ENGINEERING
American engineering made its beginning almost immediately after the end of the War for Independence. The pursuits of the colonists under British domination were mainly agricultural. Manufacturing was systematically thwarted in order that the Colonies might become a market for the finished goods of England. Objection to this form of sabotage subsequently developed into one of the main causes of the Revolutionary War. It was but natural, therefore, as soon as the artificial restrictions imposed upon Colonial enterprise were removed, for the new citizens of America to devise machinery, build roads and canals, and plan cities.
The early engineers who carried on this work were seldom formally trained. They were little more than higher types of artisans. It was only after thirty-odd years of discussion and agitation that the first scientific schools were established in this country—two in number. And it was only after the enactment of the Morrill Act by Congress (1862) that formal engineering training as we know it to-day was put on a firm national basis. By 1870, 866 engineers had been graduated from American technical schools and colleges. The real advent of the typical American engineer, however, has only occurred since 1870. At present he is being supplied to the industries of the country at the rate of 5,000 a year.
The coming of the formally trained technologist or scientist of industry lagged somewhat behind the development of the industrial revolution. This was particularly true in America. Originally all attention was centered on the training of so-called civil engineers, i.e., canal, bridge, road, dam and building designers and constructors. The rapid rise of the mechanical arts after the Civil War focused attention on the training of engineers expert in manufacturing. To-day the mechanical and electrical engineers are more numerous than any other group and have far outstripped the civil engineers.
The original function of the engineer, especially in the first days of his systematic training, was to deal scientifically with purely mechanical problems. Thus the oft quoted definition of the British Institution of Civil Engineers that “Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man” reveals quite clearly the legitimate field within which the engineer was supposed to operate. He was to harness the untamed energies of nature. That this conception was then sufficient, and that the careers of most engineers were shaped accordingly, is hardly to be disputed. Nor, judging from the achievement of American engineers in the last fifty years, can it be contended that their function was conceived in too narrow a light. Undoubtedly, the problems of mechanical production, power-creation and transmission, bridge and building construction, and railway and marine transportation, during this period were largely material ones, and the opportunities for their solution were especially good. To these the engineers directed their attention. Thanks to their training, technique, and accumulated experience, they became more and more successful in solving them. At the same time, their relative freedom of thought and action with reference to technological problems brought them into more or less coherent groups which, as time went on, began to conceive a larger function for the engineer—service to society as a whole rather than the solving of mere concrete, specific difficulties.
For while the material problems of production are undoubtedly as important as ever, the present-day industrial system has begun to reveal new problems which the engineer in America has, to a limited extent, come to realize must be faced. These new problems are not material in the old sense of the word; they concern themselves with the control and administration of the units of our producing system. Their nature is psychological and economic.
Certain groups in the American engineering profession have become quite conscious that these deeper problems are not being solved; at the same time they consider it a necessary duty to help in their solution, inasmuch as the engineer, they feel, is peculiarly fitted to see his way clearly through them. Thus is being split off from the main body of old-line engineers, a new wing not so much concerned with wringing power from nature as with adjusting power to legitimate social needs. As against the old engineer, concerned primarily with design and construction, there is to be recognized the new engineer, concerned mainly with industrial management.
Unfortunately, however, a strict evaluation of the engineer’s status with reference to the influence he may have on the solution of these social and economic problems causes serious doubts to arise regarding his ultimate possibilities in this field. Despite his great value and recognized indispensability as a technologist, expert in problems of materials and processes of manufacture, he can at best but serve in an advisory capacity on questions affecting the division of the national surplus or the control of industry. Nevertheless, it is of fundamental significance that the American engineering profession has of late considerably widened the scope of the British Institution of Civil Engineers’ definition of engineering, namely, to the effect that “Engineering is the science of controlling the forces and utilizing the materials of nature for the benefit of man and the art of organizing and of directing human activities in connection therewith.” The implications of this much broader definition, if widely accepted, will bring the American engineers sooner or later squarely before a fundamental issue.
The ideal of service is profoundly inherent in the profession of engineering. But so, also, is the ideal of creative work. The achievements of engineering enterprise are easily visualized and understood, and from them the engineer is wont to derive a great deal of satisfaction. Recently, however, the exactions of the modern complex economic system, in which the engineer finds himself relatively unimportant compared with, say, the financier, have contrived to rob him of this satisfaction. And as his creative instincts have been thwarted, he has turned upon business enterprise itself a sharp and inquiring eye. From isolated criticisms of wastes and inefficiencies in industry, for instance, he has not found it a long or difficult step to the investigation of industry on a national basis for the purpose of exposing technical and managerial shortcomings.
It appears, however, that the majority of American engineers to-day believe that their position as a class is such that they can effectively maintain an impartial position when differences which arise between large economic groups of society such as those of the merchant, the manufacturer, the labourer, the farmer, although these differences frequently lead to economic waste and loss. At all events, it is on this basis that attempts are being made to formulate a general policy for engineers as a class to pursue. It is very doubtful, however, whether a group such as the engineers, constituting the “indispensable general staff of industry,” can long take an impartial attitude towards two such conflicting forces as capital and labour so long as they (the engineers) adhere to the ideal of maximum service and efficiency. The pickets of the fence may eventually prove unduly sharp.
A minority group which believes otherwise has already organized into an international federation of technicians affiliated with the standard organized labour movement of America. This group holds that the engineer is a wage-earner like all other industrial workers, and that his economic welfare in many instances is no better than that of ordinary wage-earners. In addition, this group maintains that in the last analysis it is flatly impossible for engineers to take an impartial attitude in the struggle between capital and labour. Hence they advocate the engineer affiliating with the organized labour movement like other wage earners and, in times of crisis, throwing his influence with the workers of industry.
The organized labour movement of America has indicated in clear terms its estimate of the American engineer’s true value and opportunity. The American Federation of Labour in 1919 issued the following statement:
“To promote further the production of an adequate supply of the world’s needs for use and higher standards of life, we urge that there be established co-operation between the scientist of industry and the representatives of the organized workers.”
This conviction has also been expressed in the following terms:
“The trades-union movement of America understands fully the necessity for adequate production of the necessities of life. American labour understands, perhaps more fully than do American statesmen, the needs of the world in this hour, and it is exerting every effort to see that those needs are met with intelligence and with promptness. The question of increased productivity is not a question of putting upon the toilers a more severe strain; it is a question of vast fundamental changes in the management of industry; a question of the elimination of outworn policies; a question of the introduction of the very best in machinery and methods of management.”
The fundamental significance of these attitudes of the engineers and the organized workers of the country will perhaps be better understood when it is realized how indispensable the engineers have become in the conduct of industrial affairs to-day. While virtually the product of the last fifty years, they have already fallen heir to one of the most strategic positions in society. To them are entrusted the real “trade secrets” of industry. Only they understand how far the intricate material processes of manufacture are interdependent, and how they can be kept in harmony. The engineers have the skill and the understanding which is absolutely necessary for industrial management. Without their guidance the present highly complicated system of production would quickly tumble into chaos.
The ownership of industry has frequently been suggested as the key to the true emancipation of the great mass of workers of a nation. Leastwise many theoretical arguments on the process of workers’ liberation have been premised on the necessity of eventually liquidating the institution of private property. How futile such a programme is without recognizing the indispensable part which technical and managerial skill plays in any system of production has been emphasized again and again by individuals, notably in Russia and Italy, where the experiment of securing production without the assistance of adequate technical control has been tried. In fact, the whole question of property control is secondary when once the true value of engineering management is understood. In so far as the American workers see this, and make it possible for American engineers to co-operate with them in their struggle for liberation, will they make the task of the worker more easy and avoid the frequent recurrence of wasteful and often tragic conflict. The burden, however, is equally upon the shoulders of the engineer to meet labour half way in this enterprise.
It is very much to be doubted if most American engineers really have a clear understanding of the position in which they find themselves, beyond a general conception of their apparent impartiality. The progressive economic concepts and activities which have been outlined, while advanced by representatives of national associations of engineers, are not necessarily the reflection of the great mass of American engineers to-day, over 200,000 strong. Nevertheless, it is fortunate that an otherwise conservative and socially timid body of individuals, such as the engineers frequently have been in the past, should now find itself represented by a few spokesmen at least who are able to promulgate clear statements on fundamental issues. The rank and file of engineers have a long road to travel before they will be in a position to command adequate consideration for their basic ideals and purposes as expressed in their new definition of engineering, and as proposed by some of their leaders.
It is, indeed, seriously to be doubted if many engineers of America have really had the training to grasp the relation of their position to the economic developments of to-day. Conventional engineering education has been entirely too narrow in its purpose. It has succeeded in turning out good technical practitioners, not far-seeing economic statesmen. In recent years many engineering schools have placed emphasis on what has aptly been termed “The business features of engineering practice.” This, while conceivably a good thing from the standpoint of the limits within which engineering enterprise must ordinarily function to-day, is bound to over-emphasize the status quo, and so confine the vision of the engineer.
Engineers in this country have frequently taken a sort of pharisaic attitude on the desirability—offhand—of delegating the entire running of things human to technical experts. While such experts may usually have been quite successful in operating engineering enterprises, it hardly follows that this necessarily qualifies them for the wholesale conduct of the affairs of society.
Yet the demand on the part of certain engineers for a more fundamental participation in the conduct of the larger economic and political affairs of society should be construed as a healthy sign. It is an outgrowth of an intellectual unrest among the profession, precipitated by the thwarting of a genuine desire to build and serve. This unrest, in the absence of a constructive outlet combined with the past failure of engineering education to provide a real intellectual background, has resulted from time to time in some amusing phenomena. Thus not a few engineers have developed a sort of symbolism or mysticism, expressed in the terminology of their profession, with a view to building a new heaven and a new earth whose directing head they propose to be. From this they derive a peculiar satisfaction and perhaps temporary inspiration, and incidentally they often seem to confound laymen who do not understand the meaning of their terms. Instead of deriving comfort from symbolic speculations and futurist engineering diagrams, one would rather expect engineers to be realists, especially in the larger affairs of their profession. The seriousness with which the speculations concerning “space-binding” and “time-binding” have been taken is an example of how engineers with their present one-sided intellectual development may seize upon metaphysical cobwebs for spiritual solace in their predicament.
Another aspect of the intellectual limitations of many American engineers is revealed by some of the controversies which engage the technical societies and the technical periodicals. A notable and recurring instance is the debate concerning the relative merits of steam and electrical operation of railways. The real question which underlies replacing a going system with one which is better but more costly in capital outlay is primarily economic in nature. Consequently such a change is contingent upon a revised distribution of the national surplus rather than on the comparative merits of detail parts. This fact seldom seems to get home to the engineers. They have been arguing for the last fifteen years the relative advantages of this or that detail, failing all the while to understand that the best, in the large, from an engineering standpoint, can be secured only when unrestricted, free enterprise has given way to some form of enterprise regulated principally in the interest of public service.
The profession of engineering, especially in America, is still young enough not to have become ridden with tradition and convention. It has developed rapidly along essentially pragmatic though perhaps narrow lines. Certainly it is not bound and circumscribed by precedent and convention like the legal profession, or even the medical profession. Above all, it derives its inspiration from powerful physical realities, and this constitutes its bulwark.
What the profession really lacks are two fundamentals, absolutely necessary for any group strategically located and desirous of leadership in society. These are: (1) an intellectual background based squarely upon a comprehensive study of the economic and political institutions of society, their history, growth, and function, together with a study of the larger aspects of human behaviour and rights; and, (2) the development of a facility for intelligent criticism, especially of engineering and economic enterprises. A wholesome intellectual background is necessary to interpret the new position and its prerogatives which the application of science has created for the engineer. A development of the critical faculty is desirable in order to enable him to detect the blandishments of cult, the temptations of formulas and systems expressed in indefinable abstractions, and the pitfalls of the status quo.
The responsibility for the American engineer’s function in society rests largely upon the schools which train him. Engineering education in America has done its task relatively well considered from the simple technical point of view. Of late, progressive engineering educators have stressed the necessity for paying more attention to the humanistic studies in the engineering curriculum. The beginning made in this respect is, however, entirely too meagre to warrant much hope that younger American engineers will soon acquire either that intellectual background or genuine critical faculty which will entitle them to a larger share of responsibility for the affairs of men.
The most hopeful sign in this direction is rather the fusion of the engineers into a large federation of societies, with service to the community, State, and Nation as their motto; a growing tendency, collectively, at least, to investigate the conduct of national industrial enterprises; and, finally, an attempt at a rapprochement, in the interest of society, between labour and the engineers. Ere long these developments will reflect themselves in the schools of engineering, and then, it is reasonable to expect, will the process of developing a truly worthy class of industrial leaders in this country really make its beginning. In America to-day no such leadership exists.
O. S. Beyer, Jr.