Page:Engineering and the university (IA engineeringtheun00chaprich).pdf/11

 writing with reference to the papers written before the Institution of Civil Engineers in the period 1850-1860:

"The scientist stands aghast at the great mechanical results which have been obtained often by a defective, sometimes by a false theory. Perhaps it is only a consciousness of the large 'factor of safety' used which makes a railway journey endurable for a scientist after a perusal of some of the technical papers published in this decade."

Todhunter was probably seeking in those papers for results that it was not the aim of the writers to produce, and with all his scientific knowledge he would have been quite incapable of doing what these men did. The fact remains that they did build bridges that have carried heavy traffic safely for a century, that they did build railroads and locomotives which served their purpose well, that they did construct effective roads and harbours, and if in many cases the design was neither the best possible nor the most economical, the engineers at least generally erred on the safe side.

But I will not attempt to trace the development through those decades of last century when the question of Theory versus Practice was so vehemently debated. The matter has been settled by the decisive logic of events. The innumerable applications of scientific discovery to practical engineering, and especially the rapid growth of Electrical Engineering, have made it absolutely necessary that a modern engineer worthy of the name should have some knowledge of science. The older method of training for the young engineer was that he should be articled to an engineer in practice, and, apart from the training he received in office and works, he got no scientific training unless he were enthusiastic enough to attend evening classes in some technical institution. This has proved to be entirely insufficient for modern requirements. And so it has come about that although Engineering Schools at