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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 786 



uncertainty. Many people seem to think 

 that the engineer is neither a scientist nor 

 a professional man, nor yet a business man 

 strictly speaking, but that he is something 

 betwixt and between — some one to be em- 

 ployed for certain technical work. 



According to the dictionary, a profession 

 is defined as "a vocation in which a pro- 

 fessed knowledge of some department of 

 science or learning is used by its practical 

 applications to the affairs of others, either 

 in advising, guiding or teaching them, or 

 in serving their interests or welfare in the 

 practise of the art founded on it. For- 

 merly, theology, law and medicine were spe- 

 cifically known as the professions, but as 

 the applications of science and learning 

 are extended to other departments of af- 

 fairs, other vocations also receive the name. 

 The word implies professed attainments 

 in special knowledge as distinguished from 

 mere skill ; a practical dealing with affairs 

 as distinguished from mere study or in- 

 vestigation; and the application of such 

 knowledge to uses for others as a vocation 

 as distinguished from its pursuit for one's 

 own purpose. 



Up to the present time the art involved 

 in the work of engineering has been more 

 recognized than the science. The engineer 

 has been considered rather a builder than a 

 scientific man, pursuing an occupation 

 rather than a profession. 



At a meeting of the council of the Insti- 

 tution of Civil Engineers of Great Britain 

 held on December 29, 1827, it was- Re- 

 solved; that Mr. Tredgold be written to, 

 requesting him to define the objects of the 

 Institution of Civil Engineers, and to give 

 a description of what a civil engineer is, in 

 order that this description and these ob- 

 jects may be embodied in a petition to the 

 Attorney General in application for a 

 charter." At the following meeting of 

 the council, on January 4, 1828, a com- 



munication from Mr. Tredgold was read 

 and entered in the minutes, bearing the 

 title : ' ' Description of a Civil Engineer, 

 by Thomas Tredgold, Hon. M.Inst.C.E.," 

 as a result of which the charter of the in- 

 stitution describes the profession of the 

 civil engineer as "the art of directing the 

 great sources of power in nature for the 

 use and convenience of man, as the means 

 of production and of traffic in states for 

 both external and internal trade, as applied 

 in the construction of roads, bridges, aque- 

 ducts, canals, river navigation and docks, 

 for internal intercourse and exchange ; and 

 in the construction of ports, harbors, moles, 

 breakwaters and lighthouses; and in the 

 art of navigation by artificial power for the 

 purposes of commerce, and in the construc- 

 tion and the adaptation of machinery, and 

 in the drainage of cities and towns. ' ' 



Since Tredgold 's time, however, fields 

 then unsuspected have been added to the 

 profession of engineering, amply justify- 

 ing the prediction that he made, that the 

 extent of the profession "is limited only 

 by the progress of science," and that "its 

 scope and utility will be increased with 

 every discovery in philosophy, and its re- 

 sources with every invention of the me- 

 chanical or chemical arts, since its bounds 

 are unlimited, and equally so must be the 

 resources of its professors." 



But in order to sketch even inadequately 

 the scope of engineering, I must ask you to 

 follow with me briefly the historical de- 

 velopment of the profession. 



The vocation of engineering is as an- 

 cient as any of man's occupations. No 

 doubt from the earliest times man has been 

 subject to disease, and the healing art in 

 more or less crude form has been practised ; 

 man, naturally a quarrelsome animal, has 

 also from the earliest time engaged in dis- 

 putes with his neighbors, and in more or 

 less crude form the laiv has had to be ad- 



