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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 89. 



the economic idea, the quick attainment of 

 profitable results, and clouded the truer, 

 broader meaning that looks toward the best 

 things and the highest life of the people. 

 Into the midst of this active, restless, busi- 

 ness life entered the engineer, doing more 

 and more of its work and becoming more 

 and more a recognized part of it and an un- 

 disputed element in its growth. He has 

 acquired the characteristics of the life about 

 him, zeal, energy, alertness, readiness in 

 meeting quickly changing conditions, and 

 absorption in the work in hand. He 

 plans rapidly and executes to-day with an 

 eye for to-morrow's profits. As another 

 has said, " The world measures the effici- 

 ency of the engineer in dollars and cents," 

 just in fact as it measures that of any other 

 man, and engineers, as other men, largely 

 accept the standard. 



Time was when he was only the tool of 

 some business man who had money to ex- 

 pend in a certain way and who employed 

 him, under direction, because of some in- 

 dividual ability. But times are changing. 

 In place of the isolated worker there is 

 growing up a profession with professional 

 standards and an esprit de corps, and whose 

 members are to be retained, not hired. 

 Cultured, and with the openness and clear- 

 ness of mind that only come from deep 

 study, broad training and large experience, 

 these are to be people of influence whose 

 advice and services are sought, leaders, 

 whose judgments are respected and men 

 who can mingle with the best anywhere on 

 a common ground of attainment and char- 

 acter. They are to be entrusted with the 

 expenditure of public funds in increasing 

 extent and with an augmenting confidence. 

 The very nature of an engineer's qualifica- 

 tions, his technical knowledge, the cultiva- 

 tion of his judicial and critical faculty, his 

 training in fidelity to the trusts reposed in 

 him by private clients, all these fit him for 

 places of large responsibility concerned 



with public works; and the people, tired of 

 political management, are beginning to find 

 this out. 



These are no new thoughts, though none 

 the less true, for others have recently writ- 

 ten in confident strain of the coming en- 

 gineer of the twentieth century. Yet it 

 should be emphasized that the desired 

 change is not, after all, so far ahead of us. 

 To some extent, at least, the coming engineer 

 has already arrived and is making himself 

 felt. The leaven is at work. 



With an engineering practice based solely 

 on immediate results by way of expected 

 profits in dollars and cents, the aesthetic 

 element has little to do, though even here 

 its absence may mean financial loss. But 

 from the standpoint of this paper engineer- 

 ing is to be considered in the broader light 

 of Telford's well-known definition : ' The 

 art of directing the great sources of power 

 in nature for the use and convenience of 

 man,' while the engineer is he who designs 

 and executes engineering works. 



It is not necessary here to dwell upon the 

 breadth and comprehensiveness of these 

 simple fundamental statements, but let us- 

 not forget that they are broad and compre- 

 hensive. With an engineering practice 

 based on a generous interpretation of the 

 above, the artistic has much to do. 



The engineer is primarily a designer. 

 He works with the materials of nature as 

 his medium and her powers as his tools, 

 wherewith to express his thought and his 

 purpose to serve and benefit man. Just as 

 in the making of a picture, the brushes, 

 paint and canvas are not the chief things, 

 so here it is not the stone, steel and brass 

 or the powers of gravity, steam, air and 

 electricity that are most important, but 

 rather the character and quality of the de- 

 sign and the degree of realization in its 

 execution. The design may be bad or good, 

 according as it ignores or harmonizes with 

 principles underlying all such acts of ere- 



