, whose inventive ideas are
impractical, will unwittingly absorb such a man's viewpoint on
construction, and so spoil himself as an engineer for all time to come.
Cases like this are not rare. The writer personally knows of more than
one young man who enlisted under an engineer whose ideas on
administration probably accounted, being as they were good ideas, for
his position of authority over matters not strictly of an administrative
nature. The man wanted to exercise his authority over all things within
his department--not the least of which was machine design--with the
result that the young graduate's normally practical viewpoint on matters
of construction became warped into that of the man over him, and
continued warped for so long as he remained under this man, and
frequently longer, indeed, to the end of his engineering career. The
young engineer must pick his boss as our young men are facetiously
advised to pick their parents. The wrong selection will prove disastrous
to him in after-life.

Which is but an aside--though a very important one. To emulate a
weakling in whatever walk of life, be it painting or writing or
engineering, means to begin wrong. Everybody knows the importance of a
right beginning. It is no less true of the young engineer than of
others.

And what with the example set by Herbert Hoover and other dollar-a-year
men, mostly engineers, in the nation's administrative affairs during the
war, the future of the engineer looks bright in these quarters as well
as in quarters embracing engineering constructive work wholly. The
engineer of the future undoubtedly will take active part in municipal
and national affairs, more likely than not in time entering upon a
political career as a side interest, as the lawyer enters upon it
to-day, within time--so it seems to the writer--members of the
engineering professions occupying positions of great trust, such as
state governorships and--who knows?--the Presidency itself. Certainly
the hand points this way. More and more engineers are coming into
prominence in the public eye, and with every member of the profession so
coming, the respect for men of his profession multiplies among laymen.
It is not too much to say, therefore, that engineers are destined to
fill places of great political power. It is to be hoped that they are.
Whether they do or not, the future at this writing amply promises it,
and so forcibly that it may well be included as existing for the
en