upon thousands, utilize each from one to many hundreds of
engineers. Some plants make use of three or four different
kinds--mechanical, civil, electrical, industrial--some only one. But not
a plant of any size but that has need for at least one engineer, and
engineers are scarce. Therefore opportunities are ample.

To the young man seeking a profession, provided he be of a certain
type--possessed of certain inherent qualities, the nature of which I
shall set forth in the following chapter--engineering offers
satisfactory money returns and--more satisfactory still--a satisfactory
life. The work is creative from beginning to end; it has to do
frequently with movement--always a source of delight to mankind; a
source having its beginnings in earliest infancy, and it is essentially
a work of service. To build a bridge, to design an automatic machine, to
locate and bring to the surface earth's wealth in minerals--surely this
is service of a most gratifying kind.

And it pays. The arts rarely pay; science always pays. And engineering
being a science, a science in the pursuit of which also man is offered
opportunities for the exercise of his creative instincts, like art, is
therefore doubly gratifying as a life's work. I know--and it will bear
repeating--no other profession that holds so much of bigness and of
fullness of life generally. Engineers themselves reflect it. Usually
robust, always active, generally optimistic, engineers as a group swing
through life--and have swung through life from the beginnings of the
profession--without thought of publicity, for instance, or need or
desire for it. Their work alone engrossed their minds. It was enough--it
is enough--and more. And that which is sufficient unto a man is Nirvana
unto him--if he but knew it. Engineers seem to know it.

III

THE ENGINEERING TYPE

It is becoming more and more an accepted fact that engineers, or
physicians, or lawyers--like our poets--are born and not made. I believe
this to be true. Educators generally are thinking seriously along these
lines, with the result that vocational advisers are springing up,
especially in industrial circles, to establish eventually yet another
profession. Instinct leads young men to enter upon certain callings,
unless turned off by misguided parents or guardians, and as a general
thing the hunch works out successfully. Philosophers from time
immemorial, including Plato and Emerson, have written of this still,
sm