ands. He need not always do it, and probably will not after he has
attained to recognition, save only as he supervises or makes the
mechanical drawings--the picture--of the thing. But the itch must be
present in the man. And, like the desire within him to figure, it must
make itself manifest within him early in life. If a young man be of
those who early like to crawl in under the family buzz-wagon; tinker
there for half a day at a time; emerge in a thick coating of grease and
dust and with joy in his eye--such a young man has the necessary
qualifications for a successful engineer. He may never do this--as I
say--in all his engineering career. But the yearning must be as much a
part of him as his love for mathematics--so much so that all his
engineering days he will feel something akin to envy for the machinist
who works over a machine of the engineer's own devising--and it must be
vitally a part of him. To illustrate:

When only twelve years old the author, in company with several
playmates, decided one November day to build an ice-boat. From the
numerous building operations going on in the neighborhood, in the light
of the moon, he secured the necessary timbers, and from a neighbor's
back yard--also in the light of the moon--he got a young sapling which
served delightfully as a mainmast. With the needed materials all
gathered, it suddenly struck him that a plan of some kind ought to be
made of the proposed ice-boat, in order to guard against grave errors
in construction. To think was to act with this bright youngster. He got
him his mother's bread-board and a pencil and an ordinary school ruler,
and with these made a drawing of the ice-boat as he thought the boat
should be. Knowing nothing of mechanical drawing, and but very little of
construction of any kind, he nevertheless devised a pretty fair-looking
boat and not a bad working drawing. One of his playmates, whose father
was something or other in a manufacturing-plant, showed the drawing to
the family circle; with the result that the kid's father, laying a rule
upon the drawing, pronounced it an accurate mechanical drawing, drawn to
scale--which was one inch to the foot--and sent for the youthful
designer, meaning me.

"What do you know about mechanical drawings?" he asked the bashful
youngster, pointing to the drawing under discussion.

"I don't know nothing about it," replied the kid--meaning me again. "I
just made it with a ruler."

"But how come you made it