SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 753 



drug in the market. No man builds a mill 

 to produce even such staples as flour or 

 cotton cloth, without carefully examining 

 market conditions. It is fitting, therefore, 

 that we survey the market conditions for 

 engineers. How stand the relations of de- 

 mand and supply? What sort of engi- 

 neers are most needed to-day ? What grade 

 of flour will you set your mill to grind ? 



Perhaps I can best picture to you market 

 conditions in the engineering profession if 

 I draw a parallel between the engineer and 

 one of his favorite materials— Portland 

 cement. 



A quarter of a century ago, Portland 

 cement was an expensive and little used 

 article— just like the engineer of a some- 

 what earlier period. The valuable quali- 

 ties and many uses of Portland cement 

 were little appreciated when it was first 

 introduced. The pioneer engineers suf- 

 fered in like manner. To-day fifty huge 

 mills are producing Portland cement where 

 there was one a generation ago. So where 

 there were four small struggling schools 

 of engineering in the United States in 1850, 

 there are to-day more than fifty times that 

 number, and many of these schools number 

 their students by hundreds and even by 

 thousands. 



Manifestly these huge mills for making 

 Portland cement would not have been erect- 

 ed if the public had not found a use for 

 their product. So also the engineering 

 schools could not have multiplied in num- 

 ber and grown in size as they have done if 

 the public had not found the engineering 

 graduate a useful and valuable member of 

 society. But I am bound to say to you 

 that enterprise in the erection of Portland 

 cement mills has at times outstripped de- 

 mand, and as a result the cement market 

 has been overstocked. The market for en- 

 gineers follows quite closely the market for 

 cement, and during the past two years 



there have been many idle cement mills 

 and idle engineers. 



With both the cement mills and the engi- 

 neers it has been a case of competition, and 

 survival— if not of the fittest, then of those 

 best able to survive. Undoubtedly the in- 

 crease in cement mills and in engineering 

 schools has had the effect in each case of 

 lowering the price of the product. But it 

 is also true that this low price combined 

 with excellent quality has enormously in- 

 creased the demand, both the demand for 

 cement and the demand for engineers. 



Is the engineering profession over- 

 crowded? Are its members underpaid? 

 If you submit these questions to a jury of 

 engineers, you will, I am sure, receive an 

 affirmative verdict. But I suspect you 

 would have the same sort of answer if you 

 inquired of lawyers concerning the legal 

 profession or of physicians as to the prac- 

 tise of medicine. 



It is a fact, nevertheless, that certain 

 changes in our educational system during 

 the past half century have operated to 

 swell the ranks of the engineering profes- 

 sion above that of other professions, and 

 by the competition thus set up have re- 

 duced the compensation of engineers. 



Half a century ago college education in 

 the United States meant one thing only— 

 the old-time standard course of studies in 

 the classical languages and mathematics, 

 with a smattering of elementary science 

 and theology. With the rapid progress of 

 science and the industrial arts there came 

 about a powerful reaction against this an- 

 cient scholastic drill that had so long passed 

 under the name of a liberal education. The 

 demand arose that the college should teach 

 something practical, something that would 

 make the student better fit for his life- 

 work. The answer to this demand on the 

 part of the colleges was the introduction 

 of a great variety of schools and special 

 courses of study. Of all these schools, the 



