184 1. J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



95 



man who has left hardly a corner of our island without some important work 



to record his name." " But Mr. Telford goes on, from the oh- 



scrvations I have already quoted, to state thereupon his opinions and practice 

 with regard to the education of the civil engineer : ' My readers,' he says, 

 ' may not dissent from these observations, but few of them, unless practical 

 men, will feel their full force. Youths of respectability and competent edu- 

 cation, who contemplate civil engineering as a profession, are seldom aware 

 how far they ought to descend in order to found the basis of future elevation. 

 It has happened to me more than once, when taking opportunities of being 

 useful to a young man of merit, that I have experienced opposition in taking 

 him from his hooks and drawings, and placing a mallet and chisel, or a trowel 

 in his hands, till, rendercil confident by tlie solid knowledge which only ex- 

 perience can bestow, he was qualified to insist on the due performance of 

 ■workmanship, and to judge of merit in the lower as well as the higher de- 

 partments of a profession in which no kind or degree of practical knowledge 

 is sujierflnous. For f/}is reason I ever congratulate ynyself upon the circum- 

 stances wtiictt compelled me to begin by working xritti my own hands.* 



" You will find indeed that not Telford alone, but that most of the men who 

 responded to the demand that arose in the middle of the last century, for 

 professional aid in the formation and construction of that class of works now 

 distinguished as works of civil engineering, in default of skill and capacity on 

 the part of the architects of the day, were men whose early education was 

 that of the workshop ; — they were masons, miners, and miUwrights. Whilst 

 the practical knowledge of Telford and Rennie — the mason and the mill- 

 wright — exists in its effects upon those who bad the advantage of working 

 with and under those eminent hydraulic architects, the practice of civil engi- 

 neering as at present constituted will continue, — but those who seek to engage 

 in and follow it must qualify themselves by direct application to the sources 

 from which it sprung, and upon which alone it can rest a continued existence. 

 The man of science may be formed independently of the workshop — but it is 

 through the workshop alone that the man of science can become what the 

 men I have enumerated were ; he may possess liimself, in the office, and in 

 the service as an assistant, of the established practitioner of the routine of 

 business, — of the habit of using technical terms, — of repeating working and 

 other drawings, and of using set phrases and forms in the composition of a 

 specification ; — he may learn to estimate and to describe the items of an esti- 

 mate as they are usually described, and to attach prices to the items according 

 to the established usage ; — and having made these acquisitions he may con- 

 sider himself fitted to practice as a civil engineer. He will feel himself com- 

 petent to investigate any question that can arise in practice when the data 

 are supplied, — but he wiU find that questions continually arise upon which 

 no data are to be obtained ; he will readily undertake to lay out and design 

 any class of work within the range of engineering practice, but he will learn 

 from the contractors as the work proceeds, that tins cannot be done as he 

 may appear to have intended, — that that will not do in this particular case, 

 that such and such things are unnecessary, and such others essential, and 

 when the works are completed he will have the mortification of finding that 

 the variations made, and the alterations and additions effected have made his 



contract a dead letter There are other cases, however, and they are already 



too frequent, in which conscious incompetence determines to be on the safe 

 side, be the cost what it may, and works are overloaded with materials that 

 they may be strong enough ; — and thus again the employer is defrauded, for 

 fraud it is if a man undertake a duty which he is not thoroughly qualified to 

 perform." 



Mr. Hosking then proceeded nearly as follows, giving an etymology of the 

 designation of engineer, which has the appearance of novelty, and entering 

 into details which we have not space to include in our mere abstract : — 



" It may not be devoid of interest, and it may help to give a distinct percep- 

 tion of what the practice of civil engineering includes, if I trace the circum- 

 stances o'it of which it grew. Many of the works and operations now in- 

 cluded in the practice of the civil engineer are of late origin themselves, and 

 a large proportion of them were formerly within the practice of architecture, 

 and was known, when distinguished at all, as hydraulic arclutecture. Modern 

 fortifications, or fortifications having reference to ordnance, consist in a great 

 degree of earthworks, and through the practice of forming them the different 

 corps of military engineers became skilful in the disposition and working of 

 earth, — in draining for the exclusion, and in forming conduits and sluices for 

 the admission of water. As the advance of modern civilization required 

 operations similar to those practised by the military engineers for protecting 

 lands from rivers, and from the sea, by embankments, — for draining low 

 lands, — for supplying towns, and for feeding canals with water, the peculiar 

 designation of the military engineer and operator was adopted by the civil 

 practitioner, who thus became what is known as the civil engineer. Through- 

 out the continent of Europe the services of the architect had been still in 

 requisition in aid of the military engineer, in directing the constructions for 

 wliich he had occasion, and we thus find some of the finest works of many of 

 the Italian architects from the 13th and 14th centuries down to the present 

 time, on the gates of fortified places. In England, however, almost ever since 

 the introiluction of gunpowder, the fortification of towns and cities, fortunately, 

 has not been necessary, and the British architect has had therefore no prac- 

 tice in connection with the military engineer. Hence, the almost total de- 

 ficiency of architects in this country in hydraulic constructions, so that when 

 a demand arose for works which imposed such constructions in connectiou 

 with earthwork formations, the miUwrights and masons, who had built the 

 flood-gates and sluices with their wing and head walls, and had learnt to 



direct ti.e formation of the earthworks from the Dutch embankers and 

 drainers, were called upon to undertake them, and thus the hydraulic archi- 

 tect is found in conjvmction with the formator or embanker anil drainer, who 

 brought to the profession thus compounded the designation of civil engineer. 



" The practice of civil engineering and architecture is, therefore, strictly, the . 

 complete practice of architecture in its most extended sense ; that of the 

 former may be said to include formations and constructions influenced by, in 

 connection with, or affected by, that powerful agent — water, — whilst! the 

 separ.ite practice of architect ur« is generally restricted to constructions not 

 so exposed, and to constnictiotis susceptible of, and subject to decoration. 

 The architect wlio builds sewers and drains, — and it is within the practice of 

 all architects to do so, — is in so far a civil engineer, — whilst tlie engineer 

 who builds a bridge, or a viaduct, is in so far an architect, for altliough, ac- 

 cording to the general definition that I have given, the founding of piers and 

 abutments to a bridge over a river, or other water, would fall within the pro- 

 vince of the engineer, the main constructions of a bridge, especially when of 

 masonry, are mthin that of the architect." 



" Roads as now made, and railways, are late additions to the practice of the 

 civil engineer. Roads brought bridges with them, and railways have brought 

 many other varieties of construction that can hardly be called hydraulic, for 

 although their frequent connection with earthwork exposes them for the 

 most part to the action of water, they are generally so situated as to demand 

 the architectural dispositions which may be classed under the head of de- 

 coration. To be an accomplished civil engineer a man must, therefore, be a 

 good architect in the ordinary acceptation of that term, as well as skilled in 

 the sciences and arts of construction, far above what architects commonly 

 are. Together with formations and hydraulic constructions the practice of 

 civil engineering includes the application of machinery in the aid of com. 

 merce and of the useful arts. Hence, and because of the name applied to 

 some of his productions, the manufacturer of engines and machinery, the 

 mere machinist has been called an engineer. .•V machinist may certainly lie- 

 come a civil engineer, but the power of making a locomotive engine does 

 not seem to form a better qualification for railway engineering, than that of car- 

 riage building does to constitute the builder an efficient roadmaker; — it is not 

 the cannon-founder who is entrusted with the construction of fortified places 

 and field works, but the engineer officer whose education and practice have 

 fitted him for this more important senice." 



" In promising information and instruction that will be useful to you in 

 the pursuit of your professions respectively, I must beg to be understood not 

 to promise to qualify you here to practice as architects or as civil engineers. 

 We offer you information whereby you may become qualified to avail your- 

 selves more effectually of the practice of the engineer's or architect's office, 

 and thereby to become better architects , and better engineers, to your own 

 confidence, comfort, and advantage, and for the advantage of society to whom 

 your services will be hereafter offered, than you would have been without 

 such instructions and information as we offer. The medical student conies 

 here versed in pharmacy, and in the simpler surgical operations, and he finds 

 his field of study and practice complete between the lecture and dissecting 

 rooms of the college, and the wards and the operating theatre of the hospital, 

 but to you, who come to us unskilled in carpentry and masonry, the pharmacy' 

 and surgery of your professions — we have the deficiency to supply, as well as 

 to teach the science which those humbler arts aid you in applying, but your 

 hospital must be walked in mud boots, and your operating theatie found on 

 the stage of the carpenter, and on the scaffold of the mason and bricklayer. 

 The young sailor may and should learn navigation on shore, and how to rig 

 a ship and to reef and steer in harbour, but he must go to sea to become a 

 sailor, — and the young architect or engineer, may and should, in like manner, 

 acquire the theory, and learn, as far as may be, the practical arts of his in- 

 tended profession, in a preliminary education, but he must place himself with 

 the active practioner through whom he may have facilities for seeing works 

 in progress, and opportunities of assisting to forward them, together with the 

 means of acquiring the technicalities of practice, to become an efficient prac- 

 titioner of architecture and engineering himself. 



But why, I may be asked, if the practice of an oflSce and the observation 

 of actual works is essential after you have expended time and money here, 

 why not go from school or college at once to a practical office .' I aiiswer, 

 that without such preliminary education in science and the arts as that offered 

 you here, the practice of an office will be in a great degree lost upon you; 

 you may learn by rote but you will not know the meaning of the words — you 

 may have opportunities of seeing works, but " seeing you will not see, and 

 hearing you will not understand ;" the characters maybe clear, and the mean- 

 ing of the words obvious, but to you they will be unknown, and therefore 

 unintelligible. 



I would say, then, acquire superiority over the merely practical man — the 

 rule of thumb engineer by the attainment of sound scientific knowledge, in 

 addition to the mere practical skill with which he tenders his services; — but 

 do not depend upon scientific knowledge alone, if you propose to become civil 

 engineers, and hope to gain your bread by the practice of ciril engineering as 

 a profession, for it may be truly said, paraphrasing the beautiful language of 

 an inspired writer, you may have all learning and all science, but if you waut 

 this practical knowledge of which I speak, you wiU be but "as sounding 

 brass or a tinkling cymbal." 



