92 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 342. 



element must not be forgotten. A mere 

 intellectual application of the laws dis- 

 covered by physical research is not enough 

 to make a civil engineer. Breadth of view, 

 the faculty of analyzing what has been done 

 so as to discover how and why some enter- 

 prises have been successful and others have 

 not, and the ability to forecast the future, 

 are essential. These qualities are largely 

 natural, but may be cultivated to a great 

 extent by study and experience. That 

 there has been a wonderful advance in this 

 direction during the nineteenth century is 

 shown by the great number of civil engi- 

 neers who hold positions of prominence in 

 the management and control of large enter- 

 prises which require the exercise of faculties 

 which cannot be acquired in any other way 

 than by experience in the designing, con- 

 struction and management of engineering 

 works. 



A prominent factor in causing this ad- 

 vance in engineering science which has 

 occurred simultaneously on the Continent 

 of Europe, in Great Britain and in America, 

 has been the collaboration of scientists. 

 Early in the century it became evident that 

 the multiplication of lines of research de- 

 manded a differentiation of the labor of 

 their prosecution and a close cooperation 

 of the workers in any special line, and 

 various associations of specialists were 

 formed to promote various branches of 

 scientific research. By the middle of the 

 century it had become apparent that civil 

 engineering was not. the prosecution of a 

 specialty, but was the coordination and 

 direction of the work of all specialties in 

 science and its applications. And so in 

 1852, James Laurie and his associates, 

 following the example of their English 

 brethren, founded the American Society 

 of Civil Engineers, the first and only 

 national organization devoted to ' the 

 professional improvement of its mem- 

 bers, the encouragement of social inter- 



course among men of practical science, 

 the advancement of engineering in its 

 several branches and the establishment of a 

 central point of reference and union for its 

 members.' To the privileges of its mem- 

 bership may be admitted not only every 

 ^ professional engineer,' but also ' any per- 

 son who, by scientific acquirements or prac- 

 tical experience, has attained a position in 

 his special pursuit qualifying him to coop- 

 erate with engineers in the advancement of 

 professional knowledge and practice.' This 

 meeting of that Society, which now has 

 2,500 names upon its rolls of membership, 

 and owns a commodious society house with 

 a reference library of some 40,000 titles, is 

 sufl&cient proof of the wisdom of its found- 

 ers. 



Recognizing, then, that progress is a law 

 of nature, the acceleration of progress is 

 the aim of civil engineering. It strives to 

 stimulate the results of the slow processes of 

 nature, by causing the sources of power to 

 act rapidly in any desired direction. Ap- 

 preciating, too, the fact that there is con- 

 stant progress, and that what now seems 

 admirably adapted to our needs may in a 

 short time require to be superseded by im- 

 proved structures and processes, the tend- 

 ency of the time is toward the production 

 of works which will have a definite term of 

 life, rather than toward the construction of 

 everlasting monuments. We see that in 

 the old nations, where the effort to build for 

 eternity was made, time has outstripped 

 the intent of the builders and what is an- 

 tiquated is useless, and we see the same 

 thing in our own streets to-day. The idea 

 of building a monumental structure which 

 will hand one's name down to future ages 

 is a fascinating one, but it is simply a sur- 

 vival of the engineering of the Pharaohs. 



The most thorough exemplar of the con- 

 dition of civil engineering at the beginning 

 of the twentieth century is the modern 

 ofi&ce-building in a great city. One hundred 



