August i6, 1894J 



NATURE 





hores where sandbanks prevail, I should be sorry to say 

 that even on our own coasts charts are perfect. 



Yearly around Great Britain previously unknown rocks come 

 to light, and if this is the case at home, what are we to think of 

 ■the condition of charts of less known localities ! 



Our main efforts, therefore, are directed to the improvement 

 «f charts for safe navigation, and the time that can be spared to 

 the elucidation of purely scientific problems is limited. 



Nevertheless, the daily work of the surveyor is so intimately 

 •connected with these scientific problems that year by year, 

 slowly but surely, we add to the accumulation of our knowledge 

 of the sea. 



SECTION G. 



MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 



Opening Address by Prok. A. B. W. Kennedy, LL.D., 

 F. R. S., M. Inst.C. E., President of the Section. 



The Critical Side of Mechanical Training. 



While there is no place in the kingdom more suitable for a 

 meeting of the British Association than Oxford, and certainly no 

 •place in which it is more delightful for the members to meet, it 

 is yet to be admitted that there are few places which have much 

 less in common with the special work of Section G. Nominally 

 devoted to "Mechanical Science," the Section has for many 

 years specially dealt with those branches of applied mechanical 

 science which constitute the business of the engineer — to quote 

 ■the well-known words of the Royal Charter, "the art of 

 directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and 

 •convenience of man." The association of this ancient and 

 learned city with boilers and chimneys, with the noise and racket 

 of ordinary mechanical work, seems an incongruity. Even the 

 harmless necessary railway-station is kept as far away as 

 possible, and the very river flows with a quiet dignity which 

 seems to shut out the thought of anything more mechanical 

 than the most ancient and futile of water-wheels. 



Naturally enough these considerations did not tend to make 

 more easy the choice of a subject for this address, and I have 

 come very near to agreement with a recent critic in the opinion 

 that presidential addresses are, in fact, almost immoral in the 

 nature of things and fit only to be abolished. Finally I decided 

 upon taking up my present subject, as being one in which the 

 academic rather than the technical side of our work comes to 

 the front, while at the same time it does not lead me out of 

 lines in which I have been able, in past years, to work myself. 

 It is now twenty years since I first took any active part in the 

 scientific training of engineers, and five since I ceased to do so. 

 I have often wished that I may have been at all as successful 

 in teaching others at University College as I was, at the same 

 time, in teaching myself. And since I have ceased to teach I 

 seem to have been spending my time in finding out how much 

 better I could now do it than was possible when I was actually 

 ■engaged in it. This may be pure imagination on my part ; 

 there is nothing more easy, as we all know, than to suppose 

 that we know best how to do the things th.it other people do, 

 and not the things we have to do ourselves. Indeed, I under- 

 stand that this is the recognised attitude of the really superior 

 critic. If, however, in anything which I have to say, it should 

 seem that I am finding fault with what is now being done, I 

 may at least point out that most of all I am fin<ling fault with 

 myself for not having done right when I had the opportunity — 

 an opportunity which can now never recur. Indeed, instead 

 of the decorous and unobtrusive heading which I have given to 

 this .address, I might have indicated its general lines almost as 

 truly if I had entitled it "The Regrets of an Emeritus Pro- 

 fessor" — a name which, on a suitable binding, might even have 

 secured it a sale at the railway bookstalls. 



I know well — too well — that in the present congested state of 

 the engineering profession there are many of us who do not like 

 to hear the word "training" mentioned at all. It seems to 

 mean merely the preparation of more lads to struggle for a share 

 of work that is even now insurt'icient to go round. There is no 

 doubt much to be said for this point of view. But against it one 

 must remember that all other professions are equally full, and 

 that, after all, Lads must do something. The fault is surely that 

 there are too many lads ! If our population is really to go on 

 increasing as rapidly as at present — the benefits of which 

 Sections D, E, and F might have a joint meeting to discuss, if 

 not to discover — it is inevitable that demands should come for 



NO. 1294, VOL. 50] 



more and more complete professional preparation. The man of 

 exceptional parts will come to the front under any conditions, 

 training or no training, in the future as in the past. But for 

 ordinary men — that is for 99 per cent, of us — it is essential that 

 no advantage should be given to a rival in the fierce competition 

 of life, and for them therefore it is of an importance hardly to 

 be exaggerated to obtain the most complete and perfect 

 training possible. At the same time, and on purely general 

 grounds, it can hardly be denied that to raise the standard of 

 our profession is indirectly to confer a benefit on the whole 

 community. I hope, therefore, that in making certain sug- 

 gestions about the training of engineers, it will not be thought 

 that I am desirous of increasing their number, which is really an 

 end as far as possible from my own wishes. Whether the num- 

 ber increases or stands still or falls off, it is of importance from 

 every point of view that those who come forward should be as 

 well prepared as possible. And even the most conservative 

 of us are compelled to recognise that the standard required in 

 engineers' offices now is enormously higher than it was thirty 

 years ago. This may truly be either the cause or the effects of 

 improved training, but in either case it has made the training 

 itself a necessity. 



The particular aspect of mechanical training of which I wish 

 to speak is its critical side. I do not know how a man should 

 be trained to be an inventor. I would not tell anyone if I did ! 

 To be a creator in mechanical matters — which, however, is a quite 

 different thing, — is a faculty given only to a very few, and with 

 them it is " bom, not made." Many of us, however, without 

 being either inventors or creators, have sufficient natural aptitude 

 or inclination towards things mechanical to form a basis for the 

 trainer or educator to work on, with some hope that he 

 may be of service. About the sciences which should 

 be taught to such men, or the methods of teaching 

 them, about the extent and nature of their experience in shops 

 or on works, I do not intend to speak. I shall confine myself 

 to one aspect of the training only, an aspect which is perhaps 

 not always sufficiently clearly kept in view — the aspect which 

 I have just called the critical side of mechanical training. 



An engineer is a man who is continually being called upon 

 to make up his mind. It may be only as to the size of a bolt ; 

 it may be as to the type of a Forth Bridge ; it may be as to the 

 method of lighting a city; or only as to the details of a fire- 

 grate. But, whatever it is, once it is settled it is decided 

 irrevocably — it is translated into steel andiron and copper, and 

 cannot be revoked by an Act passed in another session. The 

 time given him in which to decide may be a d.iy, or a month, 

 or a year, but in any and every case (so far as my own ex- 

 perience goes) it is about onetenth part of the time which he 

 would like to have. It is only in rare cases that the decision 

 is obvious —most often there are more courses open than even 

 the most facile politician ever dreamt of. The matters are too 

 complex to be dealt with mathematically or even physically ; 

 even if they were not, there are few engineers who would have 

 the special capacity to handle them. Moreover, their solutions 

 are seldom "unique." From this point of view, the whole use 

 of college training, of workshop practice, of practical ex- 

 perience, is to provide the engineer later on with the means of 

 critically examining each question as it comes up, of reviewing 

 systematically the pros and cons of each method of dealing with 

 it, of coming finally, rapidly and positively to some defensible 

 decision, which may then be irrevocably carried out. 



In the case of a problem in pure mathematics or physics, 

 where only one right solution can exist, that solution is arrived 

 at by the help of a thorough knowledge of the science in question 

 — there is little room for the critical faculty except as to method 

 — the result is cither right or wrong. With our work, on the 

 other hand, solutions of all problems except the very simplest — 

 in other words, decisions on all points which present themselves 

 — can be arrived at only by a process of criticism applied to the 

 problems, to their statement, to their condition, to all their 

 many possible solutions. The development of the necessary 

 critical faculty should be one of the chief aims of every teacher 

 and every student. 



A scientific training cannot make a man an engineer. Per- 

 haps it is impossible for anything to make a man an engineer 

 unless he has grown that way from the beginning ! But a 

 scientific training may make him, or at least give him the possi- 

 bility of making himself, a critic. 



In the vigorous attempts which have been made to specialise 

 the education of engineers very early, I am afraid that the idea 



