The young man, however, who aims to be come a civil engineer should endeavor to se cure a broad training and a wide outlook, not directed entirely to technical subjects, but cov ering also those subjects of a general nature which are necessary . for every thoroughly trained man. The engineer of the past has too generally been considered a mere builder, and he has not, as a rule, been given the position to which his responsibilities and his achievements legitimately entitle him; but the engineer of the future should aim to take a position in society and business as a cultivated and highly trained man, on a level with men in any of the other professions.
A broad and thorough education can now be obtained at many schools in this country. Many educators would advise a young man to take first a college course and to supplement it by a course in a professional school. An other plan which has its advantages is to lay out a course longer than the usual college course, in one institution, directed from the beginning toward the end in view, some gen eral subjects and some professional subjects being studied in each year, with an increasing proportion of the latter toward the end of the course. The latter plan has the advantage that the student is working always toward a defi nite end, provided he is able to decide at the beginning what general line of work he de sires to pursue. Some of the technical schools of the United States have provided courses of five years or more, in which the student may gain a technical training and a liberal training at the same time. If a young man is unable to decide upon a profession at the beginning of his course, whether he goes to college first or not, he should at least decide within broad limits, in order that he may arrange his stud ies so as to avoid unnecessary waste of time when he finds himself able to make a definite choice.
The University of Cincinnati, with the co operation of a number of establishments or firms which employ young engineers, has adopt ed the novel system of having its students al ternate between the school and some practical employment, spending a certain period exclu sively in each place. In this the student is made to see the use of what he is learning and to realize that the entire value of what is learned depends upon the ability to use it, which is frequently lost sight of or not per ceived at all in the usual college or technical school. This experiment is a most interesting one as a method of training engineers.
It is not, at the present time, necessary to go abroad in order to obtain a technical training in civil engineering. Our Amer ican schools now offer better preparation for the practice of the profession in America than can be obtained elsewhere, being well equip ped and teaching American methods. Twenty years ago this could not be said, but at present our technical schools are as good as any in the world. Fortunately, also, many of them offer scholarships or other aids to needy, but capable young men, so that the lack of money need not prevent a persevering man from gain ing a technical education.
The Civil The opportunities presented to a young man graduating from one of our engineering schools, or prepared by self training or at one of the evening schools re ferred to, will be many and varied. All pro fessions are overcrowded in the sense that there are men in them who cannot find employ ment, and this is true in civil engineering. Yet there are few professions which offer so many opportunities to properly qualified men, so that, properly speaking, it is very far from over crowded. The young civil engineer will, more over, find open to him many purely business positions for which his training has fitted him. The range of the engineering professions is continually widening, one direction in which they are rapidly extending being that of ad ministration. Within the past 60 years nearly
the entire railway system of this country has been built, most of our factories started and our works of sewerage and water supply con structed. The construction of these works has required the services of most of our engineers, while the opportunities of profitable employ ment here have attracted many members of the profession from foreign shores. The civil en gineer of the past has thus been mainly a con structor; but the civil engineer of the future will be more and more of an administrator as well. And while the construction of railroads will not proceed as rapidly in the future as it has in the past there are certain directions in which construction will still proceed with great activity. For instance, although the great era of railroad construction may be said to be sub stantially ended, there is still much work to be done in building branch lines, in double track ing existing lines, in reducing grades and curves, eliminating grade crossings and making other local improvements, often on a large scale. Moreover, the construction of urban and inter urban electric lines, the building of subways and tunnels for rapid transit in cities and the im provement of steam railroad terminals, is pro ceeding at a rapid rate and will require the expenditure of many millions of dollars; while the rapid growth of urban population and the advances in sanitary science have recently given a great impetus to the construction of works for supplying pure water and for disposing of the sewage and other wastes without injury to the public health. Enormous projects requiring the services of hundreds of engineers, for 5 or 10 years are sometimes necessary for sup plying one of our great cities with water which has sometimes to be brought hundreds of miles.
But in addition to works of construction, which in the past have utilized the greater part of the energy of the profession, it is becoming more and more recognized that the man with a good technical training, if he have also a talent for organization and executive ability, and if he be possessed of that greatest of all gifts for the engineer, common sense, is the best type of man to direct the work of our great industrial corporations, many of which are dependent for their success upon sound en gineering judgment. Some of our large rail road corporations have within comparatively few years instituted the practice of choosing their higher officers from their engineering corps, instead of from other branches of the service. Not a few railroad presidents began their careers as civil engineers, and the number of such men will increase in the future.
With respect to financial remuneration, the civil engineer stands at an advantage compared with the members of some professions, in the fact that his services are in demand at the out set at a fair salary, while the young doctor or lawyer is not able to meet his expenses for some years. The ultimate financial possibili ties presented to the engineer may not be as great as in the professions referred to, but the rewards are still sufficient to tempt even the most ambitious men, while there are few impe cunious engineers. The engineer will be appre ciated more and more as time goes on. The profession is a growing one with great possi bilities, and few careers offer greater induce ments or a surer or truer success to the ener getic and capable young man, for we live in a mechanical age, and the work of the man who can °direct the great sources of power in nature to the use and convenience of man" must continually increase in importance.