Technical knowledge

“ There is, moreover, a domain in which special technical training is proper. It is the domain of the industrial school, for giving a certain theoretical knowledge of persons who will be engaged for life in the mechanic arts. ”

“ This is true, even in the new industries, chemical and electrical, for instance, where the whole industry has been built up from the beginning on a basis developed entirely by scientific method and by the accumulation of precise knowledge. ”

“ The engineer is the how-to-do-it man. This technical man of action comes in many varieties—mechanical, electrical, [Pg 16] metallurgical, ceramic, industrial, civil, instrument, and chemical, to name a few. ”

“ What such manufacturers require are the services of a few skilled engineers, artistic designers, or scientific chemists. From the manufacturer's point of view, therefore, technical instruction is not so much needed for the hands he employs in his work as for the heads that direct it. ”

“ Just now I was comparing the two kinds of knowledge which the theorist and the engineer can have of a machine, and I allowed the advantage of absolute knowledge to practical experience, whilst theory seemed to me mainly relative to the constructive industry. ”

“ To do this work is to give a great impetus to pure and to applied science.
Two classes of men come to the front in the development of engineering: the one, men of deep scientific knowledge, to whom advance of knowledge is due, the other the great constructive engineers; men who can work in the large and can manage great enterprises with scientific accuracy and practical success. Everywhere the tendency in training is away from mere craftsmanship and towards power of administration. ”

“ The discipline of the machine process enforces a standardization of conduct and of knowledge in terms of quantitative precision, and inculcates a habit of apprehending and explaining facts in terms of material cause and effect. ”

“ But once you started a sort of research in the field of coal-mining, a study of methods and means, a study of by-products and the chemical possibilities of coal, it was astounding, the ingenuity and the almost uncanny cleverness of the modern technical mind, as if really the devil himself had lent fiend's wits to the technical scientists of industry. It was far more interesting than art, than literature, poor emotional half-witted stuff, was this technical science of industry. In this field, men were like gods, or demons, inspired to discoveries, and fighting to carry them out. ”

“ But it is sufficiently evident that, before the engineer can determine what form of machine will best yield to him full control of these forces of Nature, he must have sufficient knowledge of science to be able to understand what scientific principles are to be rendered available, and what phenomena of Nature are operating in the production of the power which he is to seize upon and usefully to apply. ”

“ Why not then follow this general usage, and adopt ‘technology’ as the science of trades, arts, or professions, and thereby obtain consistent and convenient terms to designate the two divisions of education—technical education, that given in the workshop, &c., and technological education, that which should be given as supplementary to all such technical education? ”

“ ENGINEERING The material prosperity of the last century is due to the co-operation of three classes of men: the man of science, who lives only for truth and the discovery of nature’s laws; the inventor, eager to apply these discoveries to money-making machines and processes, and the engineer, trained in mathematical investigation and in knowledge of the physical conditions which govern his profession, which is the mechanical application of the laws of nature. ”

“ The truth is that the eyes and the fingers—the bare fingers—are the two principal inlets to sound practical instruction. They are the chief sources of trustworthy knowledge as to all the materials and operations which the engineer has to deal with, No book knowledge can avail for that purpose. ”

“ He who would accomplish most in the profession of the mechanical engineer must best combine scientific attainments—and especially experimental knowledge—with mechanical taste and ability and a good judgment refined by engineering experience. ”

“ The chief engineer of any electric plant, of any municipal water-works, of any railroad, of any steamship must have the most profound and intimate knowledge of the details of construction and the method of operation of the machine committed to his charge. Recognition of this fact by the engineering profession is so complete and perfect as to be almost unconscious; and no man whose reasoning faculties had been trained by the exact methods of engineering could forget it for a moment. ”

“ They are apt to think, for instance, that the problems connected with making the parts of an engine require the especial study, one may say almost the life study, of a set of engine-making mechanics, and that these problems are entirely different from those which would be met with in machining lathe or planer parts. In fact, however, a study of those elements which are peculiar either to engine parts or to lathe parts is trifling, compared with the great study of the art, or science, of cutting metals, upon a knowledge of which rests the ability to do really fast machine-work of all kinds. ”

“ This employment of scientific knowledge for useful ends is technology, in the broad sense in which the term includes, besides the machine industry proper, such branches of practice as engineering, agriculture, medicine, sanitation, and economic reforms. ”

“ The plodding clerk, without an iota of mechanical knowledge, may perfect a system or an office appliance which will prove of vast benefit to himself and his fellows. The scientist may discover new forces and make new applications of old principles which will make the world marvel,—and so on through the whole category of crafts, occupations and professions. ”

“ The scheme of technology so worked out and carried along in the routine of getting a living will be serviceable for current use and have a substantial value for a further advance in technological efficiency somewhat in proportion as the knowledge so embodied in technological practice40 is effectually of the nature of matter-of-fact. Much of the information derived from experience in industry is likely to be of this matter-of-fact nature ”

“ To these advantages of technical education, as affecting the workmen themselves as well as the progress of the industry in which they are engaged, must be added the general improvement in the character of the work produced, resulting from the superior and better-trained intelligence of those who have had the benefit of such instruction. ”

“ The second, How shall we construct a machine that shall most efficiently embody and accord with not only known scientific principles, but also with all well-settled principles of engineering practice? ”

“ The type of mechanic which a complex industrial system requires, and which it is even now, on the whole, evolving, is one that combines an intimate knowledge of particular tools and processes with an intelligent apprehension of the system in which he works. ”

“ The engineer and the scientist and the chemist, within a single generation, filled Europe and America and Asia with their vast machines, with their telegraphs, their flying machines, their coal-tar products. ”

“ The history of invention shows how frequently important improvements in machinery are made by the workman or minder in charge of it, and adds weight to the arguments already adduced for giving technical instruction to persons of all grades employed in manufacturing industry. ”

“ Suffice to say that in its pages will be found matter of intense interest and immeasurable practical value to the scientific amateur and to him who wishes to obtain a knowledge of the many processes used in the arts, trades and manufactures, a knowledge which will render his pursuits more instructive and remunerative. ”

“ We know that the larger requirements of modern Engineering demand that its practice should be classified237 under distinct branches, such as harbours, navigations, water works, gas works, lighthouses, or railways, not to mention electrical and sanitary engineering, and other branches of modern growth, all of which cannot possibly be advantageously practised by any one member of the profession; for no one mind can grasp the theoretical knowledge, and no one life can compass the practical experience, to enable a man to attain eminence in all these departments of modern Engineering. ”

“ The accurate and elaborate instruments which serve for the delicate and precise determinations and observations of modern science require for their production a very advanced state of mechanical art, such as is indicated by the perfection of the tools we described in a former article; and these tools are themselves, on the other hand, the outcome of accurate knowledge, and another proof of the interaction between science and practical art. ”

“ The methods of applying these sciences to engineering problems constitute a large subject, and one that is necessary for him to study. Then there are those manual operations which are essential to bring his knowledge to a practical issue, and in which a long course of training is necessary to acquire the requisite skill, such as mechanical drawing, and the use of measuring and surveying instruments. ”

“ Machine Designing
While the elements of success in actual engineering are general, comprised by knowledge of well-known sciences and arts; yet the accomplishments of their undertaking must necessarily be stamped with the individuality of its creator, and along those lines that repeated experiences have found necessary, to insure success. ”

“ It passed into an exact science under the guidance of a small number of men trained at first in the scientific and technical schools of Europe, and, after about 1820, in the few institutions then established in America that offered technical instruction. ”

“ That is the limit beyond which even perfection cannot go, and yet I have known, and doubtless you have heard of, cases where inventors have claimed, and so-called engineers have certified to, much higher results. ”

“ Your works on Civil Engineering, Machinery, and Millwork, &c., each exhibit the powerful intellect that is invariably found in all your productions, and that place them on an eminence peculiarly your own. All your books possess a value which we, who are practical men engaged in performing many of the varied works which fall to engineers, feel to be of the very highest importance. ”

“ Each volume is written by an expert to the end that practical readers and all who are engaged in the numerous allied branches of the engineering and technical trades may have reliable works of reference. ”

“ The technical work of the engineer requires him to write notes, letters, and reports in a clear, correct, and concise manner. He must be able to read both technical and non-technical writing quickly and accurately. His advancement will depend upon the impression which he makes upon his superiors. ”

“ The scientists are learning more and more consistently to think in the opaque, impersonal terms of strains, mechanical structures, displacement, and the like; terms which are convertible into the working drawings and specifications of the mechanical engineer. ”

“ Whatever passes current in this way as knowledge of facts is turned to account as far as may be, and so it is worked into a customary scheme of ways and means, a system of technology, into which new elements of information or acquaintance with the nature and use of things are incorporated, assimilated as they come. ”

“ With the increased demand for power, speed, safety, convenience of manipulation, and comfort in operation, the inventive ability of the engineer developed the various systems more and more perfectly, and experience gradually showed to what service each type was best adapted and the best construction of each for its peculiar work. ”

“ In each book of the series the fundamental principles of some sub-division of engineering technology are treated in a practical manner, providing the student with a handy survey of the particular branch of technology with which he is concerned. They should prove invaluable to the busy practical man who has not the time for more elaborate treatises. ”

“ To design effectively, to provide for contingencies, to be daunted by no difficulties—these qualities help to produce the Triumphs of Engineers, as well as do great inventive skill, the power of adapting principles to varying circumstances, and high-spirited enterprise in planning and conducting noble and useful works. ”

“ By this remarkable effect of Technical Language, we have the results of all the labours of past times not only always accessible, but so prepared that we may (provided we are careful in the use of our instrument) employ what is really useful and efficacious for the purpose of further success, without being in any way impeded or perplexed by the length and weight of the chain of past connexions which we drag along with us. ”

“ Engineers of the present day do not volunteer such general information without charge, or give such a variety of practical mechanism slightly but clearly described, and principles reduced to practice. ”

“ The technic of the laboratory instruments appealed to you exactly as does the management of a motor-car or the handling of a shotgun; most young men like to use a machine and to get mechanical results. But as to learning the insatiable love of truth, the precise observation and the inexorable deduction which are essential in the scientist, you probably have not even made a beginning. ”

“ While the legislator is horrified at the thought of innovation, the inventor, the discoverer, and the artisan are electrified by the discovery of a new principle in physics, and delighted at its application in a new invention, and its practical operation in a new and useful machine. ”

“ When these are answered the engineer is ready to begin work, which starts with the selection of materials and does not end till the man who is to use it has had specific instruction as to its peculiarities and care and protection. ”