~ - 9) It is a human trait to judge a stranger by one’s own knowl- edge and not by what the stranger knows, and it is very funny to observe the manner in which a horse owner will conclude that a man is a good engineer if he knows horses. Many an engineer of very mediocre ability has risen to high station be- cause ot his good luck in eaptivating the fancy of some great man whose knowledge of engineering was derived from the dictionary. The language of an engineer is precise. He has not time to multiply his words and what he says must be specific and definite. In small talk he is not versed and in a war of words is easily defeated. His thought is direct and to the point. He is impatient of insincerity or dissembling. A glib-tongued gossip will imagine that the engineer is bested in an argument but a larger mind would disturb the complacency of the self- styled victor. If one would understand the profession, he must seek its acquaintance. Some one has said that. the engi- neers are so busy making history that they have not time to write it. This is true and has operated to their detriment. Not being understood, the credit has not been given them and the greatest good that can be done for the profession is for the members to learn to talk and to write with a facility that will enable them to be better understood. The greatest strength of an engineer is the justice of his position. Right is might and a clear presentation of his case will always command consideration. He is generally right, but often suffers himself to be browbeaten by men who are skilled in wire-pulling and misrepresentation. Honesty is characteristic of engineers. It is the result of their training. Their habit of thought must be honest for success in their work. They cannot juggle with Nature. The force of gravity is never asleep. It must be reckoned with. It is the same with the expansive force of steam and with’the po- tential of electricity. They are always the same. For the engineer who would cheat such forces the penalty is death. These thoughts are impressed upon his character and the de- ceitful engineer is abnormal and a failure in his profession. The engineer is religious. He may have no creed, but his life is spent among the great things of Nature, and her mys- teries are ever present in his thought. The small mind grows familiar with electricity and is extinguished in a trice. The sublime grandeur of the natural forces and of their laws, of astronomy and the wonder of its infinite expanse, are his con- stant companions. There is reason for the prediction that the world’s next great epic poem will have for its theme the achievements of engineering. In the past the poets have sung of love and war. It has remained for the engineer to secure U of | Library Champaign-Urbana 6 for the arts of peace the dominant position in civilization. The triumphs of transportation, of electric transmission and of power development have revolutionized the life of the race and caused, during the last century, a greater advance toward the millennium than has cecurred in any preceding thousand years. Kiphng has sensed the thought in the following lines: They say to the mountains, “Be ye removed!” They say to the lesser floods, “Run dry!” Under their rods are the rocks reproved, They are not afraid of that which is high. Then do the hill tops shake to the summit; Then is the bed of the deep laid bare That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, Pleasantly sleeping and unaware. But the bitterness that pervades, ‘‘The Sons of Martha’’ is not of the spirit that ‘‘conquers the earth.’’ Campus Scene, Iowa State Cellage If ‘‘Her sons must wait upon Mary’s sons—world without end, reprieve or rest’’—the glory is theirs. To serve one’s fel- jowmen, to add to the safety, the comfort and happiness of mankind is a divine gift and brings one to intimate fellowship with the Creator. Engineering has been termed the precise profession. It is a popular conception that engineering design is the result of calculation and, therefore, mathematically precise. This notion is far from the truth and has in the past led to some very awkward situations. It is the scientist that is mathemati- eally precise. If an engineer is measuring earthwork that is 7 worth twenty-five cents per cubic yard, he uses an ordinary tape line, which he knows will not give a high degree of pre- eision to the results. This is because the irregularities of the eround surface are such that with a more perfect tape the results would be no better. In measuring a smooth brick pave- ment worth about three dollars per square yard, he uses a steel tape and gets a much closer result. It is always his aim to adjust the precision of his work to the needs of the case. The timber of a railway trestle is measured sometimes to the nearest sixteenth of an inch, but fine machined steel is fre- quently calipered to the nearest thousandth of an inch. In ealeulating the strength of a structure it is obvious, if one will but think, that the load must be an assumed average, i) Campus Scene, Iowa State College that the actual strength of the material varies considerably with its nature and quality, and that the resulting design, to be safe, must be calculated from liberal values. This’ gives rise to a technical term called the factor of safety and it is commonly talked among laymen that the average factor of safety is four. That is, in their thought, a structure safely designed and built will carry four times the load for which it is planned. This is one of the most pernicious notions the engineer must combat. If he knew to a pound the weight of a load and if he knew to a poind the strength of his material, he would build a support that would carry the load, but fail per- haps, with the addition of another pound. But he never knows 8 these things so precisely ; and with the knoweldge which he has, ii is his function to design safe structures, making use of the judgment derived from experience as a substitute for facts which cannot be known. If he says he has used a factor of safety of four, he means that having made his calculations with certain assumed values, his structure would carry four times the assumed load if all his assumptions were correct. But because of the innate perversity of material things he knows that his ideas are not fully realized and that some- where between his plans and the finished structure there may lie a hidden defect of fatal possibilities, and he has used this safety factor to guard against disaster and to insure long life to the structure. It is the selfish penuriousness of the busi- ness man that prompts the construction of works of insufficient strength. He reasons that the structure will stand with a factor of safety for two and perhaps his connection therewith will be severed and his profit realized before the failure comes. This sophistry is a weighty reason why all structures that may threaten the safety of human life should be constructed under the supervision of men of established integrity and skill. An engineer should be a leader of men. He occupies of ne- cessity a commanding position among his co-workers and with- out a goodly supply of the qualities of leadership the highest success will not be reached. The times are rife with rebellious | thought and one who listens may come to think the exercise of authority a crowning sin. Children are not trained in obedi- ence either at home or in school and among adults the break- ing of a rule or the evasion of a law is a gleeful adventure. Such conditions are born of ignorance and malice. It is im- possible to erect a great steel building without the most per- fect discipline among the workmen. No great effort involving the co-operation of a multitude of men ean be successful with- out a clock-like organization and the faithful observance of orders by its every unit. But organization and discipline are not synonyms of despotism and history shows that the ereaiest leaders have been both loved and revered by their mer. It is needless to say that a small-minded man of selfish elms and meanness of spirit would fail to qualify in this im- portant particular for the life of an engineer. In recent years the greatly increased popularity of technical and scientific education has produced such an influx to the ranks of the profession that talk of overcrowding is frequently heard and there has been a lessened rate of increase of attend- ance at colleges of engineering. The profession has proved so attractive that persons whose motives seem purely mercenary have sought to stimulate the education of engineers just as the steamship companies stimulate the travel of immigrants, and 8) we have with us now, as a result of this commercialism, a mul- titude of young men claiming the title of engineers, who have learned too little of science and mathematics to permit their advancement beyond the grade of skilled workmen. But talk of overcrowding brings to mind the fierce labor riots along the Erie Canal during the early development of railroads. Graphie accounts of these disturbances are filed among the Assembly Documents at Albany. Their origin was Tounded in the belief that the development of railroads would destroy the business of building canals and that there would be no work for the laboring men. Looking backwards over the years of phenomenal railroad development and remembering the difficulty that has been experienced many times in securing a sufficient supply of labor and that in spite of the rapid increase in population, one can hardly believe in the sanity of the advocates of such sophistry. The case of the enginering profession today is in a measure parallel to that of the canal builders. Having attained the summit of engineering achievement in the building of the Panama Canal, the pessimists whose peculiarities were so viv- idiy described thousands of years ago in the book of EKeclesi- astes, see only retrogression and decline. But engineering art is too young, too virile for such a fate. We have problems to solve which will cause the Panama Canal to occupy a much smaller portion of our field of vision than it does today. The regulation and control of the Mississippi River is such a prob- lem, there is little doubt but that the time will come when its waters will be controlled and the immense areas of land that are annually devastated by its floods will become productive farms, and the appalling losses be greatly lessened. Our irri- vation problems, the Salton Sea, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River afford opportunities for engineering works of the highest order. The improvement of transportation lines through cities, streams and mountains will eall forth our utmost energy and skill. Water supplies and the sanitation of cities are of immediate necessity and it will be many years before our highways can attain a development comparable to those of the ancient Romans. There are fashions in engineering as in spring hats. The popular mind does not seem capable of thinking calmly of more than one style at a time and suiting them to its needs. Just now reinforced conerete holds the stage. Stone masonry is a thing of the past. At one time canals were popular. Then eame the railroads. Now better highways are much desired and canals are looming in the distance. Locally there is dif- ficulty in assigning proper relative importance to sewerage and water supply. 10 : But of lack of engineering problems there is none. It is not 2 ease of lack of work but how much work can we do. How soon will we be strong enough and skilful enough to under- take hopefully other and larger problems that will add still more to the delightfulness of the beautiful land in which we live. The words of the poet: “Who loves to work, and knows to spare, Can live and flourish anywhere.” should be ever with us. Dissension and controversy were never mile-stones on the road to suecess. Untiring industry, willing and unselfish co-operation are the needs of the hour. Testing an Engine, lowa State Ccllege He is a fortunate engineer whose early training and educa- tion has been planned with an eye to his future profession. Much of the fitness which a man may have for the work of his life is the result of early environment and training, a conspicu- eus fact in the lives of engineers. It has been commonly re- marked that young men from the country display a superior aptitude for surveying. This is to be expected. The country boy has many opportunities to acquire a self-reliance and re- sourcefulness in his peculiar environment that are useful on extensive surveys. He learns to wield an axe or a saw, to outwit an angry bull or a vicious dog, to build a fire and to find his way through dense woods in the dark. 11 In the city this development is supplied to a degree and in some respects excelled by the training of the technical schools. It is essential that an engineer should be intimately familiar with the properties of structural material and this knowledge he ean gain in the various schools. He handles the iron at the jorge and in the lathe and pours it molten from the furnace to the molds which he has made. He cuts the wood and fashions it into forms of which he has first made careful drawings. He does these things because of the pleasure he feels in building with his own hands, but a later date when called upon to construct great works he uses the materials wisely because he knows them as friends. He knows their properties and capa- bilities and putting them together, each in its proper place, there is produced a thing of strength and usefulness. Engineering appeals to boys because it requires a vigorous, active life which ineludes much adventure and hardship. The iatter may not appeal to his mother, but a healthy boy loves to test his endurance and measure his courage and strength with full-grown men. And in engineering he ean find his fill. trom the bowels of the earth to the moutain peaks, there are surveys to make and railroads to build. There is work in Alaska, China and Africa as well as in lands more like home. There are strange men and strange animals and stranger cur- rents and storms and secret dangers. The football field is a fine place for a prospective engineer. It develops his nerve and his will. Discipline is of prime im- portance and it is becoming increasingly rare. The West Point eraduates make excellent engineers and one of their strong points is their even, well-regulated conduct under all sorts of conditions.