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 ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 J. A. L. WADDELL, Cl E. Ma. E. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE ENGINEERING STUDENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 The Missouri State University. 
 
 APRIL 2, 1908. 
 

N ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 J. A. L. WADDELL, C. E. Ma. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE ENGINEERING STUDENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 The Missouri State Un iversity, 
 
 APRIL 2, 1903. 
 
 Lechtman Printing Co.. K. C.. Mo - 
 

 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/addresstoengineeOOwadd 
 
TO THE UNDERGRADUATES OF THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT 
 
 OF THE MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Younff Gentlemen : 
 
 When the Secretary of your Engineering Society requested me to de- 
 liver you a lecture, I agreed very gladly, and asked whether he would pre- 
 fer an address consisting of some practical advice to undergraduates or a 
 talk on some branch of my specialty. His answer was, that you would 
 appreciate better the advice, so I have arranged to give it to you tonight; 
 but I am prepared to give you also afterwards, if you so desire, one or 
 two talks on bridges. They will be essentially extempore and of a very 
 informal character; and will be illustrated by numerous blue prints and a 
 few photographs, most of which I shall be happy to leave with your pro- 
 fessor of Civil Engineering, if he care to use them in his class-work. 
 
 As these technical lectures will be most uninteresting to all except 
 those who have either studied the subject of bridges or intend to study it, 
 I would suggest that my hearers be limited to such students; more es- 
 pecially because the illustrations are on so small a scale as to make it in- 
 convenient for many persons to view them simultaneously. 
 
 My time for the next day or two will be entirely at your disposal; so 
 if, when I have finished addressing you tonight, you will arrange the time 
 and place f&r us to meet again, I shall endeavor to present to you then, 
 under the title of “The Most Approved Types of Modern American Rail- 
 road Bridges,” a simple and concise statement of the present status in this 
 country of bridge engineering and construction, together with a historical 
 sketch of the development thereof. 
 
 And now to the matter in hand: 
 
 Of late years the addresses of this character that I have made, have 
 been presented to graduating classes, and in consequence, they have had 
 special reference to the early professional life of the young engineer; but 
 tonight I desire to speak to you mainly concerning your course in the Uni- 
 versity and your undergraduate life. 
 
 If, upon the conclusion of my talk, you are not utterly wearied, but 
 are desirous of receiving further advice that will apply to your careers 
 after graduation, I shall be pleased to offer you later the substance of an 
 address which I made last summer to the graduating class of the en- 
 gineering department of the Rose Polytechnic Institute. 
 
 Were there any probability of your having read the said address, I 
 would hesitate about offering to give it again, but you are not likely to 
 have run across it; for as far as I know, it was published only in a local 
 paper of Terre Haute. Moreover, I said on that occasion about all that 
 is necessary to tell you concerning what, in my opinion, is best for the 
 young engineer to do in order to succeed in his profession; so there would 
 be no use in my preparing for you another lecture on the same subject; 
 because, if I did, I would simply repeat myself. 
 
 In treating of the work of undergraduates, I fear I am treading on 
 delicate ground, because it is possible that I may say something which 
 will conflict with the ideas and practice of your worthy professors of 
 Civil Engineering. If so, I beg to apologize in advance, and to state that 
 my offence ought to be excusable, as I know practically nothing about the 
 engineering course given here. 
 
 Any criticism that I may offer about engineering education refers to 
 
 1 
 
I 
 
 the said education in general, and applies to no particular institution of 
 learning. 
 
 This possible trouble that I may get into reminds me of a rather 
 amusing incident of my early professional days. 
 
 In 1878 I acted .for a short time as Chief Engineer of a coal -mine in 
 West Virginia. I say “Chief” advisedly, for I had two assistants, one white 
 and one black, but neither of them could read or write, excepting that the 
 colored man could make out the figures on the tape line. 
 
 After a few months, when offered another position more to my taste, I 
 accepted it and tendered my resignation to the owner of the mine, who 
 very kindly expressed his regrets at my leaving, saying also, “The miners, 
 too, will be sorry to have you go, for you have become quite popular 
 among them.” This took me all aback, and I replied, “That is very 
 strange, indeed, because for the last three months I have been most out- 
 spoken in telling them all what blooming idiots they are to countenance 
 strikes.” To this the owner of the mine replied, “Oh, that is all right. 
 They simply attribute it to your ignorance.” 
 
 So, if in this address I make any faux pas or tread on anyone’s toes, 
 I hope that, like the miners, you will excuse me and simply “attribute it 
 to my ignorance.” 
 
 In the old days when I was a student, — something more than a quarter 
 of a century ago — the general impression among undergraduates appeared 
 to be that they ought to study just enough to pass and no more; that their 
 instructors were their natural enemies, whose business it was to find out 
 their weak points and to condition them if possible; and that to hood- 
 wink a professor into believing a student knew something which he did 
 not know, was the highest possible achievement in student life. 
 
 Such a state of affairs was due to a variety of causes, among others 
 the following being prominent: 
 
 First: The idea entertained generally by the faculty that graduation 
 from an engineering school of high standing ought to be a case of “sur- 
 vival of the fittest,” and that none but men of high attainments as stu- 
 dents ought to become engineers. 
 
 Second: The admission of boys instead of young men into engineer- 
 ing schools. 
 
 Third: Employing as professors, to teach engineering subjects, men 
 who were mere theorists and who had never had any actual experience in 
 either office or field. 
 
 Fourth: The erection and maintenance of an artificial barrier be- 
 tween professors and students, which prevented them from meeting on 
 common, professional ground. 
 
 This spirit of conflict between professors and students is fundamen- 
 tally wrong, as is also the idea that a student should study merely enough 
 to pass the examinations. Fortunately for the engineering profession, 
 these false notions are rapidly becoming obsolete; although I note oc- 
 casionally in my travels that the same old antagonism and want of con- 
 fidence still exist to a certain extent in some of the technical schools. 
 
 A professor ought to be his students’ best friend, not only during the 
 time he is instructing them, but also throughout his entire life. He should 
 regard them almost as his own sons, and should encourage them to turn 
 to him for advice or assistance whenever they feel the need of aid in their 
 professional careers, or when discouraged by the world’s hard knocks. 
 
 2 
 
Nor should he wait for his old students to come to him for assistance; but 
 he should do his best at all times to push their fortunes and advance their 
 standing in the profession by saying, whenever occasion offers, a few 
 good words for them to the older engineers and to any other individuals 
 with whom they are likely to have business relations. 
 
 Again, the notion that only ideally fine students can become good pro- 
 fessional-men is entirely erroneous. Many a slow-thinking student, who 
 has either been dropped from his course or has just managed by great ef- 
 fort to pass the examinations and take his degree, has become a success- 
 ful engineer; and it is well known that many of the finest mathematicians 
 who graduate from technical schools are never heard from afterwards in 
 the engineering world. Now do not go away with the impression that I 
 believe it is not the good students who make the best engineers; for on 
 the whole, they most decidedly do; but I maintain, nevertheless, that some 
 men who as students think slowly and acquire knowledge with difficulty, 
 after leaving the technical school, develop slowly but surely into sound, 
 trustworthy, and high-class engineers. 
 
 In dealing with such students, the professor should not let their slow- 
 ness hold back the brighter and quicker men, but he should devote to the 
 former more of his personal attention, aid them in thinking more quickly, 
 and force them to keep up with the class. 
 
 If such men are possessed by a great desire to succeed, the assistance 
 thus given them will generally put them through the course in fairly 
 good shape, but if not, the sooner their names are dropped from the rolls 
 the better. 
 
 Some of you may be thinking that these last few remarks of mine are 
 better fitted for an assemblage of professors than for one of technical 
 
 students. Perhaps they are; nevertheless, some of you may some day be- 
 come professors; so in that case the said remarks are apropos — at any 
 rate they must not be construed as in any way reflecting upon the pro- 
 fessors at this institution. 
 
 I am glad to note that of late years the average age for entering en- 
 gineering schools has increased by a year or two. In my class at Rens- 
 selaer, the average age for entrance was seventeen and a half years, — 
 exactly, by the way, my own age at that time; but now I understand that 
 the average age of entrance for all the technical schools of the country is 
 about nineteen years — however, I may have been misinformed. In my 
 
 opinion, the proper age for entering the freshman class is between eighteen 
 and twenty; less than eighteen is too young for one to appreciate fully the 
 course, and more than twenty will shorten too much a man’s working 
 
 time; besides, if one starts very late on his life’s real work, he is apt to 
 have formed the habit of depending too much upon others for the neces- 
 saries of existence, so he will feel rather disinclined to earn his own 
 
 living, and will be dissatisfied with the character of the said living, when 
 compared with that to which for so many years he has been accustomed. 
 
 Again, the time is coming when a first-class course in civil engineering 
 will demand five years instead of four. 
 
 Some sixteen years ago, in a paper on “Civil Engineering Education,” 
 I advocated strongly a five years’ course in civil engineering, and made an 
 outline of what it should consist, stating that a thorough course on the 
 subject cannot be given in less time. At present, as far as I know, there 
 is no technical school which gives more than a four years’ course in en- 
 
 3 
 
gineering; but for several years McGill University, of which institution I 
 have the honor to be an ad eundem gradum alumnus, has been giving a 
 year of post-graduate work ; and this w r ork is soon to be included in the 
 regular curriculum by increasing the length of the course to five years. 
 When this is done, Canada will lead the United States in civil engineering 
 education, and in truth, the course in engineering given at McGill today is 
 almost, if not quite, on a par with the best course given in this country. 
 
 If any of you have an opportunity to take a post-graduate course of a 
 year or two at some first-class technical school, so as to continue your en- 
 gineering studies beyond the confines of the ordinary curriculum, by all 
 means avail yourselves thereof. The time thus occupied will be well spent; 
 and you will never have occasion to regret such an expenditure. During 
 such a period you will be almost your own masters, and will be free to 
 work when and on what you choose. 
 
 It is an excellent plan for a boy who contemplates following the pro- 
 fession of civil engineering to spend a few years at college taking an Arts 
 course, and if time permit, the degree given with same, before entering 
 a technical school; but in such a case he should elect to take as many of 
 the science studies as possible, and omit entirely the dead languages and 
 most of the living ones. 
 
 The study of the dead languages is a relic of the dark ages, and 
 clings to our institutions of learning as rigidly as did the Old Man of the 
 Sea to Sinbad the Sailor; while most of the time spent by engineering 
 students in the study of modern languages is totally wasted. This is for 
 two reasons; first, because not one in ten learns any more about them 
 than merely enough to pass the examinations; and second, even if one 
 should learn a modern language well, he would have no practical use for it 
 in the United States; consequently, in my opinion, the time devoted to its 
 study could be used to far better advantage on something of a more prac- 
 tical nature. 
 
 The plea that is generally made for the study of modern languages in 
 engineering schools, is that there are so many good things in French and 
 German scientific books of which the young engineer would be deprived, 
 did he not study these languages. To this plea I beg to reply as follows: 
 
 First: There is very little in either language that would be of any 
 practical value to American engineers. 
 
 Second: That, if occasionally a useful article or treatise does appear 
 in French or German technical literature, it is very soon translated into' 
 English. 
 
 Third: There are already more good engineering books in the English 
 language than one can find time to read; and. 
 
 Fourth: And finally — not one student in fifty at an engineering 
 school learns a modern language with sufficient thoroughness to translate 
 or even properly to comprehend a technical paper written therein. 
 
 The only foreign language which would be of any practical value to an 
 American engineer is Spanish — and the technical schools do not teach that. 
 
 Instead of worrying the students’ brains with Latin, Greek, French and 
 German, why not give them thorough instruction in English, so that they 
 would all become truly masters of their own language? 
 
 What percentage of the graduates from engineering schools are well 
 posted in English? How many of them can spell correctly? How many 
 of them can write a decent letter? Alas! the percentage is indeed small. 
 
 4 
 
Of this I constantly have ample proof in the applications for work which 
 we receive from recent graduates. 
 
 Again, I do not believe that the English language is taught properly to 
 engineering students. Too much attention is given to the study of works 
 of the old writers and their antiquated diction, while no time is spent in 
 teaching the young man how to express himself clearly, tersely and em- 
 phatically. 
 
 Moreover, why spend a lot of time studying and analyzing poetical 
 works? It is plain, every-day prose, not poetry, that the engineer has to 
 deal with in his life’s work; and believe me, there is nothing which will 
 be of greater advantage to a good engineer than a thorough, practical 
 knowledge of his own tongue. 
 
 In giving the various courses in English (and I believe they should be 
 distributed throughout the entire four or even five years), why not adopt, 
 for some of the examples of standard literature, works of American en- 
 gineers which are written in good English? 
 
 It is engineering reports, specifications, papers and books which the 
 engineering student is likely to write after graduating, and not novels, nor 
 poetry, nor books of travel. 
 
 How few engineers can prepare a truly first-class specification! 
 
 The writing of specifications is an art, and therefore ought to be cul- 
 tivated: but unfortunately, all the engineers of my acquaintance, who in- 
 dulge in the preparation of such literature, have had to learn the said art 
 after graduation, and by means of many hard experiences. 
 
 Experience is certainly a good teacher, but it is a costly one; and 
 there is no reason why a young man leaving a technical school should 
 not be thoroughly grounded, not only in the elements of specification-writ- 
 ing, but also on the finer points thereof. 
 
 If there be time within the next few days, and if you so desire, my 
 assistant, Mr. Ash, would be pleased to give you a short talk on the prep- 
 aration of engineering specifications. 
 
 There is one feature of college life which I cannot commend too highly 
 to engineering students. I refer to the literary, debating, and scientific 
 socities that flourish in some of the larger technical schools. These should 
 receive every encouragement from both professors and students. 
 
 The training that a young man imbibes from debating and from writ- 
 ing and reading papers is of more value than most people suppose. It en- 
 ables him to hold his own in after life when striving to push his claims, 
 not only by improving his diction, but also by giving him confidence in 
 himself. Modesty in an engineer is more often a fault than a virtue. 
 
 It is possible to acquire at college a literary taste, although one may 
 never before have shown any ability in that line; so I advise you to culti- 
 vate one, even at the expense of extreme effort. 
 
 Let me advise you to study the subject of plane trigonometry so 
 thoroughly that you will be able to use it with as much facility as you em- 
 ploy the four simple rules of arithmetic; and to familiarize yourselves 
 thoroughly with logarithms; for as field engineers, you will be called upon 
 to employ constantly trigonometric furictions and to shorten your compu- 
 tations by means of logarithmic calculations. 
 
 These are subjects which are very easily forgotten, so it is well for 
 a young engineer, when he finds himself becoming rusty therein, to refresh 
 
 5 
 
his memory occasionally by reviewing their theory and making a few prac- 
 tical applications of same. 
 
 To be strictly honest with you, I fear I have forgotten almost all I 
 ever knew about logarithms, as it is a number of years since I have had 
 occasion personally to apply them, such work in my practice being turned 
 over to younger men. It is strange how readily one forgets! However, if a 
 man has ever studied a subject thoroughly, he will never have much trouble 
 in brushing up on it again, notwithstanding a lapse of many years. 
 
 Students of mathematics have a false notion that it is necessary for 
 them to learn merely the theory, and that it is useless for tnem to spend 
 time in making practical applications thereof. They think, too, that ap- 
 proximately correct results are good enough; or even if their figuring proves 
 to be incorrect, it is needless to go through it again, because familiarity 
 with figures will come later with practice. 
 
 This is all wrong and most reprehensible, because it is at school that 
 the young man should learn habits of accuracy and neatness. Without 
 such habits he will never be truly successful, nor able to accomplish great 
 things in his profession. 
 
 Let me advise you to devote some attention to the subject of triangula- 
 tion, by reading up all there is written thereon, working out some old 
 cases from actual practice, and finally laying out and computing a triangula- 
 tion system for yourselves. 
 
 You will experience great pleasure and satisfaction in seeing how 
 closely your work will check. It is almost incredible to what a small 
 amount the errors in triangulation work can be reduced. For instance, on 
 our Fraser River Bridge at New Westminster, where the bridge tangent is 
 some twenty-three hundred (2,300) feet long between base lines, two of our 
 triangles checked that distance within two and a half hundredths (0.025) 
 of an inch, the average total angular error per triangle being less than one 
 second. Numerous measurements of base lines and readings of angles, to- 
 gether with the utmost care, are necessary to secure such accurate results 
 as these. 
 
 Should you or your professors desire some old triangulation sheets, you 
 can obtain them by sending a request therefor to the office of my firm. 
 
 Learn to keep records neatly, thoroughly and systematically. I cannot 
 impress upon you too forcibly the importance of this advice. Systemiza- 
 tion of all that one does is the keynote to professional success. 
 
 Let me urge you to be thorough in all your mathematical studies; 
 never quit a difficult point until you have comprehended it totally and ab- 
 solutely. Don’t be content with thinking that you understand it, but stick 
 at it till you know that you do beyond the peradventure of a doubt. The 
 test of your knowledge is your ability to demonstrate the point to an- 
 other student in such a clear way that he cannot help comprehending it 
 also. 
 
 This has been a guiding principle of mine for over thirty years, and I 
 assure you it is a good one. 
 
 I recall an extreme case of its application, which may interest you. 
 
 When acting as assistant professor of rational and technical mechanics 
 at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1879, I was saddled with the 
 drafting part of the various courses in descriptive geometry, but had noth- 
 ing whatsoever to do with the teaching of the theory. 
 
 One evening about 7 o’clock there came into my room a young sopho- 
 
 6 
 
more, a Cuban, and by far the brightest man in his class, with whom I 
 was on very friendly terms; in fact, he was then giving me instruction in 
 Spanish. He told me that there were three lines in Warren’s Descriptive 
 Geometry in the problem of the cow’s horn, which he could not understand, 
 and that he would like my assistance thereon; so, of course, I had to 
 tackle the job. 
 
 Now Windy Warren, as we used to dub him, was the blindest writer 
 ever known to the men of R. P. I., and although as a student, I had studied 
 his books, this particular problem had been omitted from my course. 
 Never before in all my reading had I struck such a miserably blind, knotty 
 case. After I had spent half an hour on the thing without producing the 
 slightest result on my mental conception, my young friend saw that he 
 had let me in for some hard work, which would be additional' to that on 
 which I was employed when he entered my room, and which had to be 
 prepared for the morrow’s classes in mechanics; so he expressed his regret 
 at having troubled me and proposed to take his departure. 
 
 Knowing that if I let him go with the point unsolved, I would lose 
 my prestige with him as an instructor, I said: “You have brought me 
 this problem, and I am not going to quit working on it until I have solved 
 it; and what is more, you are going to stay in this room until I have dis- 
 covered the solution, so make yourself comfortable and go on with your 
 study of tomorrow’s lessons.” He did so, and I continued for hour after 
 hour to pore over those three wretched lines, till just before midnight I 
 solved the problem and demonstrated it to the young man. The next day 
 he was the only member of the class who was able to explain it on the 
 black-board. 
 
 Apropos of descriptive geometry, let me advise you to study thoroughly 
 and well, all the courses in this branch of learning, from the elementary 
 plane problems, up through projection drawing, descriptive geometry, shades 
 and shadows, perspective, and stereotomy. It is a beautiful course of study 
 and one of absorbing interest, involving many delightful hours of most sat- 
 isfactory investigations. 
 
 In order to grasp the problems of descriptive geometry and its allied 
 studies, it is necessary for the student to think in space and not upon a 
 plane. Let him imagine the object, which is to be portrayed, to be located 
 near a corner formed by three rectangular planes and at a short distance 
 from each plane. Then let him imagine his eye removed to a great distance 
 so as to look at the object with lines of sight practically parallel and per- 
 pendicular to the three 'co-ordinate planes. When he can thus see the ob- 
 ject in space he will comprehend the theory of horizontal and vertical pro- 
 jections, and can begin to think of how the said object would look when 
 intersected by oblique planes, cylindrical surfaces, etc. In this way, and 
 this only, will he be able to deal with and handle properly complicated 
 problems in descriptive geometry. 
 
 If I were again a student, I would investigate these descriptive geom- 
 etry branches much more deeply than is done in the ordinary engineering 
 course, for not only would I make many extra drawings to illustrate the 
 problems, but I would also build illustrative models with paper, wood, and 
 threads. 
 
 Once in a while in our office practice, when engaged on some unusually 
 difficult and complicated piece of designing, we resort to modeling as an 
 aid to a proper conception of the proposed construction. 
 
 7 
 
The last time we did anything in this line was in connection with 
 the designing of the spread-span of the large bridge which we are now 
 building over the Fraser River at New Westminster for the Government 
 of British Columbia. The preparation of this model was entrusted to a 
 young Japanese engineer, Mr. Fujino, who was first a student in our of- 
 fice and afterwards one of our most trustworthy assistants. The model 
 that he manufactured out of card board was used by a number of our drafts- 
 men in preparing the working drawings. 
 
 Learn how to make good perspective-drawings. It is an accomplish- 
 ment which some day may prove useful, especially when dealing with 
 financial men, who often desire to see what a proposed structure will look 
 like, and who cannot understand projection drawings. 
 
 If you have any natural taste for free-hand sketching, by all means 
 cultivate it, because not only will such an accomplishment aid you in 
 filling out the landscape on perspective drawings, but also it will be ex- 
 ceedingly useful in making pocket-book sketches of machinery, structures 
 and other objects of interest. 
 
 As an example of the use of perspective, I shall show you tomorrow a 
 couple of photographs of perspective drawings of bridges made lately by 
 one of our Japanese assistants. That of the St. Charles bridge over the 
 Missouri River was prepared by the request of the project’s financiers, and 
 the one of the Fraser River bridge for some of the officers of the British 
 Columbian Government. 
 
 Some young men have an idea that it is a bad thing to be a goo J 
 draftsman, because one who is expert in this line is apt to be kept at 
 drafting work, so that it does not pay to excel in the merely mechanical 
 part of drafting. Anyone who has acted on this principle would have a 
 very poor chance of obtaining employment in the office of my firm, for 
 we have no use for any engineer who is incapable of making a drawing 
 which will not do discredit to the office. There is no more reason in such 
 an idea as this than there would be ip a young merchant cultivating an 
 illegible hand for fear that his employers may confine his services to book- 
 keeping. 
 
 By all means learn to do lettering quickly and neatly. Proficiency in 
 such work will certainly stand one in good stead sooner or later. 
 
 You ought to pay special attention to the keeping of clean, clear, sys- 
 tematic notes and records of both field work and office work. This you 
 can do while you are still at school, first, by keeping your field notes in the 
 most approved way, and second, by spending a month or two of your va- 
 cations in a large engineering office, where you will be able to study the 
 latest and best methods of filing and indexing letters, drawings, specifica- 
 tions, contracts, etc. 
 
 Learn how to prepare and use a card-index; for without one, no en- 
 gineering office that does great work can be handled to best advantage. 
 
 If I were in your place, I would spend almost the entire time of every 
 vacation in doing some actual engineering work, mostly in the field on 
 account of both the health and experience that are to be thus gained, but 
 also partially in the office. 
 
 Do not- try to earn money on such work, but offer your services gratis, 
 because, as a rule, they are worth very little in the field and less than 
 nothing in the office. If you receive pay, you will probably be kept pretty 
 
 8 
 
steadily at one class of work; but if not, you will feel at liberty to ask for a 
 varied experience. 
 
 Moreover, if, when you leave, your employer thinks that you have been 
 of actual service to him and that your work has been of real value, he is 
 likely to present you with some small amount of money as compensation. 
 
 Remember that in England young men who are studying engineering 
 have to pay large sums for the privilege of working for several years with- 
 out salary in the employ of prominent engineers. 
 
 In this country we have not come to that yet, although my partner, Mr. 
 Hedrick, once threatened to establish in our office the custom of demand- 
 ing initiation fees; for he complained bitterly of being tired of running a 
 kindergarten and having the young men leave as soon as they had learned 
 to make themselves useful and had become able to really earn small sal- 
 aries in the employ of bridge manufacturing companies. 
 
 In spite of the many unsatisfactory features involved in training young 
 engineers, we still continue to do so for our own benefit as well as for 
 theirs; because we find that those who come straight from technical 
 schools to our office for their practical instruction are afterwards much 
 more satisfactory than those who come to us after having had several 
 years’ experience elsewhere, the latter having so many things to unlearn. 
 
 If you spend a vacation in an engineer’s office, learn how to write 
 business letters, how to copy and file them, how to keep accounts, and the 
 general routine of the office; and make in your note-book full records of 
 all these things. 
 
 The keeping of accounts is such an important matter that I .would ad- 
 vise your taking a course in book-keeping before you graduate. This you 
 could ‘do during some of your spare hours. The course need not be a very 
 elaborate one, but it should be thorough, notwithstanding. 
 
 When spending a vacation on field-work, learn as much as you can of 
 the minor details of same, and consider nothing as infra dig. You should 
 be able to shovel concrete, cut threads on pipes, couple up piping, saw tim- 
 ber, fire and oil an engine, sharpen tools, drive rivets, measure 
 up work of all kinds, and in short, make yourself generally useful whether 
 you are working in the employ of the contractor or on the engineer corps. 
 
 No source of information is so lowly as to be despised; because a 
 skilled workman or even an intelligent navvy can tell you many useful things 
 which you will not find written in any book. 
 
 Be ever on the alert to pick up, record and systematize knowledge 
 of every kind that promises in any way to prove useful in your profes- 
 sional career. 
 
 Study carefully the printed forms and methods of making monthly es- 
 timates, progress reports, pay-rolls, distribution sheets, pile-driving records, 
 etc., that are adopted on large engineering constructions, and obtain for 
 your own future use copies of all blank forms employed for field-work. 
 
 Learn from observation, and by cultivating the acquaintance of those 
 experienced therein, how to deal with and handle workmen; and see if 
 you cannot from your own observations come to the conclusion that practical 
 engineering and the science of compromise are very closely allied. 
 
 As every energetic man has his fads or hobbies, it is well to cultivate 
 those which are useful; so I would suggest that you go in for amateur 
 photography, learning how to take good photographs, even if you do not 
 develop them yourselves. Daily photographs of construction are a most 
 
 9 
 
useful adjunct to progress reports on important engineering works. My 
 firm encourages its resident engineers to take such daily photographs, and 
 we find that it pays us well. 
 
 There is one feature, common to the curricula of all the engineering 
 schools in America, which I feel compelled to criticize severely; and that 
 is the failure of the faculty to include in the course of study any reference 
 to the history of civil engineering and its development. In consequence, 
 the graduates are unacquainted with the great engineering works of the 
 past, and do not even know the names of the famous engineers who are 
 dead, nor of those who are making engineering history today. 
 
 Let me give you an illustration of this. A couple of years ago, when 
 traveling, I became acquainted with a pleasant young fellow, and ascer- 
 tained that he was a graduate of one of the leading Eastern technical 
 schools, so our conversation naturally drifted to engineering subjects. In- 
 cidentally, I mentioned the name of my friend, Mr. Elmer L. Corthell, as 
 being connected with some large undertaking, but the young man had 
 never heard of him, so asked who he is. I explained that he is one of 
 America’s most eminent engineers, and that he makes a specialty of 
 harbor work. I also said that in his younger days he had been the right- 
 hand-man of Capt. Eads on the Mississippi jetties, but, mirabile dictu, the 
 young man had not heard of either Captain Eads or the Mississippi jetty- 
 work. 
 
 Such ignorance as this is inexcusable, but the young man was not to 
 blame — the fault lay with his instructors. 
 
 In order to try to correct this sad state of affairs, I am going to suggest 
 to the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education that a number 
 of its members combine to write a book, entitled, “The History of Civil 
 Engineering,” apportioning the task among a number of them by dividing 
 up the subject into the various specialties, letting each writer work up 
 independently the history of that specialty, and combining all the resulting 
 papers into a single large volume. 
 
 In this way the work of many able men of both the past and the pres- 
 ent would receive merited recognition, the engineering profession would 
 obtain some most interesting and enjoyable reading matter, and the young 
 fellows turned out of technical schools to become members of the greatest 
 of all the learned professions would no longer be densely ignorant of that 
 profession’s history and of the names of its great men. 
 
 I am constantly advising young engineers to join the various engineer- 
 ing societies, and to become personally acquainted with engineers of es- 
 tablished reputation, so I can do no better than to repeat this advice for 
 your benefit. 
 
 I counsel you also to read two or three of the principal engineering 
 papers and magazines, so as to keep in touch with what is going on in 
 the engineering world. After a while you should write occasionally for 
 these periodicals. 
 
 Make it a matter of pride to keep all appointments promptly. An es- 
 tablished reputation for so doing is a strong point in a man’s favor, and 
 tends to render him popular among business men, whose “time is money.” 
 
 During your technical course, visit and examine thoroughly as many 
 engineering constructions, manufactories, etc., as your time will permit, 
 and make notes thereon in your pocket-book for future reference. Study 
 the why and wherefore of everything you observe, and do not be content 
 
 10 
 
with half-understandings. Study also to see whether you can evolve ways 
 of improving the various works, plants, methods, machinery, mechanical 
 contrivances, etc., that you encounter, for there is always the possibility of 
 your discovering something of value, besides you are sure by so doing to 
 develop greatly your mental faculties. 
 
 Learn to use your judgment and to decide quickly and finally. Some 
 engineers make a point of having a string tied to each of their decisions, 
 with the natural consequence that they fail to accomplish much, and never 
 finish up a piece of work cleanly and thoroughly. 
 
 If possible, a design for any construction should be made complete at 
 the outset before any actual work is done, as changes in plans involve 
 trouble and expense for everybody concerned, and tend to produce patch- 
 work. 
 
 Don’t make up your minds that you will either like or dislike any 
 particular branch of the profession before you have had considerable ex- 
 perience in actual practice; because, if you do, you are likely to make a 
 mistake. Years ago I made up my mind that bridge engineering would not 
 be to my taste, simply because I saw one of my fellow graduates with his 
 head bowed over a drawing board making a tracing. 
 
 It seemed to me then that such work must be the ns plus ultra of un- 
 interesting occupation; while today I am convinced that of all the numer- 
 ous and diversified branches of civil engineering there is none to com- 
 pare with bridge work in the absorbing interest that it involves for those 
 who adopt it as a specialty. 
 
 So much for early and immature impressions — beware of them, lest they 
 lead you into error! 
 
 Some inexperienced young men think that an engineer should devote 
 his entire time to strictly engineering work, and that any portion of it 
 spent in any other occupation is wasted. This is another fallacy that ought 
 to be exploded. 
 
 It is true that there are some engineers whose entire time is confined 
 to purely engineering work, but these men are computers and the like, 
 who grind away from one year’s end to another on intricate but tire- 
 some calculations, and whose salaries never attain to munificence; while 
 most of those engineers tvho spend a large portion, or perhaps all of their 
 time on business matters, earn eventually large compensation. 
 
 One of the most important duties that an engineer is ever called upon 
 to perform, might be considered by some people as not being engineering at 
 all. I refer to the work that he does in aiding projectors of enterprises 
 to finance their schemes. 
 
 An incident or two from my own practice will serve to illustrate this 
 kind of work and its importance. 
 
 Some ten or twelve years ago I was acting as consulting engineer to a 
 promoter, who was trying to finance, with some Eastern capitalists, a pro- 
 ject involving a large bridge and a terminal railway system. 
 
 At first the promoter’s ideas were very large, and his project did not 
 appeal strongly to the capitalists, so by degrees he lopped off one extrava- 
 gance after another till at last he reduced the total sum required from 
 over two million dollars to seven hundred and fifty thousand. This was a 
 bed-rock figure, and he knew that, if he failed this time to finance the 
 scheme, the jig w r ould be up; so he took me East with him to interview' 
 the powers and to back him up in his arguments. 
 
 11 
 
By this time the financial men were getting tired of the project, so 
 after giving my friend a hearing they excused themselves and retired for a 
 consultation. 
 
 In about half an hour they returned and reported that that would be 
 the last time they would ever listen to the project, and that the decision 
 which they were about to announce would be final. 
 
 They stated that they would be willing to take five hundred thousand 
 dollars’ worth of the securities, if within three days my friend could place 
 the remaining two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth. This de- 
 cision seemed to take the promoter’s breath away, for he recognized it as 
 a bluff made to freeze him out, and he did not dare to call it, so kept ab- 
 solutely silent for several minutes. 
 
 Seeing that my principal was knocked out, I arose and said, “Very 
 well, gentlemen, we shall be here on Thursday noon with subscriptions for 
 the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars;” then we took our departure. 
 
 When we got outside of the building my friend said, “What is the 
 use in trying to work a bluff like that? You cannot possibly raise such 
 a sum of money in three days. How do you expect to do it?” 
 
 To which I answered, “We can arrange the affair in forty-eight hours 
 
 by giving a private contract for the superstructure to the Bridge 
 
 Company and another for the substructure to the Foundation Com- 
 
 pany, on the condition that each concern will take in part payment one 
 hundred thousand dollars’ worth of the securities; your friend, Mr. So-and- 
 So, will take twenty-five thousand more, and you and I together will put 
 up the other twenty-five thousand.” 
 
 All this was worked out as I figured, and on Thursday noon we were 
 at the office of the capitalists with all the subscriptions taken — much to 
 their amazement, and, I may add, to their dissatisfaction. 
 
 Here is another example of financiering by the engineer after the pro- 
 moters had failed. I sometimes tell the story by making the broad claim 
 that I am the man who prevented the capital of Missouri from pelng re- 
 moved from Jefferson City to Sedalia. 
 
 For a number of years I was working on the project to build a wagon 
 bridge across the Missouri River at Jefferson City; but it failed to material- 
 ize for quite a while. 
 
 At last the citizens of the city subscribed for a sufficient sum to war- 
 rant the work being started, so I was retained to make surveys, prepare 
 plans and specifications, and let the contract. 
 
 As per instructions, I made layouts and estimates for a high bridge 
 at the foot of the central street of the city and for a low bridge some dis- 
 tance up stream, reporting in favor of the latter, not only because of its 
 smaller initial cost, but also because the annual charges for maintenance 
 would be much less. 
 
 However, the committee preferred the other bridge, so my recom- 
 mendation was ignored and a contract was let for the high bridge, notwith- 
 standing the fact that only a portion of the necessary money had been 
 subscribed. 
 
 The most strenuous efforts failed to raise the balance of the subscrip- 
 tion, so one day I was called to Jefferson City to meet the committee, 
 who, after consultation, informed me that the project would have to be 
 dropped. 
 
 Shortly before this, there had been inaugurated by the people of Se- 
 
 12 
 
dalia their big fight for the capital, one of their strongest pleas being 
 that Jefferson City was difficult of access from the North during the win- 
 ter, when the ice was not safe, and during the high-water period when 
 navigation was dangerous, and that consequently legislators and others, 
 in order to cross the river, often had to go all the way to St. Louis and 
 back. 
 
 The people of Jefferson City were feeling pretty blue just then, for 
 they thought the capital would certainly be lost to them. 
 
 After hearing the decision of the committee, I replied, “Well, gentle- 
 men, you would not take my advice and build a low bridge upstream, and 
 now you see the result. You could have managed to raise enough money 
 for a low bridge, while you cannot raise enough for a high one. My ad- 
 vice to you is to reconsider your decision, and revert to the low bridge pro- 
 ject.” 
 
 To this one of the committee replied, “You seem to forget that Senator 
 Vest told us the Missouri River Commission will not permit us to build a 
 low bridge over the river.” 
 
 My answer was, “I have already built two low bridges over that river 
 in spite of the opposition of the Missouri River Commission, and I see no 
 reason why I cannot build a third. I suggest that you send a representative 
 to Washington to interview Senator Vest and tell him that it has to be a 
 low bridge or no bridge, and that the latter means the loss of the capital.” 
 
 This was done, and a charter for a low bridge was soon afterwards 
 obtained from Congress; then I was called again to Jefferson City to ad- 
 vise what to do about letting another contract. 
 
 I told them they had gotten into hot water by acting against my ad- 
 vice in letting a contract, not only for something which they did not need, 
 but also before the money had been raised, but that I thought I could help 
 them out. So it was arranged that they would get subscribed at once the 
 small balance necessary for a low bridge, and that I would prepare plans, 
 specifications, and estimates therefor, and then effect a compromise with 
 the contractor by making a deal with him personally. Fortunately, he was 
 reasonable in his demands, so I closed the matter up and prepared a new 
 contract, which was signed by both parties without delay, after which the 
 construction of the bridge was pushed to completion. 
 
 When the vdte on the removal of the capital to Sedalia was taken, 
 the people of the state opposed the change, mainly because the principal 
 plea for removal was no longer valid. 
 
 I have entered minutely into the details of these two cases, pos- 
 sibly too deeply for an address of this kind, but I wanted to convince 
 you that there is often required from an engineer just as important work 
 as engineering pure and simple. That it is impracticable to teach at a tech- 
 nical school how to handle financial problems and matters of that sort 
 goes without saying, for such things can be learned only in active business 
 life. Nevertheless, it would be a great step in this direction, if engin- 
 eering students were well grounded in political economy and the elements 
 of finance. 
 
 Lectures on technical subjects at least once a month by practical en- 
 gineers of high professional standing would bring the undergraduates 
 into touch with the business world, and would enable them to see the prac- 
 tical application of many of their studies. Another way to effect the latter 
 desideratum is to have the professors of engineering make a practice of 
 
 13 
 
spending a large portion- of their vacations in the employ of consulting 
 engineers and contracting companies, so that they themselves may learn 
 how to apply theory to practice, then teach the same afterwards to their 
 students. Several professors of engineering have thus entered my em- 
 ploy, and all have expressed themselves as well content with the prac- 
 tical knowledge they have so acquired. 
 
 If engineering students were instructed properly in the practical ap- 
 plication of all the theory they learn, they would undertake their studies 
 with more enthusiasm. However, it requires a practical engineer to give 
 practical instruction, hence the suggestion just made concerning vacation 
 work for the professors. 
 
 It may be difficult to show the practical application of some of the 
 courses of the curriculum, especially the pure mathematics, still it can 
 and ought to be done. 
 
 Learn to distinguish between the use and abuse of approximations. 
 Some calculations should be made with extreme accuracy, while 
 others need be only approximate. Engineers are apt to err in either di- 
 rection. For instance, it is a difficult matter to teach an experienced rail- 
 road engineer that, when making a large triangulation for a proposed 
 bridge, it is necessary to measure his base lines to a hundredth of an 
 inch and his angles to a second; and on the other hand, many bridge 
 computers have wasted months — aye, years — of their lives in struggling 
 with that useless method of figuring stresses by 'wheel concentrations. 
 Your irfaturing judgment will soon tell you how close to exactness any set 
 of calculations ought to be made in order to obtain correct results. Any 
 greater accuracy amounts to mere hair-splitting. 
 
 This last phrase reminds me of an amusing incident in my career. 
 I was once called upon to pass on some plans for a bridge which were 
 submitted to a city by the successful bidder. Among other faults, I 
 pointed out that the hip and pedestal pins were located on the center 
 line of the channels of the inclined end post instead of on the gravity 
 line of the sections of the member. The foreign engineer who had pre- 
 pared the plans wrote me in defense of the same, and stated in reply to this 
 particular criticism that my objection was nothing but the “splitting of a 
 hair.” I thereupon sent him a copy of my calculations, showing that the 
 little eccentricity, which he wanted to ignore, increased the maximum 
 stress on the extreme fibre fifty-nine (59) per cent. This letter brought 
 the correspondence abruptly to a close. 
 
 It is far better for a student to make all his calculations in scratch 
 books rather than on loose sheets of paper, for he will then be able to refer 
 to them at any time and check them if necessary. You can begin right 
 here applying the principle of systemization of work by keeping the 
 said calculations neatly and in such order as to be easy for reference. 
 
 There is one important matter which is neglected in most engineering 
 schools, viz.: the use and adjustment of all instruments employed on en- 
 gineering work. Of course, the use and adjustment of transit and level are 
 taught more or-- less thoroughly at all technical institutions; but how 
 many of their recent graduates can take one of these instruments apart, 
 clean it, effect simple repairs, and put it together again? All these manip- 
 ulations are necessary occasionally on field work, where the party is 
 hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles from the nearest repair shop. 
 
 Again, there are now-a-days in use by engineers several improved 
 
 14 
 
attachments to the transit and level; and these two are by no means the 
 only instruments which engineers employ. 
 
 Take my advice and learn all you can concerning engineering instru- 
 ments before you leave your alma mater; for you may not have another 
 opportunity to do so before you are required to apply the knowledge that 
 I am advising you to acquire. Moreover, you are liable to forget in time 
 a great deal of what you learn here about instruments. In proof of this 
 let me give you a little illustration from my own experience: 
 
 Last summer the Chief Engineer of the province of British Columbia, 
 who, by the way, is a very old friend of mine, and I found ourselves some 
 five hundred miles up the Fraser River, about the fifty-second parallel, 
 provided with a borrowed transit and level but no one to run them, and 
 having before us the task of locating a suspension bridge across the river 
 and the approaches thereto on both sides of same. There was nothing for 
 us to do but to get down to first principles and operate the instruments 
 ourselves; but as they had traveled some two hundred miles by train and 
 nearly as much more by stage, it was first necessary to see that they were 
 in adjustment. 
 
 “How long is it since you ran an instrument?” asked my friend. 
 
 To which I replied, “Over twenty years.” 
 
 “Well,” said he, “I have not touched one for twenty-five. Do you 
 know anything about making the adjustments?” 
 
 “Yes, at least I ought to,” I answered, “for I gave the course in ad- 
 justment of instruments at Troy, but probably I have forgotten all about it.” 
 
 We first tackled the transit and found that we could remember the 
 three adjustments pretty well, so tested for them and soon got that instru- 
 ment into good shape. Next we tackled the level, which we found to 
 be a dumpy. 
 
 We set it up and looked at it a few minutes without speaking. At 
 length my friend remarked, 
 
 “Confound a dumpy level, anyway; I never could handle decently one 
 of the infernal things. How in Hades are we going to get it adjusted?” 
 I replied, “If I remember rightly, we shall have to use the peg method, 
 but it is over twenty-five years since I handled one of the accursed instru- 
 ments, so I have forgotten nearly all I ever knew about the adjustment.” 
 
 To make a long story short, we two old engineers struggled with that 
 miserable instrument for three-quarters of an hour before we got it into 
 sufficiently good adjustment to answer our purpose, after which we pro- 
 ceeded with the surveys, finding by degrees our old skill coming back to 
 us to such an extent that, on the third day, when we had finisned our 
 work, we agreed that we had enjoyed it thoroughly, notwithstanding the 
 fact that we had slept for two nights in the rain without any shelter but our 
 blankets and a small piece of canvas. 
 
 Let me advise that, both as students and engineers, you cultivate a 
 love for your occupation. Unless you do, you will never attain great suc- 
 cess. The longer you are engaged in engineering the more interesting and 
 absorbing does it become, and eventually you will begrudge from your 
 work the hours spent away from it even in sleep. There is no satisfac- 
 tion that I ever experienced which quite equals that resulting from the 
 successful solution of a difficult problem in either theory or actual con- 
 struction. 
 
 The maintenance of a high standard for the engineering profession 
 
 15 
 
is the duty of every engineer both to the profession and to himself. The 
 strictest integrity under all circumstances is absolutely essential to an 
 engineer’s success. Any departure therefrom is sure to bring disaster to 
 the individual and disgrace to the profession, so let me exhort each of you 
 to do always the right thing to the best of your knowledge and power. 
 
 At all times you should endeavor to maintain the dignity of your 
 profession, remembering that the public is not likely to place that profes- 
 sion upon a higher plane in the affairs of men than do its own members; 
 so neter speak of it in a .belittling tone; but, like a knight of old in re- 
 spect to his lady’s fame, be ever ready to maintain its superiority against 
 all comers. 
 
 And now a few words in regard to the requisites for a man’s be- 
 coming a successful engineer. 
 
 He must be intensely practical, yet perfectly technical; minutely ac- 
 curate, yet properly approximate; firm in his beliefs, yet open to convic- 
 tion, knowing where firmness stops and stubbornness begins; courteous 
 and helpful to his contractors, yet never conniving with them to the slight- 
 est degree; dignified, yet affable; and in short, a thorough gentleman, yet 
 never ashamed to do any work, however apparently menial, provided that 
 it belongs properly to the engineering profession. 
 
 In order to encourage you young men to renewed effort, let me state 
 that I most firmly believe civil engineering to be less overcrowded than 
 any other profession; that the demand for good engineers is increasing 
 steadily; that the problems confronting engineers are yearly becoming 
 more complicated, demanding a higher grade of talent and training; that 
 the remuneration for engineers of all ranks in this country is higher than 
 ever before; and that the prospects for the future of our profession are 
 exceedingly bright. 
 
 In corroboration of the preceding statement I quote the following, 
 which I read (after this address was written) in the Engineering Record 
 of March 28th: 
 
 “The demand for engineers throughout America far exceeds the num- 
 ber of men available. Several engineering colleges report already that 
 more good places are offered than there are students in the graduating 
 classes to fill them, and this in spite of large classes and improved facil- 
 ities. 
 
 “Several prominent technical institutions are adding new buildings 
 and increasing their equipment.” 
 
 Before closing, let me offer you, as a summary of most of my remarks, 
 a few concluding words of advice in regard to the remainder of your 
 course at the Missouri State University, which, if you follow, will give 
 you an excellent preparation for the life work that is to come after grad- 
 uation. In all you do be earnest, honest, energetic, thorough, and am- 
 bitious. In short, strive to be worthy of having ultimately engraved on 
 your tombstone that most expressive Colorado epitaph: 
 
 “He done his level damndest, 
 
 No angel could do no more.” 
 
 16 
 

 
 
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