chemical industry. Second Summer is spent in the chemical-engineering laboratory (six weeks). Third Year: Industrial organic intermediates,
factory equipment and design, proximate organic analysis, factory management, metallurgy of iron
steel, advanced organic chemistry, induselectrochemistry, applied colloid chemistry, chemical-engineering thesis, industrial confer-

and

trial

ences, metallography of iron, steel, etc.,

and one

course from each of the following groups: (i) steam-power and furnaces and heat transfer;
of lead,

advanced organic chemistry and metallurgy silver, gold, etc.; (3) gas-power and optical mineralogy and petrography.
(2)

This three-year course presupposes three years in academic college work, including

thorough training in mathematics, general

physics, general chemistry, qualitative analysis,

drawing, and mechanics. I have given this in detail to show the proportion of engi-

156

THE ENGINEER

neering to chemistry in the preparation for

this career.

ties vary,

After graduation the kinds of opportunibecause even within this already

specialized

department of engineering further

The main divispecialization has gone on. sions of chemical engineering which may be
considered by the technical-school graduate on the threshold of his career are design and
operation.

Many men

pass from one to the

other, but the chances are that from the start every technically trained man will be especially interested in one of these phases.

These

classifications

apply as well to me-

chanical and electrical engineers.

The

de-

signer may begin with an engineering company which builds manufacturing plants, and here he will work with other specialists on the construction of chemical machinery. In work here he will have opportunity for broad experience, not limited to a particular type of machinery for a particular product. Thus, he may train himself to be an inde-

pendent or consulting engineer, specializing on design. He may begin in the employ of a

large chemical plant to assist in the design of additions to the plant, the installation of

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

new

157

processes, etc., which would probably be more specialized work than he would get in a plant-construction company. If he is more interested in operation than design he may start as a foreman in a factory, advancing to superintendent, from which he may become a consultant and be

by the company in this capacity. discovers in himself a leaning toward the administrative side of the work, he may
retained

Or if he

plant, and eventually will very likely obtain an interest in the busiThere is no ness, or become a director. reason why this future should not be as much

become manager of the

open to the chemical engineer as to men in the other branches; more so, really, because he is always concerned with manufacturing. Very often both functions design and operation are combined in a single man. In a small plant where but one chemical engineer is employed, he will supervise its mechanical operation and devise improvements in the machinery. As the plant increases in size, he will be given the job of enit or if it increases the variety of its products, he will be in charge of putting in whatever new processes the research chemist

larging

158

THE ENGINEER
devise.

may

He may

demonstrate great
all

ability as a designer, energies to design.

and transfer

his

Chemical engineering more than any other may be called the engineering of the future. It is the result of an evolution in which most of the other branches have played a part.

Chemistry was

first

introduced into engineer-

ing in mining, though it was not recognized as such. Mechanical engineering made possible the application of

chemistry to indus-

try,

and

electrical engineering aided this ap-

plication still more. To-day the chemical engineer combines in himself the mechanical

and

electrical technology,

and

is

an expert

in applying these to industrial chemistry. He has really three possible fields in which
his originality

may

work.

There

is

not the

slightest reason why purely mechanical or electrical invention might not be a by-prod-

uct of his effort.

A chemical engineer could

change his profesin either of the

without
sion

much

difficulty

and become an expert provinces mentioned above.

The chances
ical

are,

engineer will ufacturing industries of every kind are de-

however, that the chemnot want to change. Man-

THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER

manding
will

now, and this demand increase as new needs and new solutions
his services

are

unfold in the future. Many chemical plants still following the old tradition of em-

ploying a chemist and an engineer to install and operate their machinery two men doing one man's job. Eventually all of them will insist on having chemical engineers.

depend to-day in almost every work we do on the products of industrial chemistry.

It gives the physician his drugs,

We

the

the printer his ink; it provides much of the food we eat, all the dye with which our clothes are colored, our soap,
artist his colors,

matches, gas, ice, shoe-polish it is difficult to find anything in the making of which it has not had a hand. The whole science of

photography, with
color-printing,
pictures,

all

its

ramifications of

X-ray photographs, motionphotogravure, have been made available to the public through the work of the industrial chemist. The life of the chemical engineer may seem less inspiring to the adventurous than that
of the civil engineer, because
it is likely

to

be more physically confined; surely, though, it is a never-ceasing exploration in as many

160

THE ENGINEER
the explorer chooses.
It
is

directions as

work

of wide variety, limited only by the limitations of the engineer himself. It is

difficult

we cannot tell, a science as young as this, what new discoveries may be made at any moment. The of radium was undoubtedly the discovery
in

to predict definitely possibilities of the future, as

all

the concrete

most amazing
upsetting,

in all the history of chemistry,

it

as

did,

the existing atomic

theory, and showing the decomposition of atoms. Various uses of this element have been found which are of great practical
value,

but the future undoubtedly holds

many others and a further development of the whole radioactive theory.

The chemical engineer stands to-day on the threshold of a vast virgin realm in it lie
;

the secrets of life and prosperity for mankind in the future of the world.

CHAPTER
A

XIII

THE MARINE ENGINEER

and ships and everything that belongs to them must be fundaof the sea

LOVE

mental

in the soul of the

marine engineer.

Whether he designs hulls or the engines that propel them (and this kind of engineering has divided itself into these two phases), a

man
ently
sake.
in
is

enters this profession because inherit has a fascination for him that is

irresistible;

he does

it

wholly for

its

own

There is no other engineering effort which this element of the temperament

so essential. The successful ship-designer or marine engineer is generally a man who has lived with boats from his infancy, played with them as a child, begun to build them

and work over them as sOon as he could handle tools, sailed them and studied all their caprices, and finally made a profession
of them, because, as
it

were, he could not

help

it.

From

the eighteenth-century
161

wooden

sail-

ing vessel to the twentieth -century

"ocean

i62

THE ENGINEER
The

greyhound," or dreadnought,

is an amazing and construction of a design progress. steel steamship has become as much an engineering problem as the erection of a steel-

constructed

power

is,

Equipping building. of course, entirely so.

it

with

From an

old and dignified trade, the building and fitting of ships has become one of the highest branches of the engineering profession.

Always, however, in this country, shipbuilding has been limited by the small size of our merchant marine, and until the war it

was confined

largely to war-ships, lake and river steamers, yachts and small boats, speed

During the war, boats, hydroplanes, etc. there was an increase in ship-buildhowever,
ing in this country so astounding that the In 1917, the figures are almost incredible.

year of America's entrance into the war, deliveries showed a total of 57 ships, with a dead-weight of 302,115 tons, which in the

went up to 533 ships and a 3,029,506. These ships were tonnage of course, for transporting troops and used, supplies in the war, and most of them were turned out in an amazingly short time, one
following year
of
steel ship

having been completed in seven-

THE MARINE ENGINEER

teen days.

163

During this strenuous period shipyard in the country, including every many enormous new ones built especially for this war work, were engaged in the most intense activity of building steel, wooden, and concrete ships. Then, of course, every naval
architect

was busy, and many engineers of other kinds were working at ship-building;

mechanical engineers made marine engines, and electrical engineers designed and made
auxiliary

equipment

for ships.

With the armistice this activity came to an end, and many persons who had been
engaged
in ship-building in all kinds of ca-

Neverpacities were out of employment. have been theless, though government yards abandoned, ship-building in America has by no means come to an end in fact, the figures of 1919 actually show an increase over the
;

previous year, although this is largely due to a great output of tankers. During the
years 1918 and 1919 the United States led the world in the total number and tonnage
of ships built.

engineer has generally been used in connection with the man who designs engines rather than hulls. Both are

The term marine

164

THE ENGINEER

really engineers, but as we are too limited here to give details of both careers, it will be better, I think, to confine the discus-

sion to the

career which the term origi-

in general, it still of the designer of signifies. training ships* engines must, of course, be much like that of the mechanical engineer, including

nally signified,

and which,

The

mechanics, thermodynamics, hydraulics, and materials, in addition to the usual funda-

mentals in mathematics, physics, and chemBut besides all this, he should be a istry. specialist in turbines; he must know enough
electrical application to design

and super-

vise the construction of electric auxiliary

machinery, such as steering-gear, lighting

and communication systems, switchboards,

generators, motors, wireless apparatus, etc. But he must also have a knowledge of things

that are primarily nautical in character, differing

essentially

from similar machinery

as,

used for other purposes,

for example,

pumps, feeders, condensers, evaporators, ship ventilation systems, windlasses, and many others.
Before an engineer can undertake to install engines and machinery in a ship he must

THE MARINE ENGINEER

165

know something about the ship itself. Thus we require of the marine engineer some of
the fundamentals of naval architecture, such as the principles of ship design and con-

and shipyard practice. With these comes to understand stability, buoyancy, design as it affects speed and its relation to engines; gradually he gains a
struction
studies he

knowledge of the whole of a ship in its details and its ensemble, its building, its performance in the water, how it is navigated. The marine engineer's work on a ship is not completed

when

the ship

is

launched.

He must

test all the

machinery in operation during the trial, find means to correct any errors
which

may have

been made in

its

construc-

tion,

and meet any unforeseen

difficulties

which

may appear. In the past most marine engineers have

in shipyards,

grown up, so to speak,

be-

ginning, perhaps, as draftsmen, apprentices of various kinds, machinists, etc., but now, as in other engineering fields, most success-

marine engineers are graduates of technical schools. All universities do not give courses in marine engineering or naval architecture, because the demand for this educaful

66
is

THE ENGINEER
largely localized, and the men who into these professions are mostly

tion

want to go
those

who live in seaport or lake towns. Excellent courses are given in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University
of Michigan, Academy at

and the United States Naval

The following Annapolis. naval architecture and marine engineering is given at the Massachusetts
course in
Institute of Technology:

COURSES IN NAVAL ARCHITECTURE AND MARINE ENGINEERING

Second Year
FIRST

TERM

SECOND TERM
Ship Construction Ship Drawing

Mechanism
Mechanical Engineering Drawing Descriptive Geometry

Mechanism
Mechanical Engineering Drawing and Surveying Instruments Applied Mechanics
Forging

Forging

Mathematics
Physics Physical Laboratory Applied Chemistry English

Mathematics
Physics Physical Laboratory Precision of Measure-

ments
English

THE MARINE ENGINEER

Third Year
FIRST TERM Naval Architecture

167

SECOND TERM Naval Architecture

Ship Construction Ship Design Heat Engineering Engineering Laboratory Applied Mechanics Physical Metallurgy

Ship Design

Heat Engineering: Thermodynamics Applied Mechanics Mathematics

History II
Political

Economy

General Studies

Foundry Vise and Bench Work

Business Law General Studies

Fourth Year

FIRST TERM Naval Architecture

SECOND TERM Naval Architecture

Ship Design Marine Engineering Marine- Engine Design Marine Steam-Turbines
Engineering Laboratory Sanitary Science and Public Health Machine-tool Work Thesis

Ship Design

Model-making Ventilation and

Drainage Applied Mechanics Testing Materials Laboratory Hydraulics Engineering Laboratory

Elements of Electrical
Engineering
Electrical Engineering

Laboratory Machine-tool Work

68

THE ENGINEER
necessitated

The war

many

changes in

ship-building methods, due to the primary requirement of speed of construction, to

which careful individual design was largely

subordinated.

Thus came

into existence the

a ship of perfectly standardized design and construction, whose parts could be manufactured in large quanso-called fabricated ship

anywhere. Instead of all the work on a ship being done in the shipyard, it is done in various factories all over the country and
tities

the parts shipped to the shipyard.

The

work of cutting, and shaping the

ized

drilling,
is

plates steel-construction

done

bending, welding, in standard-

factories.

In

this

way the work and equipment of shipyards during the war could be cut down and this
"
fabrication'*

done

in

factories

which

in

peace-time had been engaged in the making

of girders, etc.

Since the war, however, methods have reverted largely to the system of building the ship entirely in the shipyard, and with

the necessity for quick construction at an end, design is coming into its former imporIn engines the turbine is supplanting tance. the reciprocating, because of increased econ-

THE MARINE ENGINEER

omy

169

of space; in small ships and boats the internal-combustion engine is supplanting

the steam; in war-ships and sea-going merchant ships oil-burning engines are supplanting coal-burners.
Electrical devices are con-

stantly being introduced into the auxiliary machinery of ships. All these should be
specialized in dent.

by the marine-engineering

stu-

Practical shipyard work, whether erecting

work

in the machine-shops, in the

it

mold

loft,
if

in the steel-mill

makes no

difference

the work

is not directly concerned with the is very valuship's engines or machinery

able to a marine engineer, and no one should come to the top of his profession without it.

Sea experience, work on shipboard in the

engine-room, is highly advisable, and may be done by students during the summer, or

immediately after graduating from technical An engineer who has a good education, knows naval architecture, and has practical shipyard and sea experience, has
school.

an opportunity to become chief engineer of a shipyard, an excellent position. During the last few years the scale of compensation for marine engineers has increased,

i;o

THE ENGINEER
is

and the profession

now

well paid.

Its fu-

ture depends, of course, on the future American merchant-marine policy. If, as a result
of the war,

which demonstrated our

ability

to build ships and carry on shipping on a scale unequalled by the other nations, we

give up our traditional policy of carrying on our trade in foreign bottoms, the opportunities for

indeed.

the marine engineer will be very great With such a policy we should find

that

we were by no means overstocked with

ships produced during the war period, but that we could profitably use all these and

more. Business opportunities in ship and shipengine construction are open to the marine

many

engineer,

and there are many

allied busi-

nesses, such as steamship lines administration, exporting and importing, insurance, etc., in which a technical education in marine

engineering

is

of real practical value.

The

manufacture of small boats, small marine engines, gasolene,

oil, etc.,

and speed
is

boats,
is

The man who

hydroplanes, yachts, often very profitable. educated as a marine enis

surely better able to establish or gineer enter a business for the manufacture of such

THE MARINE ENGINEER

man. But the

171

boats or engines than the ordinary business

inducements of this profesMen go into it because like a life that is closely associated with they The sea has a peculiar fascination for ships. some men they are never quite happy away from it; the instinct to sail on it, to fight it,
real

sion are intrinsic.

to contrive

means

of conquering

it,

is

in-

domitable within them.

is

the material for

Here and here only successful marine engi-

neers.

CHAPTER XIV
THE MILITARY ENGINEER
THE
a
best in
neers.

military engineer

soldier.

must be first of all At West Point the men who do all their work are graduated as engiArmy officers look upon the engineer

corps as the highest branch of the service

and the one requiring the most complete knowledge in every department of military
activity.

The line officer of infantry or artil-

lery must know his own branch perfectly in detail and the other line branches in their general tactics, but the engineer must know

the tactics of every arm, and, in addition, the operation of the service of supply, the air
service, chemical warfare,
tifications

and

especially for-

and camouflage. Secondly, he must be an engineer. He must be schooled in the fundamentals of civil, mechanical, electrical, and railroad en-

gineering; he

must know the

details of con-

struction, with special emphasis on roads, railroads, bridges, tunnels, trenches, drain172

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

age, water-supply,
tions.

173

and

all

military fortifica-

a broad knowledge of other sort of engineering, because in every the army there is no distinction between
construction, mechanical, railroad or electrical engineers;

He must have

the military engineer must handle any work of an engineering nature

arises in the course of operations in the field, except in the matter of communi-

which

cation, which is handled by the signal corps. If a railroad is to be built to transport am-

munition, supplies, or troops, an officer of the engineer corps is put in charge of it; he will probably have to make his own machin-

ery for hoisting, transportation, etc., and he may have to build the locomotives which run

upon

it.

The main difference between the military engineer and the civil is that the latter makes permanent rather than temporary construcdo not mean by this that military engineers do not often build permanent works; on the contrary, they are responsible for some of the most enduring construction
tion.
I

the Roman roads, for example, the great fortifications of the Rhine, the Panama Canal. But the work of the miliof all time

174

THE ENGINEER

tary engineer in the field, particularly in modern warfare, consists largely in temporary fortifications, temporary bridges, temporary intrenchments, roads, railroads. His work in the actual theatre of operations is
largely one of expediency, designed for some immediate purpose, of little or no value after

that

momentary need has been

filled.

Few

relics of

the engineering feats of the World

War

remain intact to-day except, perhaps, of the massive and thorough work of the Germans. The military engineer is al-

some

ways working against time,

his job

must gen-

erally be a hurried one, often the risk of his life. bridge

completed at must be built

to-day for a division to cross on to-morrow; the day after it will very likely be blown up.

road

is

repaired so that a certain

number

of trucks

may
of

pass over

repair

is

no

it; after that, the further value. gun em-

placement, a series of dugouts, saps, listening-posts, an arrangement of camouflage is made for a week's or a month's use beyond that neither the engineer nor any one else
;

cares

point

what happens to them. The main that they must be finished in time. Much of the war-engineer's work conis

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

sists

175

not in construction but in destruction.

He must know not only how to build bridges but how to destroy them; he must be able
In a to mine a road as well as to repair it. retreat the engineers prepare the destruction

which follows

in their

pursuing enemy.

wake to block the The chemistry and use of

explosives must, therefore, be part of his education. Some of the greatest works of

World War have been entirely destructive, as, for example, the mining of Messines Ridge as part of an attack, which took more than a year's prepmilitary engineers in the
aration.
field-work, being does not require the meticuhurriedly done, lous accuracy of detail that a civil engineer puts into his work. With the instruments, material, and machinery at hand such accuracy would be impossible. With peace-time

Of course most of the

work, however, very great care is often necThe United States Topographical essary.
Survey, for example, requires the utmost preThe building of the Panama Canal cision. demanded as much accuracy as any civilengineering work that has ever been done. It is not, however, for such work as this

i;6

THE ENGINEER
is

that the engineer's training

tended.

primarily in-

The natural endowment

consists in

of the engineer a combination of the qualities I

have summarized in the early chapters with the necessary attributes of a soldier; physical health and strength (without which, of course, he will be unable to enter the army),
rigid self-control,

a strict sense of discipline, a keen judgment, the gift of leadership, in-

tense interest in strategy and the "game" of war, a natural sense of topography, mental

quickness and alertness, a mind that

is

more

interested in broad principles than in

small details, great adaptability and unlimited resourcefulness.

Unquestionably the last mentioned is the most important part of the engineer's capacity. Being the subordinate of a commander

who has not a technical education in neering but who is keenly alive to the

engimili-

tary exigencies of each moment, he is obliged to obey orders which must often at first sight seem impossible from the purely engineering point of view. The army or corps commander sees the sudden need of a large

movement

of troops or supplies or the for-

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

tification of terrain

177

over which troops must immediately retreat. The general does not and cannot consider in detail the technical
difficulties of his order.

It is essential to
it

the

entire success of his plan that out in a definite period of time.

be carried

engineer receiving the order cannot question it or make suggestions. He must

The

put every force at his command into the invention of enough makeshift devices to carry it out. Technical training in the
niceties of engineering construction is of no value to him here. He may be the greatest expert in the world on steel cantilever or

it

suspension bridges, but this will not make possible for him to transport a division

across a twenty-five-yard stream in twentyfour hours, and get his material from the

woods along the stream's edge. He must think quickly and clearly, make a hasty reconnaissance of terrain and a rapid survey of materials, tools, and men at his disposal, and then bring his broad knowledge of fundamentals to bear on the method of
construction.

A
as

large supply of practical

information
hitches,

to

quick

devices,

knots,

blocks

and

tackles,

pile-driving;

178
quick,

THE ENGINEER
rough methods of calculating safe
is

loads, supporting power, etc.,

real tools of the

essential,

but ingenuity and resourcefulness are the

army

engineer.

The
field

ideal military engineer for

work

in the

cannot be a real specialist in any branch of engineering, because he must be something of a specialist in them all. If he has devoted his time to bridge-building to the exclusion of everything else he will be quite lost when he is ordered to make a He road, revet a trench, or drain a camp. must have learned his fundamentals in such a way that they are applicable in any direction at a moment's notice. This implies a broad background and a pretty gengood
eral discard of non-essentials.

The

higher

mathematics are of little use to the engineer with a mobile army. He works largely with tables and simple formulas which give rough but practical approximations. The army
engineer, in his education,

must devote the

time that the

civil

engineer gives to the cul-

tivation of great skill and accuracy and minuteness of detail, to the learning of tactics.

His work must always be designed If primarily to meet the tactical situation.

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

it fails

179

do this it is not of the slightest value, however beautiful a work of engineerto

ing art
it

may
of far

be.

The

crudest pontoon

bridge

is

force in

more value to a military the field than the most solid and

permanent concrete or steel structure; first, because it is easily and quickly built; second, because it is as easily and quickly destroyed. The economic aspect of military engineering is totally different from that of civil engineering. The civil engineer must al-

ways consider
military in

cost in terms of money; the terms of time and tactical result. The army engineer must construct his road or trench in a definite time to meet a definite

military exigency its expense is of no interest to him. If necessary, he must demolish

;

a building that has cost thousands and taken years to build, to get his material for a repair
or structure that

Expediency must be

may last twenty-four hours. his law. To him it is

far better to accomplish a military victory than to save indefinite millions in money or

Efficiency from the strategic point view consists in getting a certain number of men to a certain place in a given time

property.

of

with the least possible casualties.

i8o

THE ENGINEER

A mere enumeration of the specific duties which the war-engineer might be required to perform would require a volume by itself. A suggestion of their range may be gathered from the fact that they include bridge, road, camp, field fortification, trench and barrack
building, wiring (barbed wire), excavating, sapping, mining, tree-cutting, masonry, car-

pentering,

plumbing, drainage, water-sup-

ply, sanitation, demolition, reconnaissance,

horse and motor transportation,

map mak-

ing and revision, artillery and machine-gun emplacements, care of animals, animal packing, forestry,

installation of electrical

and

mechanical plants, the operation of searchlights, lumber-milling and the use of the infantry arms. The constant performance
of all of these duties

and many others

is

necessary to the maintenance of an the field.

army

in

A
of

suggestion of the volume and variety

in war-time may be gathered from a few figures from the records of the A. E. F. During the American particiin the war 16,000 barracks were providing shelter for 742,000 men; 217,884,337 feet board measure of lumber,

work necessary

pation
built,

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

3,955,678 railroad

181

ties, and 431,147 cords of lumber were produced by 81 sawmills; over 300 miles of road were repaired and 90 miles

of

140 miles of light railway constructed and 170 miles rebuilt; more than
built,

new road

3,000,000 square yards of camouflage material

was produced

all

by American

engi-

neers.

The engineer is not a fighter, but there are times when he is called upon to defend himself, as in the case of the first detachment of American engineers in France who were caught by the enemy, many of them unarmed and obliged to defend themselves with This and other their picks and shovels. incidents show the necessity of drilling the

engineer soldier in the use of small arms, the bayonet and the grenade, although he may

seldom have occasion to use them.

But

al-

though the engineer's opportunity for actual fighting is slight, he is likely to be often in
danger from shells and gas. Many a detachment of engineers has repaired bridges directly under the fire of the enemy artillery, only to have their work destroyed as soon as they had completed it. Thus he must share with the line soldier the ability to

182

THE ENGINEER
fire.

work under

He must

be skilled in gas

work is largely in valleys, along streams, roads, etc., are pecudefense; engineers whose
liarly subject to gas attacks, as they are, of course, to all artillery-fire. So the junior engineer officer must know, besides the in-

fantry and physical

in

drill

which are essential

any military organization to discipline and condition, how to shoot and how to perfect men in the use of rifle and pistol, bayonet drill, the construction and use of the grenade, gas defense, smoke-bombs, etc., and some trench mortar and machine-gun work.

The
time,

engineer

officer,

must be a good

especially in warteacher. While the

majority of his command are generally picked men of unusual intelligence and mechanical skill of some sort, he is almost sure to get some men through transfers and re-

placements

who

require

extremely

rapid

The superintendence of this traintraining. and some of the actual instruction, espeing
cially to

non-commissioned

officers,

devolves

upon the junior officer. In a draft division this work is even more difficult. In the war much of this work of instruction and training of the draft men was done by reserve officers,

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

men who
in civil life

183

were engineers or archi-

tects, and had thus some technical basis for the military engineer's training. It was

amazing
cers,

how short a time these new offitaken suddenly from civilian pursuits,
in
sufficiently trained to instruct

were

men

in

military-engineering work, and to build up efficient war organizations. One of the most important duties of the engineer is to make possible an orderly re-

He does this, first, by preparing the road along which the retreating troops are to fall back; secondly, by preparing secondary defensive positions in the rear, and,
treat.
finally, by demolishing or obstructing the roads and bridges over which they have passed, in order to hold up the enemy.

Equally necessary is his work in the advance; here he must repair the roads and bridges which the enemy in his retreat has destroyed so as to make it possible for supplies and am-

munition to keep up with his advancing One of the important pieces of work here is the repair of railroads taken over from the enemy. The education of the military engineer is
troops.

prescribed so definitely that nothing that

84

THE ENGINEER

could say about it would be especially helpful. At the Military Academy and if he

means to be a
enter the
sible

professional soldier he should

this channel,
if

army through

pos-

will

he will have no elective studies and do no extensive specializing. The work

is alike for all students at West Point, and the branch of the service to which they are

appointed

is

their ability.

determined by the degree of Thus, a man who enters the

academy with the full intention of becoming an engineer may receive his commission in
the field-artillery or infantry if he fails to attain the required engineer standard. The disadvantages of military engineering
are the

same as those of any army career. The student enters West Point as a boy and before he has any knowledge of the world. It is difficult for him to obtain a really broad
culture.

When

he has received his commis-

sion he

his turn for promotion, He receives no regardless of his ability. reward, financial or otherwise, for special

must wait

merit in the performance of his peace-time duty. He has no choice of work. He must

go wherever he is sent, do whatever he is ordered to do, without question. In peace

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

much
of his

185
less

work may be

dull,

though

so for the engineer than

in the line branches.

He

development or

opportunity for individual Of course achievement. men have sometimes been given opporarmy tunities to prove their ability to the world and acquire fame from their achievements. Such a man, for example, was General Goethals. Another, though not an engiThese men both neer, was General Wood. received special appointments by the President, and thus were given opportunities
little

has

which they most richly deserved.

are isolated cases.

But these

On the other hand, there is much that is very attractive in the army life. It is reguand healthful, there is much interesting work and recreation, plenty of companionFor ship and a pleasant community life. many men there is great fascination in comlar

manding men, working with them, instructing them, training and developing them. Many men enjoy the discipline and regu-

Some of the jobs to which officers larity. are detailed are extremely absorbing, and involve important work in civil engineering or
topography.

186

THE ENGINEER
officer lives in

The army
his

little

world of

own, quite separate and distinct from the rest of the community and largely self-sufficient. It is under an autocratic government, in which even the lowest ranking officer is a power of some importance. It is not dependent on the outside world. It has its own laws, customs, manners, rites and ceremonies, finance and supplies. Undoubtedly the engineer has more interesting work during time of peace than most of the other branches of the service. There is always constructive work of some engineering nature going on in the country Often in which army engineers are engaged. this work has no relation to war, as in the
case of the
cavalry,

Panama
artillery,

Canal.

The

infantry,

on the other hand, are a game, perfecting their constantly playing

efficiency in fighting, their skill in tactics, but always in preparation for some future

and

only real In peacetime they are a potential rather than an

War provides the active field for their usefulness.

emergency.

active, aggressive force. But in considering this career, a

man must

always remember that he must be a soldier

THE MILITARY ENGINEER

first,

187

then an engineer. In becoming a soldier he must remember that he is giving himself without reservation to the service of his country. He can have no thought of himself as an individual, but as a unit often a one in a vast very vital and important machine. To one who is born with the attributes of a soldier and a love of the military, and who has the desire and ability to acquire engineering skill, I should strongly

recommend

this profession.

CHAPTER XV
CONCLUSION
IN this book a large subject has been merely outlined. For a more detailed or technical discussion there are a great variety of books not only under each of the main headings of this book, but under all the more
specialized classifications.
I

should advise

any one who has been attracted by any of the branches I have outlined, or who feels that he has a leaning toward a particular province of work, to look up a few of these more specialized books, and ask the advice of some of the men who have been successbefore definitely deciding on his For this reason I am appending specialty.
ful in
it

list

of

books which

will

be useful.

No man, of course, career hurriedly, but this is especially true of engineering, because it requires such special abilities. year or two is not too long
must decide on any

to take in this decision, and the time spent in investigating the subject of engineering will be a gain to him, whatever he makes up
1

88

CONCLUSION
his

189

mind

to do.

The lawyer with some techhandle

nical training is better able to

many

cases
etc.,

involving manufacturing, building, or he may, because of a knowledge of

mechanical engineering, decide to become a patent lawyer. The writer even of fiction will have gained a source of valuable ma-

There are many ex-engineers or men who have studied engineering among the sucterial.

cessful writers, of

son Smith
business

is

whom the late F. Hopkina conspicuous example. The

man acquires information of various

manufacturing industries and training in accuracy and concentration of thought and careful judgment; the physician gets his grounding in chemistry and something of electricity and physics which will be valuable to him; the architect, of course, profits more than any of the others, because his
profession
is

most nearly

allied to that of

the

civil engineer.

In the decision self-deception must be It is a thing on which a carefully avoided. man must be perfectly frank with himself. To try to keep up in engineering after it has become clearly distasteful or unsuited to
one's

temperament

is

likely to

be dangerous.

190

THE ENGINEER

Many men have done this because of pride, a fear of public opinion, or an unwillingness to admit apparent failure, and have continued, even after leaving technical school, in a work which never interested them in the The result of this is sure to be a least. much greater failure later, perhaps too late. The older a man is and the longer he has been in a profession, the more difficult it
becomes
for

him

to recover from failure.

A fair trial will surely show whether a subject interests or bores you.
I

do not mean,
sensation
of

naturally,

that

at

the

first

fatigue or ennui, or because of a temporarily dull phase in some such subject as physics or

mechanics, you should throw up your hands in despair and turn your back on the whole But when, day after day, the most thing. difficult and tiresome effort brings only

mediocre
self

find yourother subjects which are by more appealing than engineering, it is time
results,

and when you

distracted

and consider if you are not neglectsome real talent for one that is largely ing imaginary. The work in the technical school becomes increasingly difficult as it progresses, and it requires a continuous and abto stop

CONCLUSION

191

sorbing interest to meet the difficulties. The technical student does his work because he
to, not either from a sense of duty or because any disciplinary pressure is brought to bear on him. The interested student does not count up the hours he devotes to work with the end of cutting them as short as he can and still get through his examinations; if he is quick at solving the problems set him he will go on in the time that is left into

wants

some further study that is not required for his actual degree some allied subject that will help him in professional work later, or, perhaps, original research for which he will
find plenty of facilities. It is difficult while still in

any kind

of

school to get the habit of looking ahead out of the daily grind into the practising future.
It is

one of the limitations of our educational

system that we are led to stress unduly the importance of examinations, degrees, classroom routine the immediate result, in We set before us an short, of our work. artificial goal which is really remote, and often quite divorced from our real end. The young man who can study with his mind more on the value of his exercise as concerns

192
its

THE ENGINEER

future practical application than on the credit he will get for "passing" is ahead of The new industrial training his fellows.

being introduced in some university courses in which the men are given an opportunity

work as regular employees in a factory on a pay basis is an advance which greatly modifies the weakness just referred to. I want to emphasize again the need of
to

keeping up with current changes by a constant reading of periodicals and bulletins, but especially to urge that as soon as he can after leaving the technical school the young engineer should join some society connected with In this way he will have at his specialty. his disposal a useful technical library, and he will gain much valuable information from the discussions held at the meetings of the
society.

urge the consideration of the life-work on the young man of to-day because I am confident that the engineer of to-morrow will come into a new, greater imI

of engineering

portance than the profession has ever known. I think it will come to play a greater part in
the affairs of government

more, perhaps,

CONCLUSION
in the executive

193

than the other departments than ever before. As I said in an earlier

I

chapter, as they

know

think the public will come to feel the engineer better that his
fits

work

peculiarly

him

for statesmanship.

His whole preparation for his professional

work makes him precise, honest, efficient, unshackled by tradition, aggressive in attacking a problem, sound in analysis and
judgment, fearless in execution.
All of these are splendid traits and qualities for citizenship and government as well

as engineering.

In fact, we are beginning to recognize government as a vast engineering undertaking, in which the fitness and integ-

rity of men are fundamental necessities. By his training the engineer will bring a broader

mind to bear on public problems than will the lawyer, financier, or merchant. The engineer will select men with the same
care and investigation that he selects materials.

He

will

demand

efficiency

and good

management, because those things are essential

is

to successful business, and government the greatest business of all. He will excel

at organization and management, for these elements are primary in his scheme of things
;

194

THE ENGINEER

and when it comes to great public works, which are essentially engineering, there is no
argument as to the necessity of technical In all branches of govtraining and skill.
ernment, with the exception of the judiciary,
the engineer
is

specially well qualified.

brilliant prospects that appear from contemplation of the future in the light of

The

the recent past are strong inducements, but we must not let them become blinding to

our common sense. Many a boy has become a mediocre engineer and grown discontented with the profession who might have been a good lawyer or business man. Such men
hurt the profession of engineering, the profession which they wrongly discarded for engineering, and, most of all, themselves. That is why I urge making sure, first, that the native qualities are there by giving the study a fair trial; then, if the interest is
there,

you
ited

will find that

go ahead, unsparing of energy, and achievement is only limfor work.

by capacity

SUGGESTED BOOKS
The reader will find additional books on all phases of each branch of engineering in a pamphlet published by the American Library
Association:

"One Thousand

Technical Books."

GENERAL
ENGINEERING AS A VOCATION, by E. McCullough. (N. Y.: U. P. C. Book Co.) ENGINEERING AS A CAREER. Edited by F. H. Newell. (N. Y.: Van
Nostrand.)

THE ROMANCE OF MODERN ENGINEERING, by

(Phila.: Lippincott.)

Archibald Williams.

THINKING IT OUT, by Archibald Williams. (Phila.: Lippincott.) ENGINEERING EDUCATION. Edited by Ray Palmer Baker. (N. Y.:
Wiley.)

THE ENGINEERING PROFESSION FIFTY YEARS HENCE, by

Waddell.
.

J.

A. L.

(Published

by the author, 35 Nassau

Frost.

Street,

New York

City.)

GOOD ENGINEERING LITERATURE, by H.

Book Co.) TECHNICAL WRITING, by T. A. Rickard.

(Chicago: Chicago

(N. Y.: Wiley.)

MECHANICAL
THE STORY OF THE ENGINE, by W. F. THE STEAM ENGINE, by E. M. Shealy.
Decker. (N. Y.: Scribner.) (N. Y.: McGraw-Hill.) POWER, by C. E. Lucke. (N. Y.: Lemcke & Buechner.) MODERN INVENTIONS, by V. E. Johnson. (Phila.: Lippincott.)

CIVIL

THE PANAMA GATEWAY, by

Scribner.)

Joseph Bucklin Bishop.

(N.

Y.:

THE CIVIL ENGINEER'S HANDBOOK. (International Textbook Co.) THE ELEMENTS OF RAILROAD ENGINEERING, by W. G. Raymond.
(N. Y.: Wiley.)

AMERICAN ENGINEERS BEHIND THE BATTLE LINES IN FRANCE, by R. K. Tomlin. (N. Y.: McGraw-Hill.)

MINING
ORE MINING METHODS, by Walter R. Crane. (N. Y.: Wiley.) MINES AND THEIR STORY, by J. Bernard Mannix. (London: Sidgwick

&

Jackson.)

195

196
Hill.)

THE ENGINEER
(N. Y.:

THE ELEMENTS OF MINING, by George J. Young. THE BUSINESS OP MINING, by Arthur

cott.)
J.

McGraw-

Hoskin.

(Phila.: Lippin-

DETAILS OF PRACTICAL MINING.

(N. Y.: McGraw-Hill.)

ELECTRICAL
WHAT
Is ELECTRICITY? Service & Co.)

by Charles R. Gibson.

(London: Seeley
(Chicago:

ELEMENTARY ELECTRICITY, by Sidney Aymer-Small.

Frederick J. Drake.)

PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, by A. Gray. (N. Y.: McGraw-Hill.) ELEMENTARY ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM, by Dugald C. Jackson. (N. Y.: Macmillan.) ESSENTIALS OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, by John Fay Wilson.
(N. Y.:

Van

Nostrand.)

CHEMICAL
CREATIVE CHEMISTRY, by E. E. Slosson. THE PROFESSION OF CHEMISTRY, by Richard R.
Constable
mans.)
Pilcher.

&

(London:

Co.)
(N. Y.: Long-

CHEMISTRY IN THE SERVICE OF MAN, by A. Findlay.

THE ELEMENTS OF INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY, by

Wiley.)

A. Rogers.

(N. Y.:

MARINE
THE
SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY, by

Roy W.

Kelley and Frederick

J.

Allen.
J.

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin.)

NAVAL RECIPROCATING ENGINES AND AUXILIARY MACHINERY, by

K. Barton and H. O. Stickney.
(United States Naval Insti(N.
tute.)

TEXTBOOK OF MARINE ENGINEERING, by A. E. Tompkins. Y.: Van Nostrand.) THE MARINE STEAM ENGINE, by R. Sennett and H. J. Oram.
Y.: Longmans.)

(N.

KNOW YOUR OWN Griffin & Co.)

SHIP,

by Thomas Walton.

(London: Charles

MILITARY
ENGINEER'S FIELD MANUAL, U. S. A. THE RELATION BETWEEN CIVIL AND MILITARY ENGINEERING, by (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Major-General William Black.
University.)

FIGHTING ENGINEERS, by F. A. Collins. (N, Y.: Century.) THE ENGINEER IN WAR, by Paul S. Bond. (N. Y.: McGraw-Hill.)

STAMPED BELOW

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