i66 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



continue to be a demand for engineering graduates ? Will not the demand 

 of industry be more and more for specialists, trained in laboratories 

 appropriate to the purer sciences ? 



5. I have my answers to these questions : I am not really pessimistic ! 

 But I have put the case for pessimism, being convinced that these argu- 

 ments must be faced and countered now, by intelligent foresight, if 

 they are not to accumulate uncomfortable force in years to come. They 

 are, as I maintain, arguments that concern us all, though more immediately 

 the concern of academic engineers like myself. That view may find 

 acceptance or it may not, but in one field you will agree, I think, that 

 engineers whether practising or academic must stand side by side : I 

 mean in the field of ' public relations ', of their concern with the bearing 

 of their work on the life of the community. It is a matter which of late 

 has greatly exercised the minds both of our Association and of thinkers 

 and publicists in the world outside, and it too must receive attention in a 

 conspectus of engineering such as I attempt to-day. Inevitably, as I 

 believe, its consideration will lead us into wider and deeper issues, and for 

 that reason I shall turn to it last in my address. Then more than ever 

 I shall be conscious of my inadequacy to my theme ; but the task must be 

 attempted, and I take shelter behind my statement that the only purpose 

 of this address is to provoke discussion by others better qualified. 



And now, having outlined my headings, I confront the necessity of 

 committing myself. It is no light ordeal to one who represents the smallest 

 of our engineering schools, that he should incur the reproach of pretending 

 to know how things should be done ! I implore the indulgence of my 

 listeners. 



I. 



6. No one I think will question that a dilemma confronts all teachers of 

 engineering science : no two of us, I fancy, will agree in detail regarding 

 the action by which it should be met. On the one hand more and more 

 specialised knowledge finds application in engineering practice : on the 

 other our industrialists — now, with rare exceptions, well disposed to the 

 engineering graduate whom once their predecessors regarded with a blend 

 of amusement and contempt — seem agreed in demanding that students 

 shall come to them not as incipient specialists or as trained technicians, 

 but as men who have been educated to take wide views, trained to think 

 and qualified to negotiate and to control. Here are conflicting demands, 

 to be reconciled as best we may in the construction of our time-tables. 

 Inevitably they conflict, since days have not lengthened, nor is there any 

 noticeable increase in the power of the average undergraduate to absorb. 



Faced with this dilemma, different teachers propound difl^erent solu- 

 tions — none claimed as wholly satisfactory or as disposing finally of a 

 problem which inevitably will become more acute. That as I see the 

 problem is its crux. It is not enough to be opportunist and to find a 

 makeshift solution now, because of all sciences engineering is the least 

 static. Unless we plan radically, though our trouble be allayed for the 

 time it will inevitably return. 



Since I claim no authority for my views, some vigour in presentation 



