Montana State University Bozeman - Montanan Yearbook (Bozeman, MT)

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labor must be continuous, else he will soon find himself outdistanced in the race. One of our Presidents has said. “The Civil Engineer should be and generally is a man of broadest education, and should be em couraged to enter public service, as his profession ever teaches him the value of strict honesty and the fallacy of dishonesty.” Many fields are open to the engineer, and at the present time and for years to come, there will always be room for all who qualify. Xew fields are ever presenting themselves, and the public demanding specialists in minor branches of the profession. Our best paid men are those who have made a special study of some one line. We find among such the specialist in hydraulics, irrigation, power development, concrete construction, machine construction, electric power transmission, etc. Civil Engineering, the mother of the engineering professions, today, as ever in the past, is the source from which has sprung the children. Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. As the years roll by, the grandchildren are being named; we find among such Sanitary, Structural, Road, Railway, Telephone Engineering, etc. The young man who enters the profession, makes no mistake if he early decides to specialize. The path may seem steep and narrow at first, but the future has greatest promise. In selecting the profession, the young man should realize that main-branches are and ever will be tied to corporation control, while others offer an open field. If the young man desires to work for salary all his life, all of the branches offer excellent openings. If, on the other hand, he prizes his independence, he should look over the list of engineers and ascertain in which profession independence is to be found. The young man makes a mistake if he takes one of the engineering courses and attempts to follow, in practical life, the work of some one of the other courses. He ever finds himself upon an unequal footing with his associates. Nothing takes the spirit out of a man quite so quickly as. when attending for instance a meeting of electrical engineers, and when called upon, he finds it necessary to advise that he has been educated as either a civil or mechanical engineer, although at the present time following the electrical profession. Nothing is more destructive to his progress than to switch from the one to the other professions. The professions are advancing too rapidly for any one man to keep pace with any two of the branches of engineering, and if he attempts it he will soon find that he is proficient in neither. The young man who, in college, spends the time to obtain diplomas from two engineering professions, makes no mistake: the study gives him additional strength and more confidence in himself. After graduation he should take one path and follow that, and circumstances will generally point the way. 20

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environment will undoubtedly have done much to assist him in making the selection; if, however, he desires a higher education, he often finds it difficult to decide just what course to pursue. We find many parents desiring that their sons shall follow some one of the professions, prompted by the mistaken idea that it is more honorable to earn the living with the brains than with the hands, regardless of the results to which the brain action may lead. In Europe, and especially England, this feeling has become a part of the national life, with the sure result of forming class distinction. The young American should early realize that that which has made his country what it is, has been the ability of our forefathers to think and act for themselves. Xo greater honor can be paid to our people, when in foreign lands, than the fact that they can be recognized by their mental bearing and ability to think and act for themselves. Although a higher education is something after which all men should seek, yet it should not be obtained at a sacrifice to the thought that all honest labor is both honorable and ennobling. It is far better for the American boy to stand high in some trade, which requires the daily use of his hands to perform, than to be some itinerant doctor, lawyer or engineer. It is far better to look back upon a life's work well performed with the hands, than to view with regret a dishonest and poorly performed life of mental service. The young man who enters the engineering profession, with the thought that he will always work with clean hands and a laundered shirt, has a wrong conception of the profession. Although the profession requires that he must always have “clean hands and a pure heart,” the thought is in the moral sense alone. His profession will require the use of head, hands and feet. He must master himself before he can control others. He must learn to obey if he desires to be obeyed. The student entering the profession should, first of all, fix his ideals high. ITe should never be alone content with obtaining an ability to survey. Surveying is but the A-B-C of engineering, and he who learns no more, occupies to the profession the same position that the school boy of the first grade occupies to the common school education. The would-be engineer must also realize that the engineering professions are the most difficult of all professions to master. He will ever occupy the position of student to the great teacher, Nature, to whom he will ever turn for instruction. His term of study will cease only when his tired eyes close in their last great sleep. His text book will be Nature's own, and will ever be open to him, yet, as he turns the leaves, he will ever find new pages constantly being presented to his astonished gaze. The young man entering the profession should realize at the start, that the sloth has no place here; and that when once commenced, the 19

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Cbc .ifacultv “Experience is an arch wnerethro' Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when 1 move.’’