The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-27
Country Can Not Grow With
out Competent Engineers.
Schools Recognize Importance
of This Profession.
FIELD NOT TOO CROWDED
Began With Building of Canals
in Early Days.
Civil War Shows Need for Men
Trained in Work.

New York, March efficiently
complaint has been heard from men
who have qualified themselves for en-
gineering work that they have been
unable to secure remunerative en-
ployment, so that they suspect that the
profession is overstocked and that the
supply or competent engineers IS
much greater than the demand for
them. Yet, Notwithstanding this COM
plant. the report has within a few
days come from Boston that the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
IS speedily to receive a gift Of two mill
lion, five hundred thousand dollars
from an unidentified friend Of the
school. With this money very large
buildings are to be constructed upon
the banks of the Charles river oppo-
site Boston, and 1t is presumed that
the advantages offered by the enlarged
institute of Technology will be follow
ed by a greatly increased membership.
Only a few days preceding the an
nouncement that the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology was to receive
gift of two million, five hundred
thousand dollars, DR.. Nicholas Murray
Butler, president of Columbia unfver-
sity, announced that the course Of en-
gineering at the university would be
extended to six years. The MasSachu-
setts scientific institution is about to
enlarge its facilities while in no way
lessening its educational requirements
in the expectation that a greatly in
their engineering scientific degrees at
the institution. Columbia. on the 9TH
er hand, purposed so greatly to in
crease the requirements for the DE-
gree of engineers that II will take six
years to make this engineering course
there instead of four.
These two incidents seem to belle
the complaints which have recently
been made by men who claim to be
highly competent engineers and who
say that the profession is overcrowd-
ed. 1t is the belief of railway mana
gers and of the instructors in our
scientific schools and of capitalists
who are contemplating, when the day
or prosperity comes. very large invest
ment of capital in the development OF
national resources that the demand for
engineers and men of science will, in
the next few years. be very great
IL Grows With Country.
The growth of the United States
itself is coincident with the Develop
ment of the profession of engineering.
Before the days of canals engineering
work was very simple and required but
little training. Machinery and appar-
atus of all kinds were rudimentary
and hand labor was the principal en-
ergy used. AS there was no mining
to speak Of there we're. of course, no
mining engineers. Such an expert as
a mechanical engineer was unheard
of. OF course, at West Point engfn-
eering was taught, but simply as a
part of the profession of arms From
that time-a bout seventy years ago
until the present stupendous engineer
ing works. like the worlds greatest
marvel of engineering, the Panama
canal, and the marvellous exploit of
the engineers by which the mountains
of our western slope we're conquered
the profession of engineers has grown