In the early days almost the only men called engineers were those having research training and the research point of view. It is not surprising that these men were not successful in carrying any great responsibility in creative engineering work. Engineering ability of the creative kind is nothing but trained common-sense coupled with a certain fund of ready knowledge and the more important understanding of where to go to get any particular information required at any given time. That men having this ability are capable of successfully carrying out most important tasks has been amply demonstrated in recent years.
In any industry of the manufacturing type there are three main divisions outside of the general executive and financial supervision; these are engineering, production and selling. These functions must all be carried out with equal ability for the greatest possible general success of the whole undertaking. In many cases the engineering has been given the least weight of the three. While this has often been caused by some weakness in the engineering personnel, it has at other times been the result of some of the engineering functions having been taken over by one or both of the other divisions, with a consequent weakening of the responsibility of the engineering division and a very natural loss in efficiency.
The assumption sometimes made by the production department that the engineer cannot be expected to design with ease of production in mind is an invitation to the engineering department to disregard this very important feature of design entirely. Here is demonstrated one of the worst faults of the modern industrial system when organization and specialization are carried to extremes. It is only when the engineer in designing any piece of apparatus keeps constantly in mind the necessity of production and studies the methods of production almost as carefully as the general functioning of the design and the production department conscientiously endeavors to carry out the ideas of the engineer as closely as possible in actual production that there can be any real approach to the efficiency of the old one-man system in which the design and production were controlled by the same directing head. It is equally necessary that for a design to be commercially successful it be attractive to the public, both in its operation and in the price at which it can be sold at a profit. This is where the opinion of the engineer ought to be of great value on questions that are often decided by the sales division. The engineer with a proper training and a correct point of view should be the best judge of what can be produced to meet most nearly the public demand in any particular field.
This very brief study of what engineering has done, what it frequently is and what it can be, has been introduced to make clear the tremendous opportunities that will be open in the future to the men having a thoroughly sound engineering training. In the industrial history of the rapidly growing country there is every evidence that the great pressure of haste has caused the doing of many things in inefficient and uneconomical ways. Whether or not the wasteful methods of the past have been always justifiable, there can be no question that the time has come when everything possible must be done to conserve what remains of our originally tremendous natural resources. It is only necessary to mention timber, coal and petroleum to emphasize this point. The trained engineer is better qualified than anyone to take the lead in this important work.
What has been said previously regarding the great future for the profession of engineering shows also the value of a proper engineering education. Such an education is not only of value to those expecting to engage in engineering occupations but also to those intending to take part in general productive or operating activities. The underlying idea in the best engineering schools is to teach the habit of concentration and to encourage clear and logical thinking, the actual knowledge gained during the years of study being considered a valuable incidental but not the main object of the work. It is hardly believable that this mental training will not prove to be a fine preparation for many of the difficult tasks that are daily to be met with in the industrial world of today, whether these tasks are of an engineering nature or more directly concerned with problems of direction or of management. President Lincoln made a thorough study of Euclid because he believed that this would help him in formulating his ideas and in presenting them clearly to others. His conclusion was that the most complicated proposition could be put in such simple form as to be demonstrated to and understood by the least intelligent. What more convincing argument could there be as to the general value of this kind of training than that it was made use of by the great president in developing a truly remarkable ability for meeting the many difficult situations arising during his presidency and promptly reducing to the simplest terms the problems presented to him?