English and engineering

Front matter

Class Book

Gopjiiglit }•;?..

COF^lRIGKT DEPOSIT.

Preface

Although I must take the responsibihty for the idea and plan of this collection, my obligations to different men for help and suggestions are numerous. Among practical engineers, teachers of engineering subjects, and teachers of English in engineering schools alike I have found the most intense interest in the subject of English for technical students, for the double end of helping them to express themselves better in writing and speaking and of broadening their outlook on life — two aims which, in my opinion, can best be realized together. I have not hesitated to adopt ideas wherever I could find them and it is impossible for me in many cases to give credit where it is due. I must, however, take this opportunity to acknowledge my obligations to Professors Comfort A. Adams, Dugald C. Jackson and A. E. Norton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr. Farley Osgood and Mr. William Vanderpool of the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey, and, in still greater degree, to Dr. C. R. Mann of the Carnegie Foundation and to Professor H. G. Pearson of the English Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose advice and help on a hundred points have been of the greatest value. To Mr. L. A. Crosby and Mr. Philip Marks of the English Department of the lyl.assachusetts Institute of Technology my thanks are due for assistance with vi PREFACE

proofs. My obligations to various individuals and publishing houses for allowing me the use of copyrighted material are acknowledged in footnotes to the text. F. A.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction v

Writing and Thinking

Introduction

The problem of teaching the engineering student to express himself well in writing and speaking is more than the problem of instructing him, by means of books or lectures or corrections on themes, in words and the uses of words. There is no profitable treatment of words that is not also a treatment of ideas. Training in expression must be also training in thought or the result will be insincere, wordy, artificial, self-conscious — in a word — bad expression. It is impossible to give a student any real power over language until he comes to regard language as a means for the expression of thought, and to realize that the thought is the important thing. No student (nor any other person) ought to write unless he has something to say and a strong desire to say it. Given these two things, it is easy to make him see when he has said it well and when badly, and to help him improve his power of expression.

For reasons which are given at length below, the ideas with which the engineering student and his English teacher can most profitably deal are those embodied not in his technical engineering subjects but in literature, once the connection (and this is important) between engineering and literature is made clear. That such a connection exists is apparently evident to the practical engineers who are in these days expressing themselves emphatically upon this point in the many xii INTRODUCTION

addresses printed by them every year on engineering education. It will not be evident to the student until he has thought it out, but, once he has, he will bring to the study of English the same keenness and enthusiasm which he has for his technical subjects, and will master it with the same facility.

This book is accordingly built upon the theory that the function of English in technical education is twofold : in the first place to train students to express themselves in writing and speaking, not merely grammatically but with order, force, sincerity, and such charm as their natures will allow ; in the second, to furnish something of the liberal, humanizing, and broadening element which is more and more felt to be a necessary part of an engineering education. The two aims are in reality closely connected. A man will write crudely if his thinking is crude : there is no way in which an engineer can produce, in writing or speaking, the effect of an educated man unless he is educated; and, if one may take the word of the leaders in the profession, that part of his training which tends to humanize him, to develop him as a man, makes him to just that degree a better engineer.

The engineer must deal with men as well as with machines. He must be able to think and to express himself in terms that other men will understand. He must be able to marshal and to arrange his thoughts about intricate and difficult matters so as to make them plain and clear and forcible. Eloquence in the old bombastic sense of the term is not demanded of him, but it is demanded that he have clearness and force and the ability to present a long and complicated series of arguments, to weigh evidence on this side and that, and

INTRODUCTION xiii

to come to a conclusion which will carry conviction.

The engineer is destined to become an important figure, a leader, in the new age which is just now dawning. He cannot occupy a position of such importance without his heavy share of duties and responsibilities. He cannot be a leader without taking upon himself the task of solving many of the gravest problems of our civilization, human problems as well as mechanical, problems in finance, in government, in education, and in social life. The engineer must direct the labors of thousands of uneducated men, and he cannot escape some responsibility for their well-being. The work of his hands and brain may build up or destroy the welfare of whole industrial communities and of gigantic corporations. As an employer of younger engineers he must take an active part in their education, that great part of education which comes when school days are over, and he may, if he have the wisdom, exercise a human influence more important than he can ever estimate. With such a role to play in the development of our civilization the engineer must think in terms of civilization, in human terms as well as material, or be a traitor to his opportunities.

The thought of the race, the material of our civilization as it exists today, falls into two great divisions, literature (or, more broadly speaking, art) and science. Philosophy, which may be taken to constitute a third, is really a commentary upon both : either literature or science pursued far enough becomes philosophy. That education which is exclusively literary or exclusively scientific is one-sided and narrow. The one thing which gives breadth is the understanding of the relations between the two, the ability to see life from xiv INTRODUCTION

both angles. To lay a foundation for the understanding of the relation of literature and science is one of the first requisites of that training which aims to educate engineers that they may be " not only expert in science but reverent toward life."

Here is the function of literature, and in this idea lies the unity of the two aims of English work. To train the student to write by first training him to think: to stimulate his thought by directing his attenion to problems of his own profession and of his own education and to the illumination of them which he can find in literature : these two tasks may be performed together — better together than separately — and with that double aim in view this collection has been made.

The outline and arrangement of the book are dictated by the aims which have just been explained. The first section is an attempt to make the student see the dependence of writing on thinking, to impress upon him the first of all principles of good writing, that he must have something to say. The sad results of trying to teach students to write on the other principle, putting the stress not upon thought but upon words, need no commentary to one who has studied the history of the teaching of English in this country. The trend of recent opinion is in the other direction and that fact is the best of auguries for the effective teaching of composition.

The sections following are intended to direct the student in thinking out for himself the relations of his scientific studies to that other great body of thought contained in literature. The bridge is not ready built : the task of building it is left to him under the guidance

INTRODUCTION xv

of his teacher. A variety of considerations and points of view are presented with the design of stimulating his thought, not of doing his thinking for him.

The second and third sections are devoted to essays deahng with the profession of engineering and the demands which it makes on the engineering schools. The student can never see the relation between engineering and literature until he has some idea of what he means by engineering, until he makes up his mind for himself whether he is learning a trade or a profession, and until he forms for himself some conception of the opportunity of the engineer for human leadership in this new epoch which is being ushered in by the manufacture of power. Once he has thought about that subject he is ready to think more clearly and more broadly about the aims of engineering education. It is impossible to educate a man without his consent. It is impossible to educate him broadly if what he wants is only the narrow rules-of-thumb which might fit him to follow a trade but which are inadequate to the demands of a liberal and intellectual profession. Hence the importance of having a student read thoughtfully at the very outset of his career what the leaders of the profession have said about the true aims of engineering education.

These topics lead directly to the question of the relation between pure science and applied, and that problem leads straight to the central one of the relation of science to literature and of the part which each plays in education — not merely in the education which fits a man for the practice of his profession but also in that solution of the great mysteries of life which each man must seek for himself. The student who has followed xvi INTRODUCTION

the train of thought so far should have a new point of view toward Hterature, a point of view which will enable him to see in it not something alien to all his work and interests, nor merely an elegant amusement for his idle hours, but rather a body of thought bearing in a thousand ways upon his scientific studies and his relations with other men.

The final section, " Literature and Life," offers definite illustrations of literature as a comment on life. The essays which could be included are only a few from a very large field and their purpose is merely suggestive, to teach the student to read thoughtfully and to apply what he reads to his own personal life. This section of the book may be taken as a kind of introduction to further and more extended study of literature or to the student's own reading.

This volume is planned for reading in connection with constant discussion and writing. The dififerent essays should be considered as supplying questions and topics for thought. Following the preliminary discussion in class of what any single essay is trying to say, comes the question. What do you think about it ? At first the undergraduate will probably have few ideas. But the skillful teacher will find that if he follows question with question, on this side and that, points of view will soon begin to develop in the class-room. If he preserves an atmosphere in which thought is free and if he encourages each tentative opinion, differences will appear and trains of thought will be started which will demand careful statement in writing to do them justice. Here it is that the instructor will find material for oral and written composition, in which the student's reading will furnish stimulus and suggestion but not the

INTRODUCTION xvii

rule or limit for his thought. Themes should never be mere analyses or summaries but rather the expression of individual points of view or the expansion and illustration of single points in the essay under discussion, with direct reference to the life of the student and the problems of his own education.

Once interest is aroused in this way, correctness in writing is comparatively easy to achieve. For one thing the student who is interested in what he has to say, who feels that he is exploring new ground, will write more carefully than he does when he is merely trying to produce a " theme." And when he is eager to say as well as possible what he thinks, he will remember any suggestions that are made as to form. For the teaching of matters of form there is no economy equal to having a student interested in the ideas he is trying to express. The whole matter between form and content is one of emphasis. The wise teacher will never lose an opportunity to help his students in the attainment of correctness in language, and at the same time he will never fail to make clear to them that the sole justification of care in language is the adequate expression of thought so that it will be easily and pleasantly understandable to the audience they wish to reach.

The objection may be made to this entire program that thinking is one of those things which cannot be taught. The teacher of English composition, such an objector would say, must take his students as they are, teach them to express in language such thoughts as they have, and be content with that. He cannot hope to teach them to think beyond their natural capacities xviii INTRODUCTION

and above the innate ideas and prejudices of their class and position, which they have when they come to him. It must be admitted that there is a color of truth in this objection. There is no magic formula, no program of the development of separate " faculties " which can be combined to produce the power of thought. But while thinking cannot in this sense be taught, it can be stimulated; the student's tentative attempts can be questioned and criticized in such a manner as to develop his mental power or to enable him to develop it for himself. The first of all requisites for this is that the teacher should himself be thinking with the class. Their minds will catch the flame from his. Then the questions which he is discussing with them must be such as to call forth the best efforts of his mind and theirs. Pre-digested mental food will not strengthen the mental power of assimilation any more than pre-digested physical food will the bodily. And, finally, the teacher must drop the role of master and assume that of the seeker after truth. His method must be that of Socrates, that of the " intellectual midwife," presiding over the birth of ideas. The triumph of his art will be " in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth." Like Socrates he must arouse in his patients the pains and perplexity and travail of thought. Like Socrates he must be resolute in exposing the false opinion when it has been brought forth. Like Socrates, however, he must do this by appealing not to authority, either his own or another's or a book's, but by the appeal to reason, by the gentle art of refutation. By such methods will the teacher be able to awaken his pupils and to

INTRODUCTION xix

stimulate them to think ; by such methods will he succeed in purging their thought of the prejudices and intolerances and easy inherited assents which are the enemies of the truth. By these methods and by these alone can he teach them to write.

Such is the purpose of this book — to furnish the text and starting point for work of the kind just indicated. The aim of the editor will have been fulfilled if it leads the student to see for himself that there is imagination in science as well as in literature, reason in literature as well as in science, and human truth in both ; if it sharpens his intellectual curiosity and teaches him to be content with no partial view, but to seek from science, from literature and from the practical world to build up for himself a conception of life worthy of his best thought, one which will impel him to take advantage of the broader and nobler and more human opportunities of his profession.

ENGLISH AND ENGINEERING

I

Writing and Thinking

By John Ruskin ^

The chief vices of education have arisen from the one great fallacy of supposing that noble language is a communicable trick of grammar and accent, instead of simply the careful expression of right thought. All the virtues of language are, in their roots, moral ; it becomes accurate if the speaker desires to be true; clear, if he speaks with sympathy and a desire to be

1 These paragraphs on Writing and Thinking, which are to be taken as a kind of motto for this book, are from Ruskin's lecture on " The Relation of Art to Morals," which forms Chapter III of his Lectures on Art, 1870.

John Ruskin, 1819-1900, was an art critic and writer on social and economic questions: among his best known works are Modern Painters, 1843-60, Unto This Last, i860. Sesame and Lilies, 1865, and Crown of Wild Olive, 1866. Ruskin has perhaps been most influential in his attempt to show the connection between the art of a people and the social, economic, and religious conditions of their lives. This selection on the art of writing is typical of his point of view toward all the arts.

Following to some extent the lead of Carlyle, Ruskin attacked the problems of nineteenth-century industrialism in a way which has had an important influence on the political economy of today. An illustration is the essay, " Traffic," printed in this volume; this aspect of his work is ably discussed by J. A. Hobson in his book, John Ruskin, Social Reformer. " The Mystery of Life and Its Arts," which forms the last selection in this collection, is an attempt to .show the inevitable connection of art and literature with the fundamental problems of life. — Editor.

I intelligible; powerful, if he has earnestness; pleasant, if he has sense of rhythm and order. There are no other virtues of language producible by art than these : but let me mark more deeply for an instant the significance of one of them. Language, I said, is only clear when it is sympathetic. You can, in truth, understand a man's word only by understanding his temper. Your own word is also as of an unknown tongue to him unless he understands yours. And it is this which makes the art of language, if any one is to be chosen separately from the rest, that which is fittest for the instrument of a gentleman's education. To teach the meaning of a word thoroughly, is to teach the nature of the spirit that coined it; the secret of language is the secret of sympathy, and its full charm is possible only to the gentle. And thus the principles of beautiful speech have all been fixed by sincere and kindly speech. On the laws which have been determined by sincerity, false speech, apparently beautiful, may afterwards be constructed; but all such utterance, whether in oration or poetry, is not only without permanent power, but it is destructive of the principles it has usurped. So long as no words are uttered but in faithfulness, so long the art of language goes on exalting itself; but the moment it is shaped and chiselled on external principles, it falls into frivolity, and perishes. And this truth would have been long ago manifest, had it not been that in periods of advanced academical science there is always a tendency to deny the sincerity of the first masters of language. Once learn to write gracefully in the manner of an ancient author, and we are apt to think that he also wrote in the manner of some

WRITING AND THINKING 3

one else. But no noble nor right style was ever yet founded but out of a sincere heart.

No man is worth reading to form your style, who does not mean what he says ; nor was any great style ever invented but by some man who meant what he said. Find out the beginner of a great manner of writing, and you have also found the declarer of some true facts or sincere passions : and your whole method of reading will thus be quickened, for, being sure that your author really meant what he said, you will be much more careful to ascertain what it is that he means.

And of yet greater importance is it deeply to know that every beauty possessed by the language of a nation is significant of the innermost laws of its being. Keep the temper of the people stern and manly ; make their associations grave, courteous, and for worthy objects ; occupy them in just deeds ; and their tongue must needs be a grand one. Nor is it possible, therefore — observe the necessary reflected action — that any tongue should be a noble one, of which the words are not so many trumpet-calls to action. All great languages invariably utter great things, and command them ; they cannot be mimicked but by obedience ; the breath of them is inspiration because it is not only vocal, but vital ; and you can only learn to speak as these men spoke, by becoming what these men were.

II By Arnold Bennett ^

In discussing the value of particular books, I have heard people say — people who were timid about expressing their views of literature in the presence of literary men : "It may be bad from a literary point of view, but there are very good things in it." Or: " I dare say the style is very bad, but really the book is very interesting and suggestive." Or : " I'm not an expert, and so I never bother my head about good style. All I ask for is good matter. And when I have got it, critics may say what they like about the book." And many other similar remarks, all showing that in the minds of the speakers there existed a notion that style is something supplementary to, and distinguishable from, matter; a sort of notion that a writer who wanted to be classical had first to find and arrange his matter, and then dress it up ele-

1 This essay is the sixth chapter of Mr. Arnold Bennett's excellent little book, Literary Taste and How to Form It, first published in 1909. It is reprinted here by kind permission of the George H. Doran Company, publishers.

Enoch Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 and is today one of the leading English writers of novels, plays, and popular treatises, designated by him " Popular Philosophies." Among his best known works are the trilogy, Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain, the Old Wives' Tale, Buried Alive, Milestones, and How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. — Editor.

gantly in a costume of style, in order to please beings called literary critics.

This is a misapprehension. Style cannot be distinguished from matter. When a writer conceives an idea he conceives it in a form of words. That form of words constitutes his style, and it is absolutely governed by the idea. The idea can only exist in words, and it can only exist in one form of words. You cannot say exactly the same thing in two different ways. Slightly alter the expression, and you slightly alter the idea. Surely it is obvious that the expression cannot be altered without altering the thing expressed ! A writer, having conceived and expressed an idea, may, and probably will, " polish it up." But what does he polish up? To say that he polishes up his style is merely to say that he is polishing up his idea, that he has discovered faults or imperfections in his idea, and is perfecting it. An idea exists in proportion as it is expressed ; it exists when it is expressed, and not before. It expresses itself. A clear idea is expressed clearly, and a vague idea vaguely. You need but take your own case and your own speech. For just as science is the development of common-sense, so is literature the development of common daily speech. The difference between science and common-sense is simply one of degree ; similarly with speech and literature. Well, when you " know what you think," you succeed in saying what you think, in making yourself understood. When you " don't know what to think," your expressive tongue halts. And note how in daily life the characteristics of your style follow your mood ; how tender it is when you are tender, how violent when you are violent.

You have said to yourself in moments of emotion : "If only I could write — ," etc. You were wrong. You ought to have said : " If only I could think — on this high plane." When you have thought clearly you have never had any difficulty in saying what you thought, though you may occasionally have had some difficulty in keeping it to yourself. And when you cannot express yourself, depend upon it that you have nothing precise to express, and that what incommodes you is not the vain desire to express, but the vain desire to think more clearly. All this just to illustrate how style and matter are co-existent, and inseparable, and alike.

You cannot have good matter with bad style. Examine the point more closely. A man wishes to convey a fine idea to you. He employs a form of words. That form of words is his style. Having read, you say : " Yes, this idea is fine." The writer has therefore achieved his end. But in what imaginable circumstances can you say : " Yes, this idea is fine, but the style is not fine " ? The sole medium of communication between you and the author has been the form of words. The fine idea has reached you. How ? In the words, by the words. Hence the fineness must be in the words. You may say, superiorly : " He has expressed himself clumsily, but I can see what he means." By what light? By something in the words, in the style. That something is fine. Moreover, if the style is clumsy, are you sure that you can see what he means? You cannot be quite sure. And, at any rate, you cannot see distinctly. The " matter " is what actually reaches you, and it must necessarily be affected by the style.

Still further to comprehend what style is, let me ask you to think of a writer's style exactly as you would think of the gestures and manners of an acquaintance. You know the man whose demeanor is " always calm," but whose passions are strong. How do you know that his passions are strong? Because he " gives them away " by some small, but important, part of his demeanor, such as the twitching of a lip or the whitening of the knuckles caused by clenching the hand. In other words, his demeanor, fundamentally, is not calm. You know the man who is always " smoothly polite and agreeable," but who affects you unpleasantly. Why does he affect you unpleasantly? Because he is tedious, and therefore disagreeable, and because his politeness is not real politeness. You know the man who is awkward, shy, clumsy, but who, nevertheless, impresses you with a sense of dignity and force. Why? Because mingled with that awkwardness and so forth is dignity. You know the blunt, rough fellow whom you instinctively guess to be affectionate — because there is " something in his tone " or " something in his eyes." In every instance the demeanor, while perhaps seeming to be contrary to the character, is really in accord with it. The demeanor never contradicts the character. It is one part of the character that contradicts another part of the character. For, after all, the blunt man is blunt, and the awkward man is awkward, and these characteristics are defects. The demeanor merely expresses them. The two men would be better if, while conserving their good qualities, they had the superficial attributes of smoothness and agreeableness possessed by the gentleman who is unpleasant to you. And as regards this latter, it is not his superficial attributes which are unpleasant to you, but his other qualities. In the end the character is shown in the demeanor; and the demeanor is a consequence of the character and resembles the character. So with style and matter. You may argue that the blunt, rough man's demeanor is unfair to his tenderness. I do not think so. For his churlishness is really very trying and painful, even to the man's wife, though a moment's tenderness will make her and you forget it. The man really is churlish, and much more often than he is tender. His demeanor is merely just to his character. So, when a writer annoys you for ten pages and then enchants you for ten lines, you must not explode against his style. You must not say that his style won't let his matter " come out." You must remember the churlish, tender man. The more you reflect, the more clearly you will see that faults and excellences of style are faults and excellences of matter itself.