THE GROWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 71 



for solution is a double one, and that it requires the aid of both the 

 scientist and the mechanist in its solution. 



But it is sufficiently evident that, before the engineer can determine 

 what form of machine will best yield to him full control of these forces 

 of Nature, he must have sufficient knowledge of science to be able to 

 understand what scientific principles are to be rendered available, and 

 what phenomena of Nature are operating in the production of the 

 power which he is to seize upon and usefully to apply. Otherwise, he 

 will grope in the dark, and will only learn, by the bitter experience of 

 costly failures, to make slow progress toward perfection. 



We have seen that the larger proportion of the principal improve- 

 ments which have yet been effected in the steam-engine were due to 

 the united engineering skill and experience and scientific attainments 

 of James Watt. We have seen that his improvements followed a long 

 course of intelligent and truly scientific research ; and that, directed by 

 the results of this investigation, the engineering talent and the mechani- 

 cal knowledge of the great inventor accomplished more in a single life- 

 time than had been previously accomplished in the whole period em- 

 braced in the history of civilization. 



This great example confirms what we should infer from the nature 

 of the problem itself, that 



He who would accomplish most in the profession of the mechanical 

 engineer must best combine scientific attainments and especially ex- 

 perimental knoicledge with mechanical taste and ability and a good 

 judgment refined by engineering experience. 



As one of our oldest engineers 1 tells him, he must " cultivate a 

 knowledge of physical laws, without which eminence in the profession 

 can never be securely attained." He must become familiar not only 

 with science and the arts, but he must train himself to make the one 

 assist the other ; he must learn just how to make use of scientific prin- 

 ciples in planning his work, and how to do his work most thoroughly, 

 efficiently, and economically, when he has determined his general de- 

 sign. He must be able to determine how far standard designs are in 

 accordance with correct scientific and mechanical principles, to detect 

 their defects and the causes of those defects, and to provide a remedy 

 correct in principle and mechanically efficient. Science and Art must 

 always work hand-in-hand. 



But how are the rising generation of engineers to acquire this pro- 

 ficiency in both branches of knowledge ? How are they to be made 

 mentally and manuallj'- accomplished ; how fitted for the great work 

 which is laid out for them ? 



The time has gone by when, in any art, the ignorant and merely 

 dexterous workman can compete with even a less skillful shopmate, who 

 possesses and uses brains as well as hands, and knows how to make the 

 the one direct and aid the other. We to-day find him occupying a 



1 Charles Haswell. 



