124 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[April, 



CIVIL ENGINEERING EDUCATION AND REWARDS. 



In our last volume, p. 369, we were induced, under this title, to give 

 an ans^ver to the many fallacies which were then afloat on these 

 sulijects, and particularly to the misrepresentations of writers in the 

 TiiiHx and Alhen(Eum, by refuting the theories founded on the Poly- 

 technic School. Not one of our arguments has been contradicted, and 

 in no other periodical has any reply been attempted. The article has 

 created some sensation, and we should not have recurred to tlie subject, 

 having, in our own opinion, said enough to settle the question ; but we 

 have received so many letters respecting it, that out of deference to our 

 correspondents we cannot avoid resuming it. 



We particularly objected to the notion that engineering education 

 conld be taught only in schools, and expressed our conviction of tlie 

 impolicy ofseparating it from tlie present system of practical instruction 

 in the offices of engineers. We have thus unwittingly knocked on the 

 head the favourite crotchet of some of these writers, and we have 

 received a volley of letters in abuse of our arguments, but not in refu- 

 tatisn. The following takes a higher stand, and out of respect for the 

 writer, we give it at length, curtailed only of an exordium giving a long 

 definition of criticism : — 



Sir, — I cannot refrain from expressing both snrprise and regret at 

 finding, in more places than one of the " Civil Engineerand Architects' 

 .Tournal," an attempt to show that engineering instruction is either 

 unnecessary in this country, or tliat it is sufficiently provided for. Both 

 assertions are equally erroneous. I need only advert to numerous 

 instances of failure in engineering works, too well known and too 

 severely felt by the parties concerned in them, to show how absolutely 

 inadequate is the knowledge of our civil engineers generally, and how 

 necessary it is that those wlio intend following that important career 

 be adequately instructed ; and I need only observe that the faculties 

 established at Durham, and in University and King's College, are, 

 though eminently useful, but secondary objects in those establishments, 

 to show that engineering instruction is very far from being sufficiently 

 provided for in this country. I am not one of those who are disposed 

 to see everything good that is done abroad, and everything bad that is 

 done at home ; but equally do I deprecate that erroneous and narrow- 

 minded prejudice which sees perfection in all that is English, merely 

 because it is so, and can find nothing but sneers and ridicule for the 

 finest establishments of other countries, because they are not English. 

 The man who \vo\dd endeavour to ridicule the Polytechnic School of 

 France, must be the veriest — but no, as Peter Pindar has it, "at calling 

 names I never was a dab." 



I will not make invidious comparisons; I will argue the point 

 of engineering education on other grounds. It has been said, that '" the 

 English student derives his knowledge from private study in books, and 

 not by oral instruction from professors." I confess I had yet to learn 

 that our English youth were so passionately fond of study as to require 

 no teaching. It is elsewhere said, " if science were only to be gained 

 from the dictates of professors, we should indeed be in a state of mental 

 degradation ;" and pray, I would ask, what are the books from the 

 private study of which our youths are to become such perfect adepts, 

 but the dictates of professors ? Has the writer of such senseless 

 sentences received no benefit in his lifetime from oral instruction ? If 

 so, he must either be very ignorant or a natural prodigy. 



In the article on civil engineering education, to which I allude, 

 there is a flaming paragraph setting forth our superior excellence in 

 all things, which, as having nothing to do with the point in cpiestion, 

 would have been much better omitted ; to praise ourselves is fulsome 

 and undignified. The writer goes on to state, " To whatever depart- 

 ment we direct our search, it will not be very easy to find any symp- 

 toms of inferiority in the working of our present system." Indeed! 

 It is easy to see the writer has had none of his capital engaged in the 

 thousand and one speculations which have failed for sheer want of the 

 very fii'st elements of scientific knowledge. Again the writer falls into 

 a comparison between France and England, in which, according to 

 him, France has few or no great works. Were we so disposed, we 

 could presently show him his veiy egrcgioirs mistake. Nay, let alone 

 France, we coirki point out in other coitntries, corrntries we are dispo- 

 sed to despise as barbarous, wor-k-; equal in beauty, magnitrrde, scien- 

 tific combination, and pr.actical skill, to anything we can boast ; but 

 we repeat it, we will institrtte no comparisons. 



That we have marry, very many magnificent works no one can or 

 will attempt to derry ; but what does this prove ? That if we have 

 been able to efl^ect so much withoirt the aid of special scientitic know- 

 ledge, we may fairly hope to achieve the greatest things if a proper 

 svstom of irrstruction be introduced. 



Will any man be bold enough to say that the payment of a lOOOA 

 to some celebrated engineer or architect, and that five or seven vears 

 '• copying and transcribing in an office'' are sirfficient to qualify a young 

 man to become a civil engineer ? I appeal to the writer of a paper in 



the "Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal," page 159, vol. 1.; I 

 appeal to every man of common sense. Is any one absurd enough to 

 imagine that an engineer or an architect of first rate eminence, whose 

 every moment is employed in his professiorral duties, can by any possi- 

 bility devote any portion of his time to the instruction of the pupils 

 placed under him ? or is any man disposed to think himself rrnfairly 

 treated because such instruction is not given to his son ? Is it not an 

 acknowledged thing, a tacit understanding between parties, that the 

 1000/. paid to Mr. A. or Mr. B. is solely for the privilege of saying my 

 son was in Mr. A.'s or Mr. B.'s office, and nothing more. 



But will any one be so doggedly ridiculous as to maintain that such 

 a svstem is all-sufficient for the education of our civil engineers, and 

 that too at a moment when the amazing increase of industry calls loudly 

 for a whole host of fully competent engineers ? 



The English mechanic, it is said, " has no Ecole Royale to frequent, 

 and no Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in which to exhibit his per- 

 formances, but he can study in his own house, has his own periodicals, 

 can learn from his brother workmen, and frequent a Mechanic's Insti- 

 tute in every town, while he has the free-born spirit of the English race 

 to direct him, and the stattre of Watt to remind him how his fellow 

 countrymen can appreciate his laboirrs." To call this anything but 

 ridiculous bombast would be to misname it. 



If the English mechanic has not the various advantages above stated, 

 so much the worse, so much the greater shame to this rich and indus- 

 trious country. As for the mechanic's study in his own house, it 

 amounts to very little at most, and instruction from periodicals to still 

 less. His brother workmen, with a few honourable exceptions, are 

 little disposed to teach him anything but the way to the gin-palace, and 

 nine times orrt often he understands not one word of the lectures given 

 at the so-called mechanics' institutes ; and as for his free-born spirit, it 

 directs him in too many cases, alas ! to little else than to rail at all 

 above him, aird at the institutions of his country. Finally, as for tlie 

 statire of Watt, I would like to know how many have seen it, and how 

 marry from the contemplation of it have risen in their career. 



Brrt now come we to the point. Hitherto we have been told that 

 instructiorr, other than private reading of books, is useless ; that withorrt 

 any systematic edircation we have done wonders ; but now we have a 

 recommendation of the course proposed by the English colleges, and, 

 despite the ridicule just thr-own upon oral instrirction, we are now told 

 that " the practice of the students attending philosophical lectures will 

 prove an important help to their professional education, while we are 

 to deprecate any attempt wholly to educate them, whether in an English 

 academy, or the Ecole Polytechnique itself, wirrch might turn out a 

 very good surveyor's hack, but which would not be very likely to 

 prodrrce a Smeaton, a Brindley, or a Watt." 



Now, Sir, I would ask — not to advert to the preposterous idea that 

 the instruction of such men as Monge, Biot, Francoeur, Hatchett, La 

 Place, Legendre, La Croix, Prony, Hassenfratz, Fourcroy, Bertholet, 

 Chaptal, Gay Lussac, Thenard, &i'. &c., can only turn out surveyors' 

 hacks — what, I would ask, is all this but the pulF direct of the classes 

 of civil engineering lately established in some of the English colleges? 

 — the puff exclusive — the pufl' ridiculous, inasmuch as contradictory of 

 what was before advanced — the putt' mischievous, as it deprecates the 

 only means by which solid instruction can be given in civil engineering 

 — viz., special .tirition in an establishment organised solely for the 

 pirrpose of creating efficient engineers. None ean see with greater 

 pleasure than ourselves, that attention is being directed to the necessity 

 of particular instruction in civil engineering. The establishment of 

 the classes alluded to, sufficiently disproves the assertion with which 

 the writer of the article we are commenting sets out. Too long, in- 

 deed, have we been guided by dear-bought experience and expensive 

 blind experimentalizing. It is high time that theory, which is nothing 

 more than the results of the best practice, methodised and reduced to 

 axioms, be combined with practical operations to enlighten them, 

 while practice, in its turn, points out the possibility of fresh improve- 

 ments, with this advantage, that by a knowledge of scientific truths 

 they are founded on certain principles, and are not derived from vague 

 and indefinite conceptions. 



Indeed, the necessity for scientific knowledge is forcibly pointed out 

 in an article headed " Mining and Mines," in the " Civil iingineer and 

 Architect's Journal," p. 4 19, vol. 1 ; and what is essential to miners must 

 be still more so to the civil engineer; for raining is but a part — a section — 

 of the attributions of the civil engineer, whose profession extends from 

 the laying down of a gaspipe to the construction of a jetty ; from the 

 fixing of a crane to the construction of a locomotive engine; from the 

 paving of a court-yard ti the construction of a railway ; from the 

 tracing of a drain to the connexion of seas by a canal; from the build- 

 ing of a porter's lodge to the erection of the most extensive manufac- 

 tory ; from the draining of a cellar to lire draining of a country or of 

 a mine. His knowledge mu>t be general as his labours are multi- 

 farious. Of minerals, metals, and vcgctalile substances, he must 



