ence in training engineers has shown to be good, is the finest backing that intelligence and energy can have. It is a mistake to permit a young fellow to go into a profession like engineering without the best technical training it is possible to secure. Sometimes the man who has a good training can make a small amount of energy and a mediocre brain carry him through life splendidly.
What sort of an education does an engineer require?
In the first place he should be an excellent draftsman. Drafting is a universal language by means of which the designer conveys instructions to the workman. The graduate is employed for the first few years after graduation in minor positions in which drafting is his principal occupation. If he is not a good draftsman he seldom has an opportunity to get a foothold in his chosen work.
The engineer is lost without a sound knowledge of mathematics. The amount used in routine work is not great and there is a class of "rule of thumb" and "pocket-book" engineers, which decries the great stress laid upon a sound knowledge of mathematics by the men who head the engineering schools. It is a puzzling thing that the actual amount of mathematics required in daily work is so small, yet the men who have received the broadest training in mathematics are the most reliable, and, in late life, are the most successful engineers.
The first few years out of school are spent in
