1840.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



57 



COLLEGE FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 



In the year 1838, our attention was aroused to a correspondence 

 which had crept into the Times and AthenEeum, attempting to lower 

 the character of the profession in this country, and to set up a foreign 

 standard. We rightly surmised that this was a coming event, which 

 cast its shadow before it, that it was the wish father to the thought, 

 which was to usher in some expedient to correct the assumed abuse, 

 and introduce the new doctrine. Accordingly we hastened to attack 

 the ncw-liurn hvdra, and on repeated occasions expressed our senti- 

 ments relative to their new school of error. Remarks upon this sub- 

 ject will be found in volume the first, page 3G9, and volume the 

 second, p;iges 13, S(i, l'2-l, 152, and 351. On account of this solici- 

 tude for tbe interests of the profession, we were assailed in a violent 

 manner by the advocates of the projected College ; what they gained 

 by the attack our readers know.* In the meanwhile, the plan has 

 been brought to light, a scheme of operations organised, and active 

 preparations made for carrying them into effect. While tlie inten- 

 tions of its managers were not publicly declared, and while they had 

 yet the opportunity of adopting a sane course, and according to the 

 wishes of the profession, we left them to carry on their designs in 

 peace. Now that the mask has been lifted — now that war has been 

 delared against the whole profession, and that an open attempt is 

 made to poison the public mind with error, we feel it our bounden 

 duty to call the serious attention of our readers to the mischievous 

 and fallacious objects, which it proposes to effect. In this investiga- 

 tion, we shall enquire, first, as to the mode of education required by 

 the profession; secondly, as to liow far this is supplied; next, as to 

 the merits of the proposed plan; fourthly, how it has hitherto suc- 

 ceeded, and what are its future prospects ; and lastly, how far it 

 might be rendered useful. 



We have, on previous occasions, already defined engineering,!' as a 

 profession requiring two distinct faculties, the theoretical and 

 practical, the inventive and the constructive. This is a view sanc- 

 tioned by the highest authorities. The Report of the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers for 1837,11; describes the engineer as a mediator 

 between the philosopher and the working mechanic. In their Report 

 for 1838,^ they say, "The objects of the Civil Engineer are defined 

 by your charter, and the council considering that the success and 

 permanency of the Institution must depend, in a great measure, on 

 the care exercised in admission into this class, have repeatedly con- 

 sidered this subject with the view of presenting some definite rules 

 for the guidance of themselves and others. It has appeared that 

 they will be aided in this difficult task by adhering as much as possi- 

 ble to the two following conditions; either: — " 



"He shall have been regularly educated as a civil engineer, accord- 

 ing to the usual routine of pupilage, and have had subsequent em- 

 ployment for at least five years in responsible situations as resident 

 or otherwise in some of the branches defined by the charter as con- 

 stituting the profession of a civil engineer ; or, he shall have prac- 

 tised on his own account in the profession of a civil engineer for five 

 years, and have acquired considerable eminence therein." 



" It is thought that the first condition will include those who by regu- 

 lar education have done their utmost towards themselves for the 

 profession, and that their subsequent employment in responsible 

 situations will be a guarantee that they have availed themselves of 

 the opportunities which they may have enjoyed." 



" In the earlier days of the science of the civil engineer, such a con- 

 dition would have been inapplicable ; then the force of native genins 

 sufficed to place the individual in that position of professional em- 

 inence which commenced with a Brindley and a Smeaton, and was in 

 our own time exemplified in a Rennie and a Telford. To such, of 

 whom there are many illustrious examples amongst us, the second 

 condition is strictly applicable." 



The profession, particularly in its present infant state, is ever called 

 upon to provide for unexpected contingencies, to make new pre- 

 cedents, and supersede old processes. The last ten years has seen 

 a new and imjjortant branch created, and scarcely established, before 

 it found itself, by new improvements, obliged to abandon all its 

 former calculations, and follow new models. The profession, there- 

 fore, is well defined as of two classes, and as uniting two branches of 

 instruction. The accessory portion of instruction is one common to 

 most practical pursuits, and a part of higher education at the same time, 

 consisting as it does, of the mathematical and physical studies, it 

 needs no excathedral inculcation, but admits of being attained by 



* Vol. ii. p. 124. 

 + Vol.i. p. 369, and Vol. ii 

 { See Journal, vol. i. p. 

 § Vol. ii. p. 73. 



. p. 124. 

 138. 



private study by those engaged in the practical department. Like 

 literature, like the arts, it necessarily follows, that its greatest names 

 are not recruited from apprentices to the system, but from every class 

 of society, it admits the collegian and the mechanic ; every man, who 

 feels himself called upon by the divine voice to a destined pursuit. 

 Who have been our greatest engineers ? not students from a college, 

 or an apprenticeship, but the stone mason and the blacksmith, the 

 labourer and the millwright. Engineering is not like law, boimd up in 

 an endless mass of precedents, admitting few new cases, and fearful 

 of diverging from established rules, but it is ever new, ever changing, 

 ever supplanting the past, by anticipations of the futiu-e. It does 

 not, like medicine, require the study of a complicated and little 

 known machine, nor a special application of many difficult sciences 

 to its own objects, it does not require mere judgment to apply old 

 rules, but it perpetually encounters new cases, and applies new re- 

 medies. The records of its operations are hardly published when 

 thcv become useless and superannuated ; many branches are hardly 

 sufficiently advanced to have any literature at all ; consequently, for 

 those seeking practical instruction, the workshop and the field are the 

 only schools; the house cannot be judged by a brick, the sea cannot 

 be measured by a bowl of water, nor can the operations of the engi- 

 neer be taught on any other scale of truth than on that of the works 

 themselves. The lawyer and the surgeon find no college allsuflficient 

 for their instruction, they find not even the court house or the hospital 

 alone efficient, but under the care of the acting practitioner, they are 

 obliged to seek the basis of their education. It is remarkable indeed 

 that a departure should be attempted in this sound course, when other 

 professions are even carrying it to a greater extent; so distrustful 

 are the medical authorities of oral instruction, that they now require 

 at their examinations practical dissections and manipulations. 

 Engineers may be classified under the following heads : — 



1. Civil Engineers— Roads and Railways.il 



Canals. 

 Bridges. 



2. Mining Engineers — Mines.5 Draining. 



3. Marine Engineers** — Ship Building. 



Harbours. 

 Docks. 



Light-houses. 

 Dykes. 



4. Military Engineers. 



5. Practical Engineers — Land Engines. 



Locomotive Engines. 

 Marine Engines. 

 Manufacturing Engines. 



Subsidiary to these are Surveyors, Working Engineers, Locomotive 

 Engineers, and Steam Vessel Engineers. The instruction required 

 for these classes, we consider to be a practical acquaintance with the 

 details of the technical portions, to be acquired under the guidance 

 of practical men in actual operations, and a study of the accessory 

 sciences connected with their pursuits. Ample instruction in the 

 former department is to be obtained from the existing engineers; 

 and with regard to supplementa'y education, numerous institutions 

 exist, independently of the amount of knowledge communicated by 

 mechanic's institutions and other sources. The Institution of Civil 

 Engineers, and the Universities of London and Durham, and the 

 Military Colleges grant degrees, and classes are formed in London at 

 University and King's College, in those of Norwich, Chatham, Sand- 

 hurst, and Addiscombe, and Hanwell Collegiate School ; in the Pro- 

 vinces, in the Colleges of Durham and Bath, the Cornish Mining 

 School, the Scotch Naval and Military Academy, at Edinburgh, the 

 Royal Dublin Society's School, at Dublin, the Agricultural School, at 

 Templemoyle, King William College, Isle of Man, and Elizabeth 

 College, Guernsey. The elements of surveying are taught in many 

 of the schools for the middle classes. 



We have now to consider the proposed plan of the College for 

 Civil Engineers, which assuming different principles, calculates upon 

 supplanting the existing modes of instruction. These are given 

 to the public in a pamphlet, the confusion and ridiculousness of which, 

 for the present, we pass by unquestioned and unremarked. _ This 

 prospectus boldly asserts, that with regard to the demand for efficient 

 practitioners in civil engineering, not one of our Universities or 

 public seminaries has kept pace with this want of the age, and 

 afforded a suitable education for the aspirants in that new profession; 



the best answer to this is to be seen above. What they mean by 



the following, they themselves can best explain. " They are, in a 



II Ingenieurs des Pouts et Chausees, French. 



II Ingenieurs des Mines, French. 



*" Ingenieurs des Travaux Mari times, French. Water Staat, Dutih. 



