I read the following paper:
“This association can vindicate its right to exist only by exerting a constant beneficial influence upon engineering practice in all its departments. At the outset of its career it should take a progressive attitude, planting itself upon sound principles of construction, aiming to inspire the engineers of our country with the highest conception of mechanical truth, and to diffuse a correct understanding of the means and methods by which this truth is to be attained.
“As one subject of primary importance, I wish to present that of strength in machine tools. Truth of construction, facility of operation, and range of application are all, in one sense, subordinate to this fundamental quality of strength; for they are in a greater or less degree impaired where adequate strength is not provided.
“But what is adequate strength? On this point there exists among the makers and users of tools a wide diversity of opinion. On examination it will be found that this diversity coincides with the diversity in mechanical sensibility. As the mechanical sense is developed, there arises in just the same degree the demand for greater strength in machine tools.
“To the mechanic who has never formed a notion of a division of an inch more exact than ‘a bare 32d,’ one tool, if it can in any way be kept from chattering, is as good as another, and better if it is cheaper.
“To those, on the other hand, who demand in every piece, as it comes from the tool, the closest approach to perfection, both in form and finish, a degree of strength in the tool appears, and is demonstrated, to be indispensable that to the former class seems as absurd as the results attained by means of it appear incredible.
“In this country, as indeed all over the world, the standard of mechanical truth has been very low. It is here, however, as everywhere, rapidly rising. The multitude are being educated up to the standard of the few. In this work members of this association have borne and now bear an honorable part. Just in the degree that the standard of mechanical excellence is raised must the demand become more general for greater strength in machine tools, as indispensable to its attainment.
“But what is the standard of strength? The anvil affords perhaps its best illustration. It is a strength enormously beyond that which prevents a tendency to chatter, a strength that under even the heaviest labor prevents the least vibration of any part of the tool, or any indication of effort more than if the object being cut were a mass of butter.
“It will be seen that this absolute solidity in machine tools, while truth cannot be attained without it, enables also mechanical operations generally to be performed with far greater expedition, and the subsequent work of the finisher to be in any case much diminished and often dispensed with entirely.
“We are enabled in most cases to come at once to the form desired, whatever may be the quantity of material to be removed, and always to finish the surface with a degree of truth and polish otherwise unattainable, dispensing in a great measure with the use of that abomination, the file.