work. Fate here, as in the matter of specialization, works her hand. A
prominent publisher of technical magazines in New York took the degree
of Arts in Cornell in his younger days; and more writers of fiction than
you can shake a stick at once labored over civil-engineering plans as
their chosen career. Herbert Hoover is a mining man who best revealed
his capabilities in the field of traffic management--if the work which
he supervised in Belgium may be so termed. Certainly it had to do with
getting materials from where they were plentiful to where they were
scarce, which is roughly the work of the traffic manager.

And so it goes. The young man in this particular must decide for
himself. Actually, there is more of mystery and fascination in the
electrical field than in any of the other three branches, and to
prospective students this may be not without its especial appeal. To
others, the work of mining may possess its strong attraction, since this
work takes its followers into strange places and among strange people
frequently, where oftentimes the mining engineer must live cheek by
elbow with the roughest of adventurers. To yet a third group, civil
engineering, with its work of blazing new trails through an unknown
country, and wild outdoor existence through forests and over mountains
and across valleys--may have its strong attraction. While to a fourth
group of prospective students the quiet career, as represented in that
of mechanical engineering, always a more or less thoughtful, studious
life, may hold out its inviting side. The mechanical engineer, like the
electrical engineer, is a man who generally commutes, a man who comes
and goes daily between office and home, doing his work at regular hours
within the four walls of his office--a quiet, professional man. Such a
life would appeal to the man of family rather more strongly than either
of the outdoor professional branches. Yet the prospective student must
make his own choice.

To the young man who has no particular preference, and who would put it
up to the writer as to just which branch to follow--the young man more
or less in need--the writer unhesitatingly would advise mechanical
engineering. It is the one branch offering the largest and quickest
returns, and as a branch it fairly dominates all the other branches, for
the reason that whereas the mechanical engineer can get along without
the mining engineer or the civil engineer or the electrical engineer,
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