The selection and training of engineers: A company may choose an engineer, or the engineer may choose a company

IN CONSIDERING this subject a clear, concise, definite, and comprehensive conception of an engineer is essential. The dictionary definition “one versed in or practicing any branch of engineering,” does not meet the requirements. Several practicing engineers submitted definitions, the most amusing of which was, “an engineer is a man who can do with one dollar what any man can do with 2 dollars.” An engineer's wife felt that “an engineer is one with whom it is rather difficult to live but quite impossible to live without.” Of the definitions submitted, the following was the best: “an engineer is one who through training, study, and practice successfully adapts and controls the materials and forces of nature to the benefit and advantage of himself, his fellow engineers, and the rest of the human family.” This is quite similar to that prepared by the American Engineering Council, “engineering is the science of controlling the forces and utilizing the materials of nature for the benefit of man and the art of organizing and directing human activities therewith.”