_ENGINEERING AS A CALLING._
It may in the abstract be claimed that the dignity of any pursuit
is or should be as the amount of good it confers, and the influence
it exerts for the improvement of mankind. The social rank of
those engaged in the various avocations of life has, in different
countries and in different ages, been defined by various standards.
Physical strength and courage, hereditary privilege, and other
things that once recommended men for preferment, have in most
countries passed away or are regarded as matters of but little
importance, and the whole civilised world have agreed upon one
common standard, that knowledge and its proper use shall be the
highest and most honourable attainment to which people may aspire.
It may be useless or even wrong to institute invidious comparisons
between different callings which are all useful and necessary, and
the matter is not introduced here with any view of exalting the
engineering profession; it is for some reasons regretted that the
subject is alluded to at all, but there is too much to be gained by
an apprentice having a pride and love for his calling to pass over
the matter of its dignity as a pursuit without calling attention
to it. The gauntlet has been thrown down and comparison provoked
by the unfair and unreasonable place that the politician, the
metaphysician, and the moral philosopher have in the past assigned
to the sciences and constructive arts. Poetry, metaphysics,
mythology, war, and superstition have in their time engrossed the
literature of the world, and formed the subject of what was alone
considered education.
In a half century past all has changed; the application of the
sciences, the utilisation of natural forces, manufacturing, the
transportation of material, the preparation and diffusion of
printed matter, and other great matters of human interest, have
come to shape our laws, control commerce, establish new relations
between people and countries--in short, has revolutionised the
world. So rapid has been this change that it has outrun the powers
of conception, and people waken as from a dream to find themselves
governed by a new master.
Considering material progress as consisting primarily in the
demonstration of scientific truths, and secondly, in their
application to useful purposes, we can see the position of the
engineer as an agent in this great work of reconstruction now going
on around us. The position is a proud one, but not to be attained
except at the expense of great effort, and a denial of everything
that may interfere with the acquirement of knowledge during
apprenticeship and the study which must follow.
The mechanical engineer deals mainly with the natural forces, and
their application to the conversion of material and transport. His
calling involves arduous duties; he is brought in contact with
what is rough and repulsive, as well as what is scientific and
refined. He must include grease, dirt, manual labour, undesirable
associations, and danger with apprenticeship, or else be content to
remain without thoroughly understanding his profession.
(1.) What should determine the social rank of industrial
callings?--(2.) Why have the physical sciences and mechanic arts
achieved so honourable a position?--(3.) How may the general
object of the engineering arts be described?--(4.) What is the
difference between science and art as the terms are generally
employed in connection with practical industry?