1845.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



l43 



Gallery of London! Tlie stiKlontshoukl not, anil the amateur in arclii- 

 tpcturc cannot, concoal lliis from tliemselv(>s, ami it is necessary that 

 they shoukl both vie with eich other in rising superior to the preju- 

 dices of enrlv educalion. 1 believe that in all ages, and in all profes- 

 sions, there have been those who considered that they had nothing to 

 learn; from the architectural section of this class nothing good can be 

 expected, they never can soar above mediocrity. 



Doubtless there are those who will raise the cry of "pagan and 

 heathen" as applicable to the style we speak of. In one of the num- 

 bers of this Journal for the past year I endeavoured to call attention 

 to the fact that to the Egyptians, or rather their neighbours the 

 Ethiopians, is due the invention of the arch, both circular headed and 

 pointed, which latter when grafted on the Gothic style gives it such 

 powers of fascination, therefore however the " Ecclesiologists" may 

 Hatter themselves as to the purity of its source, it, as well as some of 

 their institutions and ceremonies, names as well as things, are derived 

 from pagan practice and pagan nomenclature. If this be the case, and 

 I am ready to show that it is, the less they say about "heathen" archi- 

 ture as such the more will they display their worldly wisdom. 1 re- 

 frain from enlarging on this topic, beca\ise I do not consider the pages 

 of a scientific journal constitute a suitable arena for the discussion of 

 tiieological questions, and it is much to be regretted that what seems 

 so near |akin to fanaticism of a certain class of religionists should 

 have rendered any allusion to the subject necessary. 

 Clonmore, ^pril, ISH. 



P.S. In the last number of this Journal, a correspondent calls on me 

 to give an account of the late erections in Ireland, iiiais place aux 

 dames, I think I should make way for, and refer "Philo Hibernicus" 

 to the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, which was founded 

 for the purpose of furthering " the Art as taught by Vitruvius and 

 adorned by Palladio." Shoukl they not take the subject up, perhaps 

 I may answer the call at some period not very remote. 



THE COLLEGE OP CIVIL ENGINEERS AT PUTNEY. 



Various notices of the College at Putney have from time to time 

 appeared in this Journal, and the topic has offered occasion for re- 

 marks on the inexpediency of a purely theoretical education for those 

 intended for a profession so essentially practical as engineering. The 

 increasing importance of every subject connected with the professional 

 educationof the engineer, and the removal of many of the above noticed 

 strictures on the College of Civil Engineers, by the increased attention 

 there given to practical applications of science, induced us on a recent 

 occasion to pay a visit to the Institution, and we feel that we shall not 

 be unprofitably employing the time of our professional reader by de- 

 tailing to him the impressions left by that visit. We wish simply to 

 give information as to the exact nature of the college, as far as this 

 may be done without making our notice a mere prospectus or adver- 

 tisement of its merits. 



It is strange that the strongest prejudices against pure science 

 should exist amongst those who are most indebted to it — the practical 

 engineers: it is still more strange that the disciples of theoretical 

 science should look coldly upon the men who by the practical appli- 

 cation of scientific knowledge alone deserve the credit of giving 

 science a real, tangible value. " He is a mere theorist, a speculator," 

 says the engineer of the mathematician, "theory is all very well but 

 it can never stand against practice— give rae plenty of /ac/s. I do 

 not want to make my son a philosopher; I want him to be an engi- 

 neer." And then, if our casuist be a well-read man, he fortifies his 

 profound arguments with a quotation, and reminds you of Lord 

 I3acon's apothegm, "examples give a quicker impression than argu- 

 ments." "Ah," says the philosopher in turn, of the engineer, "he is 

 a capital fellow for the workshop — quite at home among his cranks 

 and wheels, but knows as little of the laws of motion as do the tools 

 which he uses." 



The fact is, gentlemen, you are both wrong and both right ; you are 

 looking on opposite sides of the gold-and-silver shield. 



It seems almost incredible, seeing the experience we have of the 

 assistance which science has afforded to the arts, that men should 

 have been so long deluded with the senseless jargon about "theory 

 being inconsistent with practice." If by this phrase be meant that 

 theory makes deductions which practice proves to be incorrect, the 

 assertion is essentially false : for all correct theoretical investigations 

 contain a specific notice of whatever practical considerations are hypo- 

 thetically excluded, and consequently the experimentalist has due no- 

 tice of the corrections which he has to make in testing the accuracy 

 pf the theory. 



Did it never occur to any of our readers that it was possible that 

 an adequate knowledge of both theoretical and practical science might 

 be attained by one and the same person: that a man might be truly, 

 ^;/stcmalicalli/ :icquainted with the laws of mechanics, and yet not be 

 afraid of dirtying his fingers in a workshop. "Oh but," says the en- 

 gineer rather testily, " I am acquainted with mechanics — I have been 

 studying them practically, all my life-time; and that is better than all 

 your theory." Pardon the doubt. Sir, but your practical knowledge 

 is not belter than all theory, though, it must be granted, a most indis- 

 pensable accessory to it. We will tell you where your practical 

 knowledge is defective — it is not systematic. From the nature of 

 the occupations in which your life has been spent, it is quite impossi- 

 ble that you can have systematised your knowledge. You have picked 

 up a scrap of information here and there as you have gone along, and 

 from the results of your experience (often acquired at a terrible cost), 

 you have at last come to certain conclusions which we will, if you 

 please, call your mechanical creed. But supposing you had to put 

 your creed to the test under circumstances quite new to you — are you 

 quite certain that it would not fail ? Are you quite sure that in the 

 practical results on which your creed was formed there were not some 

 circumstances different from those of the present case? Is it not just 

 possible that there may have existed some circumstances so apparently 

 trivial as to have been altogether neglected in the former cases, which 

 yet may produce a powerful effect in the present? 



So then you see, surely, what a gain it would have been to you, 

 could you have set out with a systematic knowledge of mechanics, 

 which would have served your stead for every case whether tried or 

 untried, and have been quite independent of the imperfections of 

 your own observations. Now such a knowledge is the mathematical 

 theory of mechanics, which has employed the study and research of 

 men of the most exalted genius for many, many centuries, and has 

 been tested by infinitely more experiments than you will ever be able 

 to conduct. 



But perhaps it may be said that the greatest engineers that have 

 ever lived were entirely unacquainted with theoretical mechanics; 

 Watt and Brindley could exhibit the wonders of their mechanical 

 genius without any knowledge beyond that which their own expe- 

 rience and reflection imparted. 



But this is no real argument against the acquisition of theoretical 

 knowledge. Granted that Watt and Brindley did wonders without 

 such knowledge, does it follow that a preliminary course of study 

 would have impeded their efforts ? May we not rather think it would 

 have facilitated them ? Do we not know as a matter of fact, that 

 those two great men constantly lamented their defective knowledge 

 of science ? And is it not also a matter of fact, that their deficiency 

 led them to commit many errors which they would otherwise have 

 avoided? 



Were not the task an invidious one, it would be easy to point out 

 many instances in the lives of even such men as Watt and Brindley 

 where confessedly time was wasted, money wasted, talent wasted, to 

 acquire that by experience which a very little theoretical knowledge 

 would have supplied. But this is not the main argument. The 

 genius of Watt lay principally, almost exclusively, in mechanical in- 

 vention, and this requires a kind of talent which, it must be allowed, 

 is in a great measure independentof systematic theoretical education. 

 The judicious reader will apprehend that the faculties exercised by 

 an inventor are the perceptive, that he requires not a logical process 

 of deduction but intuitive powers of perception; — in the language of 

 the metaphysicians, his mental processes are not anylytical but syn- 

 thetical — ffisthetio. But this is not the case of the engineer — he does 

 not want to be an inventor. The inventor sets about his schemes in- 

 dependently (and sometimes too, in defiance) of systematic rules, but 

 not so the engineer. He is constantly occupied in cases which demand 

 careful deductive thinking, and frequently considerable scientific 

 knowledge. Suppose, for instance, such a question as this were put 

 to the engineer — a railway train of such and such weight is placed on 

 an inclined plane of a certain inclination, and the resistance to motion 

 is so many pounds to the ton, find the velocity with which the train 

 will move and how far it moves belbre stopping; must it not be 

 allowed that the engineer ought to be able to answer such a question ? 

 and yet the ability to do so implies an accurate knowledge of the 

 science of motion. Take another instance: explain why a Gothic 

 arch will bear u greater weight on the crown of it than a circular arch 

 will, and deteriuine how much weight is necessaiy to prevent the 

 crown from rising : will not public opinion decide that the engineer 

 ought to have some better answer for such questions than a shrewd 

 guess ? And how is he to answer accurately if ignorant of the princi- 

 ples of equilibrium? 



Even the inventor, who, as we think we have proved, stands less in 

 need than the engineer of scientific knowledge, often suffers severely 



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