OPPORTUNITIES IN ENGINEERING

I

ENGINEERING AND THE ENGINEER

Several years ago, at the regular annual meeting of one of the major
engineering societies, the president of the society, in the formal
address with which he opened the meeting, gave expression to a thought
so startling that the few laymen who were seated in the auditorium
fairly gasped. What the president said in effect was that, since
engineers had got the world into war, it was the duty of engineers to
get the world out of war. As a thought, it probably reflected the secret
opinion of every engineer present, for, however innocent of intended
wrong-doing engineers assuredly are as a group in their work of
scientific investigation and development, the statement that engineers
were responsible for the conflict then raging in Europe was absolute
truth.

I mention this merely to bring to the reader's attention the tremendous
power which engineers wield in world affairs.

The profession of engineering--which, by the way, is merely the adapting
of discoveries in science and art to the uses of mankind--is a
peculiarly isolated one. But very little is known about it among those
outside of the profession. Laymen know something about law, a little
about medicine, quite a lot--nowadays--about metaphysics. But laymen
know nothing about engineering. Indeed, a source of common amusement
among engineers is the peculiar fact that the average layman cannot
differentiate between the man who runs a locomotive and the man who
designs a locomotive. In ordinary parlance both are called engineers.
Yet there is a difference between them--a difference as between day and
night. For one merely operates the results of the creative genius of the
other. This almost universal ignorance as to what constitutes an
engineer serves to show to what broad extent the profession of
engineering is isolated.

Yet it is a wonderful profession. I say this with due regard for all
other professions. For one cannot but ponder the fact that, if
engineers started the greatest war the world has ever known--and
engineers as a body freely admit that if they did not start it they at
least made it possible--they also stopped it, thereby proving themselves
possessed of a power greater than that of any other class of
professional men--diplomats and lawyers and divinities not excepted.

That engineering is a force fraught with stupendous possibilities,
therefore, nobody can very well deny. Th