1839.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



1-25 



know both the nature and the use ; the chemical and physical pro- 

 perties and actions of bodies, he must be intimate with. He has to 

 employ forces of every kind, and must hold them under his control, 

 which he can only do by thoroughly understanding them. In a word, 

 his knowledge must not only be general, but perfect, as ignorance in 

 any one correlative object paralyzes or counteracts the effects of his 

 knowledge in the rest. Can this be denied ? and will any one, in the 

 face of such truths, maintain that science is unnecessary to the civil 

 engineer, or that it is amply |)rovided for among us V The preface of 

 the " Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal " contains an ennraera- 

 tinn of several establishments as teaching civil ingineeiing. In every 

 one of these, certain branches of engineering knowledge may be 

 taught : indeed, it is hardly possible to teach anyhing with which the 

 civil engineer should not be acquainted, but we have no such thing as 

 special schools for civil engineers. Particular classes are highly useful, 

 no doubt, as auxiliaries, and we arc happy to see them established ; but 

 to say that they are sufficient, or that more adequate knowledge is 

 likely to result from such nnconnecteil, and, therefore, imperfect 

 studies, than from a regular course in an establishment where all the 

 elements of a good engineering education are combined, where all tlie 

 efforts tend to the one main point desired, would be to say an absurdity 

 too palpable to be for a moment dwelt upon. 



Ill conclusion, sir, I will merely observe, that engineering education 

 is, with us, wofully deficient; that, at no period was it ever more 

 loudly called for; and that, judging by what has been etfected without 

 it, we may fairly anticipate incalculable lienefits when proper scientific 

 instruction shall guide our practical skill. Let schools, then, be 

 established, and let us not, to favour any particular interests, dissuade 

 the public from a "consummation so devoutly to be wished," as the 

 establishment of special schools for civil engineering. 



I am Sr, yours, &c. » * . 



We pass over the reflections in the above letter on ourselves, for we 

 feel conscious of having done our duty to the profession, and the 

 magis amicus truth ; as to any assertions of venality, it is unnecessary 

 to protest against tliem nhen our venal arguments remain unanswered ; 

 but vie can assure the writer that we are neither shareholders in the 

 universities, nor interested in the professors' fees, and that, still more, 

 we are not on the look out for a berth in any college, to be or not 

 to be. 



We are next assured that the man who would endeavour to ridicule 

 the Polytechnic School must be the veriest, {magnus hie dejiendus 

 hiatus,) but no ! as Peter Pindar has it, "at calling names, I never was a 

 dab." Now, we never ridiculed the Polytechnic School at all, although 

 we are not aware what sacred jirotection it should have in the eyes of 

 Enclishnien. Then it is asked — what are the books from the private 

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

 dictates of professors ? We never said that they were not, or that the 

 dictates of a professor on proper subjects were not of use, but we feel 

 indebted to our correspondent for this argument in favour of the use of 

 books. By and bye he assures us, tliat he can negative our comparison 

 of the inferiority of French public works, and hints something about a 

 Ijarbarous nation. We can only assure him that we should willingly 

 have received the refutation, and paid equal attention to it. We next 

 learn an important fact, that engineers' pupils are not expected to learn 

 anything, but only to pay their money. The writer then introduces 

 a political declamation against our English mechanics, which every man 

 of experience can contradict, and in reply to which we can do no better 

 than recommend him to study that amusing work, " Hints to Me- 

 chanics," by Mr. Claxton. We never said that instruction, other than 

 the private reading of books, was useless and consequently need not 

 advert to such a gratuitous assumption. We have read witli due atten- 

 tion the long muster-roll of names, almost equalling the enumeration of 

 Homer, and we give full credit for the industry in assembling all the 

 names of professors, living or dead, that could be found ; the names are 

 very good, certainly, and include many eminent chemists, mathe- 

 maticians, astronomers, philosophers, &c., but we should like to know 

 how many engineers? We can find plenty of colleges in England to 

 furnish a list of well-known names, but we do not see what that has to 

 do witli engineering. The writer then falls into a farther mistake, when 

 telling us that special tuition must be given in an establishment organised 

 solely for the purpose, he instances the Polytechnic school, believing 

 that it is entjrely devoted to civil engineering. By referring to our first 

 article he will, however, see that it is no such tiling. The concluding 

 definition is also rather loose; it informs us that duties of civil engineers 

 are to construct locomotive engines and build porters' lodges, and 

 manufactories. We always thought that sucli things belonged to the 

 practical engineer and the architect. 



We shall now enter into a farther consideration of the stibject, and 

 shall first endeavour to ascertain how far the nature of the profession 

 of a civil engineer influences his education. It appears to us that the 



course pursued in one profession does not necessarily involve its appli- 

 cation in another, but that each requires a system adapted to its pecu- 

 liar pursuits. If we correctly understand the question, civil engineer- 

 ing is essentially a profession of genius, having to deal with many new 

 and unforeseen cases, and that as decidedly as any branch of the fine 

 arts ; it is therein distinct from law and medicine, which are princi- 

 pally systems of the application of old processes. No one by force of 

 genius conld become a lawyer, and it would be very difficult in the 

 same way to obtain a qualification for the practice of medicine, although 

 the study of physiology aff'ords opportunities for the exercise of the 

 exercise of the higher faculties of the mind. Genius we consider to be 

 the ground-work of civil engineering, and the means of carrying out 

 designs are df rived from general philosophical studies and the use of 

 technical processes. All these are intimately enwoven togetner, in the 

 same manner as in painting. Genius must be united with the mecha- 

 nical handling of instruments ; as in architecture the conception 

 must equally be instructed to be carried out in the treatment of style 

 and its adaptation in construction. 



For the attainment of this practical instruction we imagine no roan 

 of sound judgment would prefer a school to an engineer's office, while 

 to engraft education upon a theoretical instead of a practical basis, or 

 to consider practice as merely the handmaid of theory, instead of 

 its parent, would be undoubtedly to destroy all the advantages which 

 we now so eminently enjoy. It is an error among pedants to substitute 

 theory as superior to practice, instead of reniembering that theory is 

 only a classification of the results deduced fioni it, and that praiiice 

 in engineering holds the same rank with regard to theory as the 

 observation of phenomena does in philosophy. It would be a similar 

 error in politics to consider laws as existing before the population 

 from which they arofe, and it is from one of these pedantic conceit', 

 in supplinting language by grammar, that the study of lilerature is so 

 much thwarted in modern education. Theory, like practice, pro];erly 

 speaking, is only the representation of one faculty of the uiinil, and 

 does not constitute the whole; practice resembles pcrcepticn, and 

 theory is an extension of the power of abstraction and generalization. 



As to the instruction in theory, it must be remembered that facili- 

 ties exist in England in the shape of private teachers and scientific 

 institutions, which the system of universitary police does not allow 

 inFrance and other parts of the continent. There, consequently, llieo- 

 relical instructions must be given wholly in public establishments, or 

 it is difficult to introduce it as an accessory to practical studies. Tlie 

 way in which we look upon the collegiate classes in England, is only 

 as they resemble and supply the place of that system of instruction 

 which already exists, being rendered subsidiary to the general course 

 of education. 



To show that the views which we entertain, however erroneou=, are 

 not without some support from other members of the profession, wc 

 shall refer to the view entertained by the Institution of Civil Engineers. 

 In their regulation for the admission of candidates, they expressly 

 recognise the force of native genius, " which commenced the iirofessiuii 

 with a Brindley and a Smeaton, and was in our own time exemplified 

 by a Kennie and a Telford." They proceed upon the basis of con- 

 sidering practical instruction as the groundwork of the profession, and 

 require from candidates that they should either have served the usual 

 time of pupilage, and then had subsequent employment for five years, 

 or else that Ihey should have practised on their own account for five 

 years, and have acquired considerable eminence. What great names 

 wouldEnglish architecture be able to produce, had they excluded Wren, 

 Aldrich, Vaiiburgh, and so many others ? Where would the arts have 

 been without those names which have sprung- from the ranks of geniu^, 

 a higher school than all the academies which were ever founded ? 

 Schools are limited, and geuius is widely dispersed ; so that the more 

 you restrict your boundaries, the less chance you have of acquiring 

 great men, and the greater certainty you have of falling into that 

 general decay which the mannerism of schools and restricted competi- 

 tion produce. 



The present proposals of giving a preference to theoretical instruc- 

 tion are peculiarly ill-timed, when it has been so strongly felt in other 

 cases that a greater attention to practice was the only sure guide lo 

 eminence. It is well known that the medical world are strongly 

 inclined to abolish the unnecessary distinction between physician and 

 surgeon ; and that they are more than ever convinced of the importance 

 of the preparatory instruction acquired in apprenticeship. As to the 

 idea of making civil engineers in colleges, it is one of the most pre- 

 posterous which ever entered the head of a theorist. We know what 

 has been the success of attempting this system in the fine arts, and we 

 can see what a plentiful crop of daubing mannerists it has produced. 

 We may thus form some idea of what would be its result among the 

 civil engineers ; tliere would be no lack of tlicm, certainly, but tluie 

 would doubtless be a terrible deficiency of talent and a gicut abundance 



