SECTION G.—ENGINEERING. 



SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. 



ADDRESS BY 



PROFESSOR F. C. LEA, D.Sc, 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



It is not unusual for a President of this Section of the British Association 

 to choose for his Address some particular branch of engineering with 

 which he has been actively engaged. During the last twenty-five years 

 I have been closely associated with Universities in which the training 

 of young engineers forms one essential part and research a second, although 

 by no means secondary, part of their acti\dty, and it seemed fitting to 

 deal in this address with one or other aspect of that experience. So 

 much has been said and written upon the subject of the type of training 

 that is best for engineers and there are so many diverse opinions of the 

 most suitable course to be adopted for the training of this and that type 

 of engineer that it appeared presumptuous for me to use this opportunity 

 to advance any particular views that I might hold. It seemed in every 

 way better to give attention to the second aspect of university work, to 

 emphasise the importance of the scientific method and research in engineer- 

 ing and in engineering training, illustrating my remarks by reference to 

 several branches of engineering and particularly those with which I have 

 been most closely associated. Further, it seems desirable that the address 

 of a President of a Section shall assist in the primary objects for which 

 the Association exists. Sir William Bragg, in his Presidential Address at 

 Leeds last year, pointed out that one of the purposes of the founders of 

 the Association was ' to obtain a more general attention for the objects 

 of science,' and the first general secretary of the Association nearly one 

 hundred years ago wrote ' the primary purpose of its annual meetings 

 should be the stimulation of interest in science at the various places of 

 meeting and through it the provision of funds for carrying on research.' 

 A number of early Presidents of the Association emphasised the place 

 of science in the intellectual life of the people and the beneficent influence 

 of the Association in securing a more general attention to the objects of 

 science, and one of them pointed out the importance to the community 

 of a body of scientific workers ' free alike from the embarrassments of 

 poverty or the temptations of wealth.' In pressing these claims for 

 public interest in science they had not in mind the applications of Science 

 to the material ends which the engineer has in view, and sometimes 

 surprise has been expressed that an Engineering Section should find a 

 place in the meetings of the Association ; nevertheless it seems desirable 

 to suggest that, as engineering is so closely related to very many of the 

 activities of modern life and uses for its purposes the discoveries of nearly 

 every branch of science, the aims of the Association are of particular 

 importance in relationship to this section. 



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