James Swinburne

Abstracts from an address delivered to the students of the British Institute of Engineers.

Each of us is confronted with the question: "What is going to be my work?" I say " us, " because the difficulty in many cases is permanent; one never knows what he will be called upon to tackle in the future. The difficulty is much greater, however, in the case of a young man, because he has probably the vaguest idea of what his life's work will be, and that idea time will show to be quite wrong.

In engineering it is quite impossible for any one to start out with a definite career before him. He is like a particular particle setting out across a containing-vessel of gas. He cannot career straight across. He is buffeted about and frequently goes in quite the wrong direction. A man who has made a specialty of electrical waves gets his first appointment as inspector of meters to an electric light company, and so on. A well-known engineer remarked to me the other day that he found his knowledge of differential equations, and his experience in the correct analysis of the rare earths was of little use in putting in sewage plant. Yet he had made lots of use both of his mathematical and chemical analysis in his time.

Probably each man should have a general knowledge of applied physics and chemistry and mathematics, and a special knowledge of one or two subjects. The special knowledge may never come in useful; but the chances are that in the blind stumblings we call our careers a specialty may be valuable. If you glance round at the work of some of our big men you will be surprised to see how many have made their reputation by doing one small thing, but doing it well.

One of the great difficulties is to keep knowledge in a polished state ready for immediate use. In practice it may have to lie idle for long periods and then be wanted very much on short notice. This fact is overlooked by people who suffer from the modern craze for writing about technical education. For instance, we are told that all engineers ought to have the calculus at their finger ends, and so on ; but it is forgotten that though an engineer ought to be well up in mathematics, he only makes a calculation requiring higher mathematics once in several years, perhaps; and it is impossible for him to keep his mathematics in working order down to minutest details. All he can do is to keep general principles in his mind. The great thing is to master a certain number of broad fundamental principles which give a starting point for refreshing old knowledge or acquiring new. For instance, in physics, the law of conservation of energy and all that follows from it; the principles of the kinetic theory of gases; the ideas of lines or tubes of force; the principle of interlinked circuits; the principle of the growth of entropy in all thermo-dynamic changes.

Science, for which no use has been found, or which is not applied, is called " pure science, " whereas it is really the raw material, and should be called "raw"or " crude science." There is an assumption of superiority in the term " pure science," and generally the term "science " is appropriated by workers in raw science in much the same way as the term "work-ingman" is appropriated to the exclusion of brain workers. There is supposed to be something noble and superior about "raw science," and its study is treated as the unselfish devotion to the interests of man, which is obviously entirely the wrong way round. The so-called "scientific man " thinks that engineers and manufacturers are ignorant and unscientific, and that their practical knowledge is of no account; and that the cure for all industrial evils is more technical education, more universities and more power to science masters. Though there are in existence a few practical science teachers, they are rare. Perhaps no one would be more surprised than the average science master if you told him he was unpractical and was, by his attitude and example, hindering science. He does not mean to. He is as keen as possible to do just the reverse, and is generally exceedingly anxious for the spread of science or technology; but, unfortunately, he has got a wholly wrong view.

It is often said that the pursuit of knowledge has a nobility of its own. But what knowledge? No knowledge is worth obtaining for its own or any other sake, unless it is or will probably be useful to man.

A man's value to the world at large may generally be roughly estimated by the income he earns. Where position is earned at the same time, the money income is in proportion less for a given usefulness; but taking such disturbing elements into account, the rule is-broadly true. The business man comes out far away above the engineer. He employs the engineer; the scientific man is his servant. Just as the raw scientist looks down on the engineer, and the engineer looks down on the business man, so thebusinessman has a contempt for the engineer; and the engineer in his turn looks on the raw scientist as an unpractical crank. So much is this the case that the business man will not trust the engineer more than he can help. He assumes that if you know anything about anything you can not possibly be a business man.

If you examine the large industries you will find the commercial or business man with little or no technical knowledge at the top of the tree. If you confine your attention to engineers you will find the engineers who make the biggest incomes and occupy the most important and responsible positions are those who have most business and practical knowledge. Our leading consulting engineers do not spend a large portion of their lives plotting curves, counting electrons, or even making anything more than arithmetical calculations. They spend their time dealing with large questions on purely commercial lines; and, as a rule, the bigger the engineer the more he knows about practice and business, and the less he knows about text-book science. I do not for a moment mean to say that text-book science is not of priceless value; of course it is; and the more scientific knowledge you or I, or still more, the leading engineers have, the better; but most of us suffer from too little common sense in proportion to our scientific knowledge.

The engineers occupying smaller positions, assuming the same age in both cases, are not necessarily deficient in technical knowledge; but they are generally wanting in business attainment and less able to take responsible positions. It is often said that to be a good master you must have been a good servant; but a good servant does not necesaarily make a good master, generally the reverse. There is a wide distinction between the man who can earn a few hundreds a year and the man who earns as many thousands. It is a very curious thing that there is hardly anything between. One type of man will either earn his few hundreds a year all his life, remaining permanently an assistant, or he will undertake responsible work and get into fair figures. The engineer who is worth $3500 a, year seems hardly to exist, except for a short time on his way from one class to another. This is what is meant by the saying that there is plenty of room at the top of the ladder. It is not that the men who remain as assistants permanently are ignorant of science; quite the reverse. The business man can rent a profound mathemetician for a very few dollars a week if wants him ; but he probably does not. The real point is that the assistant is wanting in business knowledge or in push. If he is wanting in ambition or lazy, nothing I can say is to the point; but he may be suffering from a false notion of the relative value of raw science, technology and business knowledge.