162 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 919 



Such as it is, engineering is embracing 

 an ever-growing horizon, and is including 

 more and more of the activities of civiliza- 

 tion. When I say activities I refer to ma- 

 terial ones and not to the whole of life 

 itself. The human spirit is the greatest fact 

 in the world, and art and literature that 

 interpret it, the acts of our daily life and 

 GUI' personal relations that depend upon it, 

 religion and the vast body of our social and 

 political experience, that go to constitute 

 life form vindoubtedly a mass of activities, 

 which are greater, in terms of conscious- 

 ness, than the material activities which 

 engineering can affect. In other words, the 

 humanities which have been the same for 

 ages can never be invaded by anything that 

 merely rearranges our relations to the ma- 

 terial world. 



In the material world, however, which is 

 at once the workshop and the throne, the 

 glory and the limitation of the engineer, 

 marvel has followed marvel and shall be 

 followed by more marvels, for we are be- 

 ginning to catch the tools' true play; be- 

 ginning to see the vision of our dominion 

 over the earth. Whether it really is engi- 

 neering to organize men, to predict the 

 psychology of a fare-paying population, to 

 win the endorsement of a labor union, to 

 treble the yield of a farm by a microscope, 

 all of which successes to-day are called 

 engineering, depends upon the definition 

 that we finally adopt. 



It is startling to study the variety and 

 importance of the posts filled by engineers 

 and to note the range of what they do. 

 From the efficiency engineer presenting 

 surprises in the output of a factory where 

 the human factor is large, or the industrial 

 engineer suddenly after thousands of years 

 showing the world how to increase greatly 

 the lay of bricks, or the agricultural engi- 

 neer working miracles with the soil that for 

 ages farmers have struggled with, to the 



civil engineer establishing a kingdom and 

 building the Panama Canal, we have in- 

 stances in which the engineer is doing more 

 and more of the world's work. 



The history of this class of men so rapidly 

 growing in numbers, so rapidly differentia- 

 ting in function is almost a romance. The 

 "Encyclopedia Britannica" names the mid- 

 dle of the eighteenth century — that is, 

 1750 — as the time before which there were 

 only military engineers — who constructed 

 "engines" of war — and it adds that at 

 about that time there began to arise a new 

 class. Little did this new class realize the 

 army it was leading down the industrial 

 paths of time ! 



The "new class" has surpassed all 

 bounds. From insignificance a hundred 

 and fifty years ago it has increased almost 

 incredibly in numbers and variety of 

 specialization. As a local indication, the 

 Engineering Societies' Building in New 

 York is the headquarters of fifty thousand 

 engineers. As another local indication, the 

 American Institute of Electrical Engineers 

 has in the last ten years increased six fold. 

 The growth in the variety of specialization 

 has been almost as rapid as the increase in 

 numbers. Where there were only military 

 engineers and the "new class" a hundred 

 and fifty years ago, there are twenty-seven 

 recognized varieties to-day. Without men- 

 tioning all, they range from civil through 

 mechanical, electrical, mining, illumina- 

 ting and chemical, to refrigerating, indus- 

 trial, agricultural and aeronautical. There 

 is even a magazine with the title Human 

 Engineering. 



A large and increasing part of the ca- 

 pacity of our colleges and universities is 

 devoted to the education of engineers. 

 Parts of the engineering curricula are bor- 

 rowed for what used to be purely classical 

 courses. The metaphors of the speech of 

 the day often have an engineering basis 



