2 Education in Civil Engineeriiig and Mining 



submitted to the judgement of one man. In all public works 

 unlimited confidence must be reposed in the skill and inte- 

 grity of the civil engineer. If a company is formed, the in- 

 dividuals who compose it, and even the greater part of the 

 directors, cannot be competent to form an opinion upon many 

 of the questions which are of vital importance to the success 

 of their undertaking. The peculiar obstacles to be encoun- 

 tered, the readiest and most efficacious means of overcoming 

 them, or the most dexterous way to elude them, all require 

 the union of long practice with natural talents and a cultivated 

 mind. An error of judgement may entail a loss of millions of 

 capital ; .and if such misconduct could be conceived possible, 

 the want of integrity in the engineer would be ruinous to his 

 employers. 



The profession of civil engineer is also requiring from day 

 to day a more extended range of information. Every part of 

 mechanical science, as exercised in the construction of ma- 

 chinery, has received, and is still constantly receiving, great 

 improvement. Questions arise respecting points which have 

 only of late become a part of the civil engineer's practice. 

 The relative position of the surface of very extended tracts of 

 country, and the easiest lines of communication from place to 

 place, require an extent of survey, which hitherto has been 

 confined to the great geodetical operations undertaken for 

 purposes purely scientific, accompanied with a minuteness of 

 individual detail which even those purposes do not require. 

 The extended processes of mining call for a knowledge of 

 geology, mineralogy, chemistry, and metallurgy ; and the 

 constantly increasing boldness of speculation in undertakings 

 of great extent, gives rise to practical problems of the greatest 

 difficulty, and leads to the construction of works which will 

 vie with the most magnificent structures of antiquity. 



Yet, with all these increasing demands upon the skill and 

 attainments of the civil engineers of this country, there has 

 hitherto been found a great deficiency in the means of ac- 

 quiring the requisite information. The education of young 

 men at school has usually been too elementary to be of much 

 service. The course of study pursued at the Universities has 

 been too general and theoretical to be adapted to the parti- 

 cular wants of the young civil engineer ; and although many 

 valuable courses of lectures have been constantly given in the 

 Universities on subjects intimately connected with the theory 

 and practice of engineering and mining, those who are best 

 acquainted with academical studies have been of opinion that 

 the knowledge requisite for practical men would be more 

 advantageously cultivated elsewhere. Hence those civil en- 



