4 PREFACE 



long so badly as not to be able to get on without it." No one 

 knows the truth of this remark more than the men who made a 

 false start and got into the low paid trade of drafting. The pity 

 is that some one with sufficient intelligence had not made them 

 understand at the age of sixteen that a draftsman should know 

 something more than just enough to draw lines on paper, copying 

 examples of the work of other men. If this sort of knowledge 

 were pounded into them they would " give their ears " to know 

 enough to fit them for advancement. 



The realization comes to few before the age of twenty-five. Many 

 are by that time married and to these men the first " lay-off " 

 comes shortly after marriage, because periods of business depression 

 are just far enough apart to allow this. Few, if any, have attended 

 High School and few have graduated from High School. This is 

 the sort of material that came to the author for many years in 

 his evening class work. Not many of the men could find time 

 outside of class hours to work problems. None of them were sure 

 of themselves when it came to working problems. The men most 

 illy prepared to understand a mathematical demonstration were 

 most eager to know " why." Many hours were spent in trying 

 out ways to demonstrate truths in structural mechanics and the 

 mechanics of materials, so that men skilled only in arithmetic 

 could understand them. The men generally resented a seeming 

 attempt to cram them with formulas and rules without a " step 

 by step " explanation of the work. When the author began to 

 teach this class of pupils he was told by instructors who had tried 

 it before that most of them were too thick-headed to do anything 

 with. The author found it otherwise. Where men were dull it 

 was generally because they were overworked or were struggling 

 in deep financial sloughs. 



The men wished to learn. That much was certain. If they did 

 not wish to learn they could have had a better time elsewhere and 

 been in pocket by the amount of the fees they paid for instruc- 

 tion. The author told them at the beginning of each term that 

 if they failed to get their money's worth they could blame him, 

 for he was there to teach them what they wished earnestly to 

 learn. They were a great inspiration to him and those evenings 

 in the class room hi an atmosphere of dogged earnestness and 

 intense hopefulness will ever remain fragrant in his memory. 

 They paid him for many hours he put in when he was tired, trying 



