Page:Engineering as a vocation (IA cu31924004245605).pdf/15



average person is puzzled over the exact meaning of the word "Engineer" after some acquaintance with the many sorts of men who so style themselves. To engineers the confusion is often humorous, but none the less occasionally mortifying. A fond mother whose son was a student in engineering at one of the leading technical schools was asked by a friend how she could contemplate having her son work in greasy clothes around an engine, "like a common laborer." The same mother was asked by another friend if she did not think it a great waste of money to educate her boy at such an expensive school "to be only a common surveyor after all."

Engineers enjoy the Story of the payroll. The name was not Smith, but it does for the story. On a certain payroll appeared:

"Smith, Aaron, Engineer..$15 per week.

Smith, James, Asst. Eng..$75 per week."