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ENGINEERING AS A VOCATION

also like to have men in their employ who can act, speak and write like gentlemen. The ability to write a readable report is a valuable asset. It is becoming necessary nowadays for engineers to study the laws of business and the law of contract so that litigation may be avoided. The average lawyer is sadly lacking in the ability to write intelligible English and in earlier days when every engineer assumed it to be part of the work of a lawyer to prepare all legal papers, there was much litigation over contracts. To-day few contracts and specifications are seen by lawyers and the ability to properly express his meaning, together with the marked lessening of litigation over construction work, has strengthened the engineer with his employers. The work of the engineer often takes him to foreign lands. There are also numerous international conventions. In every country there are many technical societies holding frequent meetings to describe and discuss work in progress and publishing bulletins containing reports of these meetings and discussions. Science has no national boundaries and all men of science, pure and applied, are brothers. The modern engineer. therefore, should possess a reading knowledge, at least, of French and German, while a knowledge of Italian and Spanish will wonderfully increase his power for research.

The training of engineers is so broad at the best schools and the overlapping of the various