446 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lated stand for the providing of material and mental food for the 

 masses, the betterment of their conditions of living, for healthy homes, 

 for the pure air, the pure earth, the pure water of the sanitarian, for 

 the intellectual growth which is made possible by freeing man from 

 soul- and mind-killing drudgery. Public service is what engineerng 

 stands for, and perhaps the cultural effect of such work will be ad- 

 mitted. The work is as altruistic as that of the physician, as that of 

 the minister. For the spirit of acquisition, for corporate greed the 

 profession of engineering is not responsible. There has been no fear 

 expressed of our becoming a nation of physicians or even of lawyers. 

 The danger to the commonwealth from a superabundance of lawyers 

 may be greater than that from a superabundance of engineers. There 

 need be no danger from either if the lawyers and engineers are men of 

 the right stamp. 



Moral integrity does not necessarily go with cultural training so 

 called. Men with the broadest of cultural training may be found in 

 the pay of corporations striving for illegal franchises. Political bosses 

 with no cultural training may be found abetting them. Engineers 

 may probably be called upon to carry out the work. The danger to the 

 community lies not in the character of the work, but in the character 

 of the man ; and a nation is in no danger even if it be largely a nation 

 of engineers, as long as these men are men of character. Such men 

 our engineering schools are trying to train and send out into the 

 world. Some of them as yet may be lacking in general training, but 

 no one feels this shortcoming more keenly than these very men. If 

 others were as conscious of their own shortcomings, of their woful 

 lack of knowledge of the engineering of to-day, it would be well indeed. 

 That these engineers, sent out by our schools, are making their pres- 

 ence felt in the world can not be gainsaid; that they have contributed 

 to the mental and moral uplifting of this nation, no one who thinks 

 deeply will deny. 



