THE SOCIAL PERSONAL EQUATION OF THE
NOT long since I heard a prominent engineer say, when asked
to express an opinion of the ability of a younger member
of the profession, " he is an excellent man in the office, but
has no ability to deal with men." Upon inquiry I learned that
this particular engineer was very well qualified to handle difficult
engineering problems that came to the drafting room of which he
was in charge; but that he had lost several very good chances of
advancement because he did not possess the qualifications neces
sary to manage the broader operations of the firm by whom he
was employed. While all persons would recognize his ability in
his profession, he was not one who by his tact or manner would
readily make friends of those with whom he came in contact, and
therefore he was not called upon to fill a more advanced position.
Does not this incident present to us the fact that the engineer
ing profession as a whole devotes too little consideration to the
development of the social side of its members ? Is not this quali
fication just as important as the necessary technical knowledge ?
Does not the engineer loose much because of his lack of sociability ?
'Some people still consider the engineer as a sort of skilled me
chanic (and pay him as such) and not as belonging to the ranks
of the learned professions. Happily that is not the position gen
erally accorded engineers. The Hon. Joseph H. Choate, address
ing a body of engineers, said: " There is necessarily a close, a
very close fellowship among all learned professions. We are all
alike, studying and applying laws to the uses and conveniences of
mankind." President Schurman of Cornell, on the same occasion,
said: " Your profession ranks you with scholars, with the nien
who practice the learned vocations. It is only within the last
generation that this has been recognized. But now, in all our
universities, the oldest as well as the newest, schools for engineer
ing are established, and the men who graduate in them are placed
on the same footing as the men who graduate in what used to be
called the learned professional schools. If you take, for instance,
the profession of law, there is not an institution in the United
ENGINEER.