Society's hopes for the engineer

Like other human institutions, engineering is in a process of continuous evolution. One fundamentally important broadening of the scope, opportunities, and obligations of the engineer is forcefully presented in the following editorial by the Secretary of the IRE (who, it may be mentioned, is himself an outstanding instance of the successful blending and performance in an individual of the functions of the technologist and the industrialist). It is argurdm that an industry, just as a nation, can no longer blunder ahead successfully leaving the technological aspects to chance. It must plan carefully. It cannot proceed far with such plans without expert technical guidance. Forward-looking business administrators will be driven to seek out technically informed persons to become active if not leading elements of their directing organizations. The new awareness of the indispensability of the technical man featuring this postwar era and the now generally prevalent public enthusiasm of expectation create a serious challenge to our engineering profession because it will be the engineer who must become acquainted with the reservoir of scientific knowledge, appraise it in the light of the needs of the life of the people, and then, by judicious interpretation, develop the useful applications. The engineer must better fit himself to meet this obligation and it is to this new opportunity and its problems that I wish to call particular attention.