i64 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



being trained who within another quarter-century will be leaders in their 

 profession. 



I will not waste your time protesting my inadequacy for the task I set 

 myself : it is patent, and I think it does not matter. Even if I could 

 speak with authority, the ground is too wide to be covered in an hour's 

 address ; nor am I so much concerned now to win adherents for my views, 

 as to provoke thought and discussion where I believe them overdue. 



2. Such as they are, I shall try to present my views under three main 

 headings : (i) our policy in regard to the teaching of engineering science ; 

 (2) our policy in regard to engineering research ; and (3) ' foreign policy ' : 

 our relations with the community. Throughout it will be the keynote 

 of my argument that whatever may have been the circumstances of the 

 past, those of to-day forbid a policy of isolation ; so that whether academic 

 or practical we must do our planning in collaboration, because ultimately 

 our objectives are the same. It will make for brevity if I may use the 

 words ' engineering ' for the practical, ' engineering science ' for the 

 academic aspect of our profession, so making partial distinction between 

 application (the art) and study (the principles). But the separation is 

 artificial, and should be permitted only for temporary convenience. Our 

 objectives are the same, and frontiers should be ignored in our discussion 

 of common policy. 



3. Engineering was defined by Thomas Tredgold as ' the art of direct- 

 ing the great Sources of Power in Nature for the use and convenience of 

 man ' : engineering science I define, conformably, as ' science studied 

 with a view to application '. It can trace its ancestry (I suppose) back 

 to Archimedes or even further ; for its name shows geometry to have 

 originated in surveying — a branch of engineering science as defined just 

 now. But notwithstanding this very respectable pedigree it was not, 

 I think, until 1 840 that our subject was admitted into the select circle of 

 university studies, not until much later that its status was acknowledged 

 by the award of an honours degree. Here as in other subjects wise 

 conservatism will resist light-hearted innovation, but here a die-hard 

 conservatism may not take shelter in long-established tradition. Our 

 history is short, and it covers very eventful years : a policy that was 

 right before the war may not be the best policy to-day. 



Nor can we safely argue from experience gained in allied subjects of 

 university teaching. For engineering science is not, like chemistry or 

 physics, a separate branch of natural philosophy, but natural philosophy 

 studied from a particular standpoint and with a special purpose. Thus 

 the planning of instruction for our undergraduate students is a problem 

 very diff"erent from the planning of an honours course in chemistry ; 

 because the chemist will use later, for his work in the world, the same 

 technique that he has used in his university laboratory, whereas the engineer 

 is being prepared for work quite different— his lectures and laboratory 

 courses are not so much of practical value in themselves as a means of 

 training him to think. 



There is a further point of difference, in that the content of our subject 

 is determined not only by the growth of knowledge but by the trend of 

 practice ; it includes all natural science that has been applied to the 

 service of man. It is a commonplace that the boundaries of natural 



