DIFFICULTIES IN SETTING ON

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 75 (Supplement)

DIFFICULTIES IN SETTING ON

The first difficulty is to know whab equipment is necessary, and hew to get it—that is to say, to know what ought to have been Learnt, and how to make up any deficiencies. At once each of us is confronted with the question, ‘‘What is going to be my work?” In engineering it is quite impossible for anyone to start out with a definite, career before him. He is like a particular particle setting out across a containing vessel of gas. Ho cannot career straight across. He is buffeted about, and frequently goes in quite the wrong direction. If .lie is charged, and in a field, he will zigzag across in front of most of his fellows. A man who lias made a specialty of electric waves gets Ins first appointment as inspector of meters to an electrio light company, and so on. A wellknown engineer remarked the other day that he found his knowledge of differential equations and his experience in the correct analysis of the rare earths of little use in putting in sewage plant. Yet he had made lots of use both of his mathematical and chemical analysis in his time. Probably each man should have a general knowledge, of applied physics and chemistry and mathematics, and a special knowledge of one or two subjects. If you glance round at the work of some of our big men, you will be surprised to see how many have made their reputation by doing one small thing, but doing it well. The specialty must not be too. narrow, either. O'ne of the great difficulties is to keep knowledge in a polished .state' ready for immediate use. In practice, it may have to lie idle for long -periods, and then be wanted very much on short notice. The great thing is to master a certain number of broad fundamental principles, which give a starting-point for refreshing old knowledge or acquiring new. One of the greatest- difficulties in getting on arises from the idea, which is carefully fostered among English science teachers, that there is something degrading in applying science, and that business ability is an inferior quality which is to be despised. The whole attitude of science* teachers in Britain is that of contempt for practice and 'unapplied science. All teaching is hopelessly unpractical, and the teaching of r science is wholly unpractical one of the greatest difficulties in getting on is to find a good opening. A consulting engineer is supposed to be a highly-skilled engineer, with so much experience that he is an authority. Twenty or thirty years’ experience, apart from school and college training, is necessary for a consulting engineer to be worth his salt. But. there are various grades of consulting engineer: and what the qualifications of the consulting electrical engineer really are, what the consulting electrical engineer will be twenty or thirty years’ hep.ee it is impossible to- foretell. At present most of the large towns are electrically lighted and have their tramways; railways will be electrified by that time, and it is probable that the work will bo done by their own men. There are many openings to be had in centralstation work ; and stations are growing bigger and more important every day. At present there are also many applicants for every opening. Central-sta-tion work in a position of responsibility is very anxious. It is not very well paid, either. A. large number of young men go in for installation work—which 'Pounds as if they started bishops on their episcopal careers—but it really means that they do what is in fact electrical plumbing, under an unnecessarily imposing name. At first it is very discouraging to make very little, and the good man has little chance of showing his superiority to the common run. But he should always remember that income as a young man is very little criterion of real value. There are many careers in which a young man can make something almost at once; hut in all cases the income increases very slowly. In such a business as engineering, a man of first-rate ability may be quite unable to make enough to marry on till he is thirty, or enough to he comfortable on until he is forty. A hard struggle is very good for a young man who has anything in him. It gets him into the way of overcoming small difficulties, so that when he gets above the small obstacles he goes on overcoming large ones, from the mere force of habit.— “Engineering.”