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ENGINEERING AS A VOCATION

of forty manufacturing establishments to determine these facts. The percentages were as follows:

Graduates % Non-graduates %
Engineers' offices 80 20
Architects' offices 22 78
Manufacturing plants 18 82

In engineers' offices the permanent positions are few and when an engineer has to increase his force he must have men already trained. This accounts for the high percentage of graduates in the offices of engineers in private practice. With architects the conditions of employment for draftsmen are better than with engineers in private practice. In manufacturing establishments there are many permanent positions for low-grade draftsmen. If this canvass had been made in the works and offices of the great electrical companies the percentages would probably have been ninety-five graduates to five non-graduates, but conditions of pay not improved. In manufacturing lines much of the work has been standardized and the drafting consists in tracing and making slight alterations in existing drawings to adapt them to other uses. There is very little high-class designing, empirical methods developed by many years of practice in a particular specialty being used. In electricity there is greater need of well-trained men than in mechanical work, for electrical practice has not yet been fully standardized.