RANK AND TITLE. 455 



engineer by virtue of diploma and experience, he should be allowed 

 the simple justice of remaining such. But, if one of these anomalous 

 beings should presume to sign himself " XJ. S. Civil Engineer," which 

 is his natural and most graphic description, he is guilty of a technical 

 falsehood, as the War Department, by recognizing such a grade as 

 that, and then leaving it practically empty, there being but two United 

 States civil engineers on the rolls, has debarred from its use the many 

 other civil engineers who are equally entitled to that distinction. 



There are engineers and engineers civil, mechanical, sanitary, geo- 

 graphical, hydraulic, steam, locomotive, fire-department, and dozens 

 more. For a man to say that he is an engineer conveys but a vague 

 idea of his business. To say that he is an assistant engineer adds hu- 

 miliation to vagueness. To continue, that he is an assistant United 

 States engineer, working under the Engineer Corps of the army, would 

 probably place him, in the popular comprehension, as an assistant to 

 one of the soldiers of the engineer battalion. At any rate, it is not a 

 distinction in which the American civil engineer can take great pride. 

 To show its worthlessness for purposes of classification and descrip- 

 tion, which is the principal use of titles, we have but to say that in 

 the pay-rolls of the Engineer Department, as published in the " United 

 States Official Register," we find "Engineer, $60 per month," and 

 "Assistant Engineer, $250 per month" ; the former, we infer, being a 

 steam-engineer, and the latter, it is to be presumed, a civil engineer. 

 The civil engineers of America are not a haughty class, but still they 

 do not wish to pass into official history in such a shape as that, 



Words are principally useful for the conveyance of ideas, and when 

 they convey no idea, or, at best, an erroneous one, they fail of their 

 mission. A man's title is in some sense the measure of the respect 

 which the world gives him, and justice to himself and a due regard 

 for the world's convenience demand that it should be expressed in 

 words that will plainly describe his occupation. In private life this is 

 so, and when a man is called an oculist, a photographer, or a grocer, 

 we immediately know his place and importance as a member of so- 

 ciety. When a barber dubs himself a " tonsorial artist," and when the 

 Government, with its red tape, assembles lawyer, physician, and stat- 

 istician under the omnium gatherum title of " clerk," it is an offense 

 against good English language. Since the true worker is always an 

 enthusiast in his profession, and resents being classified under any 

 other head, it is equally an injury to himself. How, for instance, can 

 the lawyer of the Interior Department or the financier of the Treasury 

 go home to his friends and describe himself as a fourth-class clerk 

 without feeling the blush of shame upon his brow ? 



It was left to the Coast Survey to invent the ingeniously menial 

 designation of " acting sub-assistant," and it is difficult to see how any 

 man, loaded down with the ignominy of such a name, could ever do 

 good work or rise to better things. Whatever may be the duties of 



