EDUCATIONAL PROCESS OF TRAINING AN ENGINEER. 571 
ical engineering profession. Indeed, the term civil engineer has been 
ased, at different times, to denote all grades from a thoroughly equipped 
engineer to a mere surveyor who knows no engineering at all. Hence we 
may properly consider what is the education which a young man needs to 
fit him for the profession of engineering, whatever be the special line of 
engineering which he is to enter. Naturally, we wish, as far as any edu- 
cation can accomplish it, to put him in the best condition to meet and 
grapple with the duties, the problems. and the responsibilities of his pro- 
fession as they arise. 
Now there are two things which are absolutely necessary for a success- 
ful engineer ; first, a knowledge of scientific principles and of the experi- 
ence of the past ; and, second, his own experience. The latter cannot be 
‘mparted in a school, and each man must acquire it for himself subse- 
juently. 
The aan who is not familiar with the scientific principles which con- 
cern the work he has in hand, is not a safe man to trust with responsi- 
bility ; for scientific principles are merely the laws of nature as far as 
known, as shown by the experience of the past. Hence itis that the first 
and most important thing to be done for the student is to give him a 
thorough drill in the scientific principles which find their application in 
his profession, for these are the things that should be acquired in school, 
since it is only with great difficulty and very imperfectly that they can be 
mastered after the young man begins practice ; and this view is borne out 
oy those engineers who have been successful, and who have had to acquire 
their scientific principles, little by little, during the practice of their pro- 
tession. Too much cannot be said by way of insisting that a thorough 
mastery of such scientific principles far outweighs in importance anything 
slse that can be done for the student; and this is so true that it is a 
decided mistake to neglect this part of his training in order to impart to 
him greater skill in such processes as will probably engage his attention 
she first year after he goes to work. 
The two fundamental sciences upon which the scientific principles of 
»ngineering are especially dependent are mathematics and physics. | 
The function of mathematics is to draw necessary conclusions from the 
assumed data. Mathematics has nothing to do with the correctness or 
‘neorrectness of the data. No natural law can be discovered by mathe- 
matics alone ; the discovery or proof of natural law requires experiment 
and observation in all cases. 
The engineer should have a thorough working knowledge of whatever 
portions of pure mathematics he needs to make the calculations that are 
liable to arise in his work, and also to draw the necessary conclusions 
which concern the engineering and scientific subjects with which he must 
deal in his profession ; and this latter is an all-important matter. 
We may say that arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, analytical