Opportunities in Engineering Part 3

XI

WHAT CONSt.i.tUTES ENGINEERING SUCCESS

A graduate of Cornell, in the cla.s.s of '05, after placing away his diploma where it could not trouble him through suggestiveness, accepted a position with a large manufacturing concern in western Pennsylvania.

He was twenty-three years old. He went into the shop to get the practical side of certain theories imposed upon his receptive nature through four long years of study in a mechanical-engineering course. The concern manufactured among other things steam-turbines, and this young man, having demonstrated in school his particular apt.i.tude for thermodynamics--the study of heat and its units in its application to engines, and the like--entered the erecting department. Donning overalls, and with ordinary rule in his hip pocket--as against the slide-rule with which he had worked out his theoretical calculations during his college years--he went to work at whatever was a.s.signed him as a task by his superiors--shop foremen, a.s.sistant superintendent, occasionally an engineer from the office.

This young man did many things. He helped to a.s.semble turbine parts; carried word of petty alterations to the proper officials: a.s.sisted in the work of making tests; made detailed reports on the machine's performance; screwed up and backed off nuts; in short, got very well acquainted with the steam-turbine as manufactured by this company. He knew the fundamentals of machine construction, and an understanding of the details of this particular type of turbine therefore came easy to him. He worked shop hours, carried his lunch in a box, changed his overalls every Monday like a veteran. Usually his overalls more than needed changing, because he was not afraid of the grease and grime with which he came into contact throughout the day. He liked the work and went to it like a dog to a bone. He was applying in a practical way what he had learned in college of a theoretical nature, and finding the thing of amazing interest.

He made progress. In time his work was brought to the attention of the chief engineer, and one day, when the president of the company, who was also an inventor of national repute and responsible for the design of the turbine being manufactured by the organization, wanted to make certain bold changes in the design, the chief engineer sent for the young engineer whose work in college in thermodynamics had won for him certain honors, with the result that our hero found himself presently seated opposite the president at a table in the latter's office, engaged in working out calculations on his slide-rule--calculations beyond the powers of the president, because he was not a heavy theoretician. This call was a big advance indeed, for it marked him as a man of promise--a "comer"--in the concern. The president liked the ease with which the young engineer "got" him in the matter of the proposed changes, and quite before either realized it both were talking freely, exchanging ideas, in the field of turbine construction generally. The young man unconsciously was driving home the fact that he was a capable engineer, one who, while still lacking in broad experience, was nevertheless possessed of the proper att.i.tude toward engineering as a whole to compel the interest and attention of his superior.

The young man eventually was sent out upon the road as an erecting man.

In this work he discovered certain operating faults in the design, and, reporting these faults to the home office, observed that not a few were remedied in subsequent designs. He moved about the country from place to place, setting up and operating steam-turbines, until there came the blissful day when he was called back to join the engineering staff in work covering design. Laying aside his overalls, he emerged as a crisp young engineer in a linen collar and nifty cravat--although not till later did he don a cream-colored waistcoat--and thereafter his hours were seven instead of nine. With a desk and a stenographer he entered upon work of a somewhat statistical character. He followed the designs of rival companies as best he could through their advertising and articles covering their respective designs appearing in the technical journals, and about this time also applied for admission, and was granted it, in the foremost engineering society embracing his particular branch of the profession. He was still making progress.

Likewise, he was rapidly becoming an expert in the field of steam-turbines. His work in the shop, together with his experience on the road, both as an erecting man and operating engineer, had eminently fitted him for valuable service in the home office as an engineer overseeing design. His work in charge of design, where his knowledge of what had given service both good and bad in details of construction while he was in the field, was extremely valuable to the designer himself, was rapidly rounding him out as a steam-turbine man. His salary had gone up apace with his progress; he had met the right girl at a club dance in the suburban town where he had taken modest quarters; he was rapidly headed toward success both as an engineer and a citizen. He had been out of school probably six years, and was still a very young man, with all the world practically before him.

One day he was asked by the chief engineer of the concern to journey to New York, and read a paper before his engineering society at one of the regular annual meetings, on the subject of thermodynamics in its relation to the company's own product--the turbine. He tipped over his chair in his eagerness to get out of the office and on the train. He realized the importance of this opportunity. He was to appear before his fellow-engineers--the best and most capable and prominent in the profession--and to appear as an authority on his subject! The thing was another step forward. He prepared a paper, basing it on his six years'

experience in steam-turbines, and when he reached New York had something of value to tell his brother engineers. The meeting was held in the afternoon, and, dressing for the part, he stepped out upon the platform before a gathering of some eight or nine hundred engineers and delivered himself of his subject with credit to himself and to his organization.

Not only that. In the reb.u.t.tal, when engineers seated in the auditorium rose to confound him with questions--engineers representing rival turbine concerns--he proved himself quick at the bat and more than once confounded those who would confound him.

He was making his mark on the industrial times. His paper was reviewed in the technical journals and almost overnight our young hero found himself recognized as an authority in his chosen branch. He was sought out for other articles by technical editors, his a.s.sociates in the home plant generously commended him for his work; his salary received another elevation; he called on the girl that night and had her set the date.

Then he plugged for salvation--further knowledge as a turbine man--harder than ever. Having won the full confidence of the officials of the company by this time, he was given free voice in all matters having to do with the design of their product, and shortly after his first little boy was born was promoted to the position of a.s.sistant chief engineer. He served in this capacity for two years, and then, realizing that he had gone as far up in the organization as it was physically possible to go, owing to the fact that the chief engineer was the president's sister's husband--or something like that--he accepted an offer from one of the rival concerns manufacturing turbines and entered the organization as chief engineer at a salary too big to mention. Our young friend had at last arrived.

Yet his success was not quite complete, nor will it be complete, until he sets up, as he a.s.suredly will some day, as a consulting engineer.

When he at last does this, when he swings out his shingle to the breeze, he will then have attained to the maximum of possible success as an engineer. Already recognized as being possessed of a fine discrimination in matters of engineering moment, especially in thermodynamics as related to turbines, he has but gone up in channels early laid out for him, and indicated to him, in his college days. His direction even then was clearly marked. All he had to do, and all he did do, was to develop himself in this single direction. He did nothing that would be impossible to any other engineering graduate. Merely he hewed to the line--persisted in remaining in the one branch of the game--met with his reward in time just as any young man would meet with it. There was nothing of phenomenal character, nothing of the genius, revealed in what he did. His way is open to all. And it is a way both worthy and admirable, for to-day this engineer stands high in his profession and is meeting with financial reward in keeping with his position among engineers.

There you have in the tracing of one engineer's progress to success precisely what const.i.tutes engineering success. The details may differ, but the principles and the rewards will be the same, whether you enter upon civil or mechanical or mining or electrical engineering. Success in engineering const.i.tutes certain satisfactory money rewards and an even more satisfactory recognition by one's a.s.sociates and fellows. Success in anything is that. A man must work for them, however. There never was and never will be a rainbow path to the heights. Toil and an abiding faith in one's own capabilities--these make for success. Success makes for happiness, and happiness, as everybody knows, is all there is to this life.

I wish all men happiness.

XII

THE PERSONAL SIDE

As to the personal side of engineering as a career, if it would be a source of gratification to you to know that you were helping to build up the civilized world, then you should enter the engineering profession.

Because men differ in their ideas as to what const.i.tutes a full life--some placing ideal homes above all things, some seeking continuously diversified sources of pleasure, some wanting nothing better than a fine library or freedom to cultivate taste in pictures, some wishing only to surround themselves with interesting people, some wanting nothing but an acc.u.mulation of dollars, some wishing but for power of control over others--all men would not find the full life in engineering. Yet the majority of men would, because the profession holds that which would appeal to a great many different ideas as to what a complete life consists of. Engineering as a profession is scientific, idealistic, constructive, profitable. It is combative--in the sense that it shapes nature's forces--and it calls for a sense of artistry in its pract.i.tioners. Added to these, it embraces a certain kind of profound knowledge the possession of which is always a source of pride to the owner.

Let me explain this last. The engineer, being as he is a man who views things objectively, notes details in everything that comes under his eye, be it dwelling or automobile, or bookbinding or highway. The layman does not. The layman, outside his work, sees only the thing itself, when looking at it--the general outline. But the engineer, trained to note details in construction, observes detail at a glance, and does it almost subconsciously, if not immediately after leaving school, then a.s.suredly later, after he has been practicing his profession for a time. His outlook is objectively critical. Entering a house for the first time, and trained as a mechanical engineer, he will note the character of the woodwork, the decorations, the atmosphere, the arrangement of the furnishings, all with the same facility that he will note details upon entering for the first time a power-station or a manufacturing plant--things within his own province.

Nor is this faculty confined to the concrete. Engineers are of that deeply instinctive race of folk who perceive cause in effect with the lightning swiftness of a wild animal. If they are not this when entering upon the profession, a.s.suredly they become so after a period spent in the work. Something about the practice of engineering breeds it--breeds this objective seeing and abstract reasoning--and to be possessed of it is to get more out of life than otherwise is possible. Which possibly accounts for the fact that engineers as a group seem to have a common-sense viewpoint of things, one that is frankly acknowledged and drawn upon when needed by men in other walks of life. Engineers are extremely practical-minded, and this makes for a certain outlook that will not permit of visionary scaring away from the common sense and the practical on the part of its possessor. Engineers know why things occur without having witnessed even the occurrence itself. Their powers of reasoning are developed to degrees beyond the average--or they seem to be--and out of this comes one of the sources of gratification on the personal side to the man who pursues engineering as a profession.

The thing spreads out as I contemplate it. I would make so bold as to say that the man of engineering training will see more at a glance when first viewing the Grand Canon, say, than will any other professionally trained man. Should the Canon collapse, he would know instantly why it collapsed. He could give an opinion on the wonderful color effects that would interest the artist, and he would know without hesitation how best to descend to the bottom and wherein to seek the easiest trail. All this, without his being a civil or a mining engineer, understand; merely a man trained in constructive mechanics. On the other hand, the mining or the civil man would view the wreckage of a locomotive accident and see in the debris, select from the snarl of tangled wheels and driving-arms and axles a ready picture of the nature of the accident and how much of the wreckage offered possibilities for repair. Again, the engineer sees in a tree, with its tapering trunk, the symbol of all tower construction, just as he sees in the shape of a man's arm the pattern to follow when devising a cast-iron lever for an automatic machine. He sees things, does the engineer; sees objectively; follows nature throughout.

All this being true, the engineer has a rather interesting life of it.

For not only does he see a little more clearly than otherwise would be possible to him without his education and training, but also he does things with his hands that come easy to him without previously having undertaken them. The engineer can do much around his own home, if he so choose, that of itself is a source of great satisfaction. Engineers can swing doors, build fireplaces, landscape, erect fences, make garden, and can perform these tasks with a degree of neatness and skill that brings favorable comment from journeymen whose vocations this work is, and do the work without training whatsoever in the work. Wall-papering, painting, carpentering, laying up of brick, or the placing of a dry wall--plastering, glazing--the list is endless that as side-plays are possible to the man with an engineering training. He need not do these things, ever; but if he wants ever to do them, he finds that he can do them and do a creditable job of each, and this without his ever having turned his hand to the work before.

Which sums up in a measure the personal side. The engineer is not a superior being. Merely he is a man possessed of a highly specialized education and training which peculiarly fits him for any practical work, and out of this work, for practical thinking of the kind known as constructive. Being constructive with his hands, he cannot but in time become constructive with his brain. Being constructive as a thinker first, he cannot but become constructive as a doer later. The one hinges closely on the other, and having both, as the engineer must who would be a successful engineer, he has as much of the world under his control as comes to any man, and, in a great degree, more than is the favorable lot of most men. For the engineer is both a thinker and a doer. Ponder that--you. Men are either one or the other--most men--and rarely are they both. Either side of their brain has been developed at the expense of the other side. Not so with the engineer. The successful engineer is both thinker and doer--must be in his profession. It seems to me that engineering has many beautiful attractions as a profession.