Part 1 (1/2)

Opportunities in Engineering

by Charles MHorton

I

ENGINEERING AND THE ENGINEER

Several years ago, at the regular annualsocieties, the president of the society, in the forave expression to a thought so startling that the few layasped What the president said in effect was that, since engineers had got the world into war, it was the duty of engineers to get the world out of war As a thought, it probably reflected the secret opinion of every engineer present, for, however innocent of intended wrong-doing engineers assuredly are as a group in their work of scientific investigation and developineers were responsible for the conflict then raging in Europe was absolute truth

Ito the reader's attention the treineers wield in world affairs

The profession of engineering--which, by the way, isof discoveries in science and art to the uses of mankind--is a peculiarly isolated one But very little is known about it a about law, a little about medicine, quite a lot--nowadays--aboutIndeed, a source of coineers is the peculiar fact that the average layman cannot differentiate between the ns a locoineers

Yet there is a difference between theht For one enius of the other This alineer serves to shohat broad extent the profession of engineering is isolated

Yet it is a wonderful profession I say this with due regard for all other professions For one cannot but ponder the fact that, if engineers started the greatest war the world has ever known--and engineers as a body freely admit that if they did not start it they at leastthereater than that of any other class of professional men--diploineering is a force fraught with stupendous possibilities, therefore, nobody can very well deny That it is a force generally exercised for good--despite the World War--I ineer, can truly testify With some fifteen years spent on the creative end of the work--the drafting and designing end--I have yet to see, with but two or three rare exceptions, the genius of engineers turned into any but noble channels

Thus, engineering is not only a wonderful profession, with the activities of its followers of utmost importance, but also it is a profession the individual work of whose pioneers, frohouse and fro

For when Ja called into a certain so to ine, discovered, while at work on this crude unit deriving its s of a lever actuated by a weight, the value of superheated steam for power purposes, and later eine of his own, Watt set the civilized world forward into an era so full of pro to-day, despite the wonderful progress already h-speed engine, the dynas

Likewise, when George Westinghouse, inventor of the airbrake, having finally persuaded the directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad, after rant hi it out--on a string of cars near Harrisburg--ably de trains and preventing accidents, he also--as had Watt before him--set the civilized world forward into an era full of promise and discovery as yet but barely entered upon, even with the reress already ard for the safety of huh the forest of hunorance this same airbrake

So with other pioneers--with Eiffel, in the field of tower construction; with Edison, in the field of electricity; with the Wright brothers, in the field of aerial navigation; With Simon Lake, inventor of the submarine boat All were pioneers; all set the civilized world forward; all--though this perhaps is irrelevant, yet it will serve to reveal the type of reat obstacles--Lake not the least a them

Told that he was visionary, when Lake explained, as he did in his effort to enlist capital hich to build his first sube his invention and steer it about on the bed of the ocean as readily as a man can steer an autoed he could step out of the boat through a trap-door without flooding the boat, by the sireater air pressure inside than the pressure of the water outside--Sied on every hand, finally decided to build a boat himself, and did build one, with his own hands--a boat fourteen feet long and constructed of rough pine tihlands, New Jersey With this boat Lake demonstrated to a skeptical world for all time that he was neither a visionary nor a dreaineer

Of such stuff, then, were, and are, engineers made Whether they realized it or not, whether the world at large realized it or not, each represented a noble calling, each was a professional ranite foundations of a wonderful profession even yet only in the building--engineering Their naion, too, and their na as it does after them equally with the work of followers of the finest of the fine arts, is known to mankind as a benefit to mankind Known by their works, the list extends back to the very dawn of history

For it was ineers, who in the early days wrought for purposes of warfare--warfare then being the major industry--the javelin, the spear, the helshot; just as their later brothers, for a like purpose, conceived and devised the throwing of as, the two-ton explosive, the aerial borenade--for the protection, false and true, of the ho of the ho also it ho conceived and shaped, as, the cook-stove, the chi-jenny, the suspension-bridge, the bedspring-oh, boy!--the bicycle, the sandblast, the automobile, the airplane, the wireless

Thus it will be seen that engineering is a distinctive and important profession To some even it is the topmost of all professions However true that may or may not be to-day, certain it is that soineers serve huineers ; their work is strictly constructive, sharply exact; the results positive Not a profession outside of the engineering profession but that has itson the part of practitioners between the true and the untrue Engineering knows no such weakness Two and twoalso the unnuineers can, and do, approach a problem with a certainty of conviction and a confidence in the powers of their working-tools nowhere permitted men outside the profession

II

ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITIES