t, a thorough knowledge
of mechanics, mathematics, and chemistry,--second, the knowledge
necessary for applying these sciences to the arts,--and last, the
knowledge requisite to the correct adaptation of such arts to the
wants of man, but more than all, that experience which is got only
from continual practice. We have such a class of engineers, and to
them we owe what of fame we have in the engineering world. Second,
comes another grade, men who, commencing as subordinates, without
any preparatory knowledge, but with natural genius, and an intuitive
knowledge of mechanics, need only to have their ideas generalized to
see the bearing of their special knowledge upon the whole, in order
to rank high in the profession. Third, a class who lack both natural
and acquired knowledge, and whose only recommendation is that they
are always for sale to the highest bidder, whether he be president,
director, or contractor; sometimes working nominally for the company,
but really for the contractor,--or in some cases, so debased is this
class of persons, for both contractor and company openly. Of late
years this prostitution of mongrel engineers has had place to an
alarming extent. Let us hope that the old professional pride, and,
better still, a love of truth and honesty for their own sake, may
yet triumph, and place real engineers high above the dead level to
which ignorance and pretence and venality have degraded the
profession.

[Footnote 1: _Handbook of Railroad Construction_, for the Use of
American Engineers. By GEORGE L. VOSE, Civil Engineer. Boston and
Cambridge: James Munroe & Company. 1857.

_Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Reports_, from 1830 to 1850. BENJAMIN
H. LATROBE, Chief Engineer.

_Railways and their Management_, being a Pamphlet written by JAMES
M. WHITON, ESQ., late of the Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad.
1856.

_Report of the President, Treasurer, and General Superintendent of
the New York and Erie Railroad Company to the Stockholders_. March,
1856.

_Final Report of_ JOHN A. ROEBLING, _Civil Engineer on the Niagara
Railway Suspension-Bridge_, May, 1855.]

[Footnote 2: Lest these statements should sound extravagant, the
reader will please reckon up the amounts for himself. A bank
twenty-five feet wide on top, eight hundred feet long, and two
hundred and thirty feet high, would contain two million cubic yards
of earth; which, at twenty-five cents per yard, would cost half a
million of dollars, exclusi