Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 4.pdf/97

 At present it would be almost impossible to describe such a thing as a typical engineer, to predicate any universally applicable characteristic of the engineer and mechanic. The black-faced, oily man one figures emerging from the engine-room serves well enough, until one recalls the sanitary engineer with his additions of crockery and plumbing, the electrical engineer with his little tests and wires, the mining engineer, the railway maker, the motor-builder, and the irrigation expert. Even if we take some specific branch of all this huge mass of new employment the coming of mechanism has brought with it, we still find an undigested miscellany. Consider the rude levy that is engaged in supplying and repairing the world's new need of bicycles! Wheelwrights, watch-makers, blacksmiths, music-dealers, drapers, sewing-machine repairers, smart errand-boys, iron-mongers, individuals from all the older aspects of engineering, have been caught up by the new development, are all now, with a more or less inadequate knowledge and training, working in the new service. But is it likely that this will remain a rude levy? From all these varied people the world requires certain things, and a failure to obtain them involves sooner or later in this competitive creation, an individual replacement and a push towards the abyss. The very lowest of them must understand the machine they contribute to make and repair; and not only is it a fairly complex machine in itself, but it is found in several types and patterns, and so far it has altered, and promises still to alter steadily, by improvements in this part and that. No limited