The Scientist and the Engineer 63 



the scientific attitude really begun to percolate down to the 

 undergraduate level. 



Finally, it should be recognized that there are several 

 levels of activity in both science and engineering. First, as 

 in any branch of human endeavor, there is a good deal of 

 purely routine work to be done that puts no particular strain 

 on the intellect or the imagination. There is Httle if any 

 difference between science and engineering insofar as gath- 

 ering data by well understood methods is concerned. Both 

 fields require the performance of many chemical and physi- 

 cal tests to provide the data necessary for reaching their 

 objectives. It makes very Uttle difference at the data-gather- 

 ing level that in one case the results will be used to under- 

 stand nature while in the other they will be employed in 

 designing a new device. 



The personnel needed at this level need special training 

 to develop the required skills. In the past the majority of 

 engineering and scientific technicians were high school 

 graduates who received specialized training on the job as 

 draftsmen, chemical analysts, and so forth. Increasingly the 

 modern technician is a college graduate who has majored 

 in one or another of the basic sciences. 



The next level includes the majority of typical scientists 

 and engineers. These individuals are engaged in developing 

 the ideas, filUng out the designs, and applying the rules 

 worked out by the highly original minds at the top of their 

 respective pyramids. It is at this level that the distinctions 

 between scientists and engineers outlined above are seen 

 at their clearest. The great bulk of professional engineers are 

 to be found at this level — building bridges, designing new 

 automobile engines, supervising production lines, working 

 out new chemical syntheses, and developing whole new in- 

 dustries on the basis of such new technologies as electron- 

 ics. Increasingly the engineer must work as part of a large 



