Page:Engineering as a vocation (IA cu31924004245605).pdf/60

 amount of steel required to reinforce concrete. Other engineers and mathematicians also worked at the problem and a number of hypotheses were worked out, differing slightly in detail, but practically all giving nearly like results. In Europe the material had a wider use than in the United States, which is naturally a backward country in taking up new ideas, and in which besides, certain patents gave a monopoly to a few concerns. When the patents expired the material came into common use and so many uneducated and half-educated men went into the business with empirical and rule of thumb methods of design that many accidents happened. A number of experiments were made from which simple formulas were derived, and it was discovered that the formulas and methods of the mathematicians of Europe were to all intents and purposes safe and their reasoning in the main correct. The presence of thousands of half-educated, self-styled engineers in this country was responsible for many disasters, the public having great confidence in the "practical" man and being fearful of the "theoretical" man. The writer has observed this strange sentiment for many years and has discovered that to be a practical man it is merely necessary for a man to style himself "practical and rail at men who have spent good money to acquire an education. The public makes no investigation into the qualifications of the self-styled