President's Address. 29 



class last mentioned above includes relatively only a small number 

 of technical graduates, it is probable that the number of actual 

 engineers at that date was not more than 50,000. Assuming that 

 this number has increased to 53,000 at the present time, there is to 

 be set against this body of practitioners the great body of 25,000 

 students, and we wonder what they are going to do, and ask whether 

 this present trend of young men toward engineering is a healthful 

 movement. We must look further to find an answer to the question. 



It is said that the mean average growth of the number of wage- 

 earners in America is about 3 per cent, per year, while the death 

 rate is about 2 per cent. To provide for this growth and loss there 

 would then be 5 per cent, of 53,000, or 2650 new engineers this 

 year. If we assume 13 per cent, as the ratio of graduates to the 

 total enrolment, as found above, this would furnish a body of 3250 

 with which to fill up the ranks. Hence, we might argue that the 

 supply has reached or even overtopped the demand. Yet there is 

 present another trend in modern affairs that sets this argument one 

 side, and that is the growing recognition of the value of technical 

 college training, followed by more or less of professional practice, 

 as a basis for administrative business life. Engineers are con-^ 

 stantly leaving the ranks of the profession for business openings, 

 while young engineering graduates are accepting positions for 

 which they are well fitted and in which they earn credit, but which 

 can hardly be classed as strictly professional, although closely re- 

 lated thereto. 



The truth is that any sound course in engineering is first of all 

 educational, and professional only as a secondary matter. No 

 school can make an engineer, for engineering as practiced is based 

 on judgment, and this comes only as the result of experience. 

 Some educators have tried to train young men into engineers, and 

 some schools turn out graduates who believe that they possess 

 technical wisdom, a notion that must needs be knocked out of 

 them by hard experience before they can possess a sufficient amount 

 of sense. The most that a school can do is to give a sound train- 

 ing, chiefly in mathematics and physical science and their applica- 

 tion3, and an inculcation of principles, together with a small amount 

 of professional knowledge, principally to help the young man to 

 get a start without an exhibition of too much rawness. With it 

 all, it must be recognized that the pupil is to be a man first and an 

 engineer as a secondary matter. Indeed, he cannot succeed as an 

 engineer without being true, honest, conscientious, simple-minded, 

 open and frank, and without habits of hard work, of close and care- 



