Aaron Smith was a colored man unable to read and write. His duty was to run the steam launch that carried James Smith, C. E., the principal assistant of the Chief Engineer up and down the river where he had charge of important improvements costing several millions of dollars. What's in a name?
For years professional engineers have tried to "launch designate men like Aaron Smith as tenders," men who operate stationary engines as "engine runners," and men who operate locomotives as "engine drivers." Such terms are used in some countries, but are being gradually supplanted by the word "engineer" with a qualifying word before it.
In the United States the locomotive engineer is styling himself a "traveling engineer," although that term should be applied exclusively to men employed by railways to travel and instruct locomotive engineers. By this time the public knows that a "stationary engineer" operates engines in power houses and on contractors' plants. A "hoisting engineer" runs a hoisting engine. A man in charge of an entire power plant is known as an "operating engineer." This does not always fully explain, for the operating engineer who takes a contract to look after a number of large plants in important factories or large office buildings, may be a graduate mechanical or electrical engineer, while the "operating engineer" in a sawmill may
