The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1869-08-21
THE STATUS OF ENGINEERS.
Rno.r h. Arna Al

Engineering is not yet wholly exempt
from that tendency to exclusiveness which
is more or less common to all the various
professions. Those who have become tho
roughly versed in the miautid of accept
ed systems, and accustomed to travel in
the well orn-grooves and customs of
acknowledged usage, are apt to feel, if
not to assert, that these give them almost
the only legitimate claim to the title of en-
giOeers Ignoring the consideration
that the want Of these advantages is very
frequently more than counterbalanced by
native ingenuity and an intuitive faculty Of
adapting means to ends. This is undoubt-
eddy more extensively the case abroad than
in this country, where freedom for individ-
ual effort is greatest, where men are asked
not SO much what they know as what they
can do; and where professional recogni-
ton in the main depends not upon having
passed through given routine of study
or pra:tice, as upon the ability to meet ex-
igencies, against which mere experience or
the lore of textbooks are unable TO provide
This idea is sufficiently prevalent, even
in this country, to warrant something more
than a passing remark; for its bearings are
direct upon the status Of q profession the
condition Of which is being continually mo
di6ed, and which in the future, will neces-
state qualifications differing materially from
those that secured eminence twenty, or
even ten yeaTs ago.
The key note Of the idea referred to is
touched by a recent writer in the English
journal Engineering, who claims that the
engineering profession as body should
have power.to regulate the admission Of lie
members. The manner in which it is sug-
gested to exercise this power Is to compel
ach sspirant Of the grade of engineer to
sOtnplste q prescribed compulsory cQar.a
Of study at some college than to remain for
q stated period under some Recognised"
member of the profession, and, lastly, TO
pass an examination before board Of exam
lners. Than this nothing could be better
imagined for throwing all engineering prac-
tice into the hands "a a close corporation,
and for shutting out from it such men az
were Brindley, Watt, Murdoch, the Elder
aud a host Of others who have
created the wealth aud industrial glory Of
neither could there be ANYTHING
more illustrative Of the TeductiO adj adsuTdum
conservative spirit that woulc confne the
calling of the the engineer to special and
limited class Of practitioners.
The system Of apprenticeship in the me-
chanical trades has become obsolete In this
not because skill and labor is
valued less than formerly, but because it
may now be acquired without the old time
drudgerY and delay, AMI because there has
grown up more widely acknowledged me-
cessity for aptitude and inventive skill as
compared with ability to merely follow with
accuracy rules previously and carefully laid
down. Something like this Ia the case
with engineering. Its ranks hereafter will
be Tor the most part filed by men Who, to a
degree, replace the comparatively narrow
Of mere technical training by
the more comprehensive discipline inVOlv-
ed in devisiDg ways and means to secure
desired results in the constructive arts;
with whom new ideas will be preferable
to old traditions, and who will care more
for the extended usefulness than for any
selfish prestige Of their profession.