10 UTILITARIAN SCIENCES 



infancy. We stand on the threshold of a new century; a century of 

 science; a century whose discoveries of reality shall far outweigh 

 those of all centuries which have preceded it; a century whose 

 glories even the most conservative of scientific men dare not try 

 to forecast. And this twentieth century is but one the least, 

 most likely of the many centuries crowding to take their place 

 in the line of human development. In each century we shall see a 

 great widening of the horizon of human thought, a great increase of 

 precision in each branch of human knowledge, a great improvement 

 in the conditions of human life, as enlightenment and precision 

 come to be controlling factors in human action. 



In the remaining part of this address I shall discuss very briefly 

 some salient features of practice, investigation, and instruction in 

 those sciences which in the scheme of classification of this Congress 

 have been assigned to this division. In this discussion I have received 

 the invaluable aid of a large number of my colleagues in scientific 

 work, and from their letters of kindly interest I have felt free to 

 make some very interesting quotations. To all these gentlemen (a 

 list too long to be given here) from whom I have received aid of this 

 kind, I offer a most grateful acknowledgment. 



Engineering 



The development of the profession of engineering in America has 

 been the most remarkable feature of our recent industrial as well as 

 educational progress. In this branch of applied science our country 

 has come to the very front, and this in a relatively short time. To 

 this progress a number of distinct forces have contributed. One lies 

 in the temperament of our people, their native force, and their 

 tendency to apply knowledge to action. In practical life the Amer- 

 ican makes the most of all he knows. Favoring this is the absence 

 of caste feeling. There is no prejudice in favor of the idle man. 

 Only idlers take the members of the leisure class seriously. There 

 is, again, no social discrimination against the engineer as compared 

 with other learned professions. The best of our students become 

 working engineers without loss of social prestige of any sort. Another 

 reason is found in the great variety of industrial openings in America, 

 and still another in the sudden growth of American colleges into 

 universities, and universities in which both pure and applied sciences 

 find a generous welcome. For this the Morrill Act, under which each 

 state has developed a technical school, under federal aid, is largely 

 responsible. In the change from the small college of thirty years 

 ago, a weak copy of English models, to the American university 

 of to-day, many elements have contributed. Among these is the 

 current of enlightenment from Germany, and at the same time the 



