Technical skill

“ I cannot discover that any one knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible. The right kind of experience, the right kind of technical training, ought to enlarge the mind and reduce the number of impossibilities. ”

“ They are seldom if ever called upon to exert their own wits and industry to obtain the requisites for their instruction. A great deal is now said about technical education; but how little there is of technical handiness or head work! Everything is bought ready-made to their hands; and hence there is no call for individual ingenuity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ He too is an engineer with scientific and technical knowledge and training that control the most delicate of machines ever at the mercy of the elements, and engineer and scientist have supplied him with instruments and equipments embodying the results of refined research and investigation. ”

“ Exact knowledge, which in a manner of speaking is synonymous with the engineer, is needed in high places in our nation. Men of technical education and training have demonstrated their fitness as servants of the people in the few instances where such men have taken over the reins of administration in certain specified branches of our government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Technical ability, the precision of an automaton, identification with the wire-strung wooden machine—this sounding instrumentification of humanity, is now lauded and exalted as the highest attainment of man. ”

“ A very shrewd artisan said to me: ``When a young mechanical engineer comes among us fresh from college, only able to make figures and pictures, we rarely have much respect for him: the trouble with the great majority of those who come from technical institutions is that they don't know as much about practical methods and processes as we know.''
I felt that there was truth in this, but, as things were, hardly dared tell this to the trustees. ”

“ Technical power means the ability of the hand to carry out the suggestions of the brain, and this will be great or small according to the speed at which the hand can understand and translate these suggestions into action. ”

“ Therefore, ‘technical education’ is a suitable and proper designation of the training which is given to apprentices, &c., in the strictly technical details of their trades, arts, or professions—i.e. in the skilful moving of things. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 object is not always to teach the “technic” of an industry, because that can be done only in the workshop, but it may be to teach the science and art upon which all technics are really based. Manual training is of course training to manual labor, which has been called the “study of the external world.” While in all technical education the sciences and arts must be illustrated by practical examples, the main object is to so instruct masters and workmen that they can pursue their craft with [Pg 283] dignity and intelligence, without professing to teach the craft itself. ”

“ To the spinner or weaver who almost exclusively employs women to tend his machinery, or to the manufacturing chemist whose workpeople are little more than labourers employed in carrying to and fro materials, knowing little or nothing of the scientific principles underlying the complicated processes in which they are engaged, the technical education of the workpeople may seem to be a matter of little moment. ”

“ As evidence that technical information is not essential for success in an engineering profession, attention is called to the fact that a considerable number of men who took a course in one of the major divisions of engineering have practiced in another branch with reasonable success. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The high-class mechanic who does a different kind of work each day, in order to do each job in the quickest time, would need, in addition to a thorough knowledge of the art of cutting metals, a vast knowledge and experience in the quickest way of doing each kind of hand work. ”

“ It will be seen from the foregoing that a complete system of technical education must make provision for the training of those who are to be occupied as journeymen or foremen in different branches of trade or industry, and also for those who aim at becoming managers or masters or heads of manufacturing firms, scientific advisers or professional engineers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Without wishing for a moment to depreciate the merits of any other body of men, I think it will be conceded that the objects proposed by the engineer, and the acquirements, knowledge, and experience that he must possess before he can practise successfully, are at least equal to those of any other profession, particularly after the practical examples exhibited to the world of the great benefits that engineering has already conferred upon mankind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Your first position is that of a master mechanic, who is capable of drawing plans and writing minutely a specification whereby the engineer may know what a well constructed machine is in every particular. He knows the parts and relations of both as constructor and operator, and you are supposed to be the foreman in the shop of repairs. The living person is the engine, nature the engineer, and you the master mechanic. ”

“ Among the gains to engineering which, it is claimed, have accrued from the enterprise, are the perfection of the machinery and tools for boring, and the training of a body of skilled workmen, who have become experts, able to determine, by merely inspecting a rock, how to deal most efficiently with it. ”

“ It is constantly growing in prominence, and calls for the exercise of the skill of the engineer and the ingenuity of the mechanic. Efficiency and economy are the two great watchwords, and this is what the world is striving for. Success will come to him who can contribute to it in the smallest degree. ”

“ The civil engineer, the mechanical engineer, the navigator, the mining expert, the industrial chemist and mineralogist, the electrician,—the work of all these falls within the lines of the modern machine process, as well as the work of the inventor who devises the appliances of the process and that of the mechanician who puts the inventions into effect and oversees their working. The scope of the process is larger than the machine. ”

“ All apprentices are given instruction by engineers and foremen in physics, chemistry, knowledge of materials, model making, foundry work, algebraic calculation methods, the handling of graphics, curves, statistics, price calculation, machines and tools and particularly the principles and functions of internal combustion engines. ”

“ When the engineer learns in detail how the task is executed, and imitates it with success; he will escape the tax now imposed on every engine which sets its fuel on fire as the first step in converting latent into actual motion. ”

“ Of all the pure and applied sciences, engineering alone has the distinction of being the first to have the correct insight into the human problem. The task of engineers was to convert knowledge—brain work—“bound-up time”—into daily bread by means of conserving time and effort. ”

“ A Practical Treatise on the Tools, Appliances, and Processes employed in the Art of Turning. By Paul N. Hasluck. Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Cr. 8vo, 5s. cloth.
"Written by a man who knows, not only how work ought to be done, but who also knows how to do it, and how to convey his knowledge to others. To all turners this book would be valuable."—Engineering.
"We can safely recommend the work to young engineers. To the amateur it will simply be invaluable. To the student it will convey a great deal of useful information."—Engineer.
Screw-Cutting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 will not make an engineer of you. But read it carefully, use good judgment and common sense, do as it tells you, and my word for it, in one month, you, for all practical purposes, will be a better engineer than four-fifths of the so-called engineers today, who think what they don't know would not make much of a book. ”

“ The mechanical engineer, machine designer and draftsman are also well provided for in Machinery. Every number contains articles on the theory and practice of machine design, on the properties of materials, and on labor-saving methods and systems. ”

“ The fine-textured individual, however, if he is qualified for engineering, will take up some of the finer, higher grades of it and make fine and delicate material or machinery, or will engage in some form of engineering which requires only intellectual work. Practically all successful engineers are of the bony and muscular type or some modification of this type. This is the type which naturally takes interest in construction, in machinery, and in material accomplishment and achievement. Engineering practice usually requires painstaking accuracy and exactitude. ”

“ Without this power the engineer cannot hope to practice his profession with any chance of success. The formation of correct habits of thinking and working, habits of observing, of classifying, of investigating, of discriminating, of proving instead of guessing, of weighing evidence, of patient perseverance, and of doing thoroughly honest work, is a method of using that power efficiently. ”