LECTURE ON ENGINEERING

Prof. George F. Swain, professor of civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lectured to the members of the Union last night on "Engineering as a Profession." He dwelt particularly on the fact that the successful engineer must combine good business ability, high character, and a knowledge of men, with his technical training.

Professor Swain began by giving a short history of engineering. He said that since early times engineering has been in use to supply men with water, food, and habitation. The Egyptians and Babylonians constructed great works, but in many instances wasted their efforts. During the Middle Ages with the decadence of civilization, engineering declined, only to take on new life in the sixteenth century. The need of the civil engineer became greater with construction of roads, bridges, docks, and harbors. The many inventions of the early nineteenth century gave added impulse to the profession, and engineers began to be differentiated. There arose the railroad engineer; the mechanical engineer, who was concerned with the development of power; the sanitary engineer, and the mining engineer. Meanwhile the scope of the civil engineer was ever broadening and his field being again subdivided with the advent of electricity, the study of hydraulics and of applied chemistry. Structures have become typical of the civil engineer as machines are typical of the mechanical engineer. From this brief review it is evident that the field of engineering is larger than that of any of the other so-called learned professions.

The engineer should be a thorough master of chemistry, physics, mathematics, and mechanics; he should have the true scientific spirit, the love of science for its own sake, and the love of truth for truth's sake. But above everything else he should be eminently practical and be able to apply his knowledge. The engineer must not only be a scientific man, but also a business man. His place is not in the study and laboratory but out in the world. His duty is not alone to apply the forces of nature but to do so economically; not only to build, but also to decide whether a work should be constructed or not. It is all important that the engineer be a good judge of men, be of high character, and of good deportment. He must have a general education in addition to his specific training.

He can command a large salary, one that compares favorably with the salaries of lawyers and physicians. But apart from this monetary consideration the engineer has the chance to be of great service to mankind. On him depends the conservation of our enormous natural resources.