To master the various details of machine manufacture, including draughting, founding, forging, and fitting, is of itself a work equal to most professional pursuits, to say nothing of manual skill; and when we come to add machine functions and their application, generating and transmitting power, with other things that will necessarily be included in practice, the task assumes proportions that makes it appear a hopeless one. Besides, the work of keeping progress with the mechanic arts calls for a continual accretion of knowledge; and it is no small labour to keep informed of the continual changes and improvements that are going on in all parts of the world, which may at any time modify and change both machines and processes. But few men, even under the most favourable conditions, have been able to qualify themselves as competent mechanical engineers sooner than at forty years of age.
One of the earliest cares of an apprentice should be to divest his mind of what I will call the romance of mechanical engineering, almost inseparable from such views as are often acquired in technological schools. He must remember that it is not a science he is studying, and that mathematics deal only with one branch of what is to be learned. Special knowledge, or what does not come within the scope of general principles, must be gained in a most practical way, at the expense of hard work, bruised fingers, and a disregard of much that the world calls gentility.
Looking ahead into the future, the apprentice can see a field for the mechanical engineer widening on every side. As the construction of permanent works becomes more settled and uniform, the application of power becomes more diversified, and develops problems of greater intricacy. No sooner has some great improvement, like railway and steam navigation, settled into system and regularity than new enterprises begin. To offset the undertaking of so great a work as the study of mechanical engineering, there is the very important advantage of the exclusiveness of the calling—a condition that arises out of its difficulties. If there is a great deal to learn, there is also much to be gained in learning it. It is seldom, indeed, that an efficient mechanical engineer fails to command a place of trust and honour, or to accumulate a competency by means of his calling.
If a civil engineer is wanted to survey railways, construct docks, bridges, buildings, or permanent works of any kind, there are scores of men ready for the place, and qualified to discharge the duties; but if an engineer is wanted to design and construct machinery, such a person is not easy to be found, and if found, there remains that important question of competency; for the work is not like that of constructing permanent works, where several men may and will perform the undertaking very much in the same manner, and perhaps equally well. In the construction of machinery it is different; the success will be directly as the capacity of the engineer, who will have but few precedents, and still fewer principles, to guide him, and generally has to set out by relying mainly upon his special knowledge of the operation and application of such machines as he has to construct.
(1.) How may mechanical be distinguished from civil engineering?—(2.) What test can be applied to determine the progress made in any branch of engineering?—(3.) What are some of the conditions which prevent the use of constants in machine construction?—(4.) Is mechanical engineering likely to become more exact and scientific?—(5.) Name some of the principal branches of mechanical engineering.—(6.) Which is the most extensive and important?
CHAPTER III.
ENGINEERING AS A CALLING.
It may in the abstract be claimed that the dignity of any pursuit is or should be as the amount of good it confers, and the influence it exerts for the improvement of mankind. The social rank of those engaged in the various avocations of life has, in different countries and in different ages, been defined by various standards. Physical strength and courage, hereditary privilege, and other things that once recommended men for preferment, have in most countries passed away or are regarded as matters of but little importance, and the whole civilised world have agreed upon one common standard, that knowledge and its proper use shall be the highest and most honourable attainment to which people may aspire.