12
THE BATTALION
AS
SLICE CL LE
TCLC icy AN ENLSNEEC TC
fOM fclHWN
In Which the Technical Is Given Preference Over Shakespeare
Well, anyway, 1 am tflad I am an Engineer and not
a Liberal Arts student.
Anyway, I’d rather he an engineer. One supposes,
1 guess, just why a fellow would want to 1h* an engine
er instead of a Liberal Arts student, hut to me anywav,
the reason is good enough.
Look now an engineer is smart. Me I’m smart 1h*-
tause I took engineering. I tan work problems that
are hard to work because I took engineering. Now you
take a Liberal Arts student and I l>et “he couldn’t
work half the problems I can bec&uae he didn’t take
engineering. Why only the other day I was talking
to one and he didn’t even know how to Work a simple
little physics problem that I knew how to work in a
minute.
Now you take a Lil>eral Arts and he don’t do noth
ing but moon around and talk at>out things what ain’t
no consequence, like trends of civilizishun and econo
mics and poets and such funny things like that. True
he may know some big words, but 1 bet they don’t mean
j so much after all, that is, not much as the terms that
we use, I mean us engineers. Why we havemt got time
to fool around with poets and musicians and good books
and the pauses of the industrial revolution and all. No,
because we are busy learning about things that count
in like like - the atomic theory and higher calculus
and finding out why the bridge fell down. Now no Lib
eral Arts could do that. ,
Furthermore 1 i>et us engineers get further in life
than the lazy Liberal Arts. Why some of us will get to
go way out in the swamps to oil fields and wqrk on
ligs ten and twelve, hours a day. Some of us can get to
work in powerhouses and transformer Stations way
out in the country. Others 1 l>et can get work in brass
and steel foundries, while some more of us will no
doubt end up as automobile mechanics, doing the hard
work in life. The Ul>eral Arts now, he just stays
around the cities going to shows and plays and musi-
cales and things like that. He will get a job in a lutnk
or some place like that and mayl>e !>e promoted once
or twice until he is making six to eight thousand! a
year and then he stops. You see he has no future.
But take-in engineer now and he has a chance of in
venting something or improving something and making
a little money. Of course not a great many of them
make money. On the contrary, most of them are exist
ing >vith only the grace of God and the bread line. But
just think, they are the backlsme of the nation. With
out them where woidd we Ik*, and so you see how swell
it fs to be part of the lutckbone of the nation ami 1h*
:depended upon.
Take an engineer now and you will see that he ha*|
no fun at all. He is usually studying or working. Occas
ionally he will get a chance to kn«»ck off and go on a
.spree, but then he is so unaccustomed to it that he
really don’t know how to go at>out enjoying himself.
So you seethe don’t have much fun. Lil>eral Arts now
gets lots of time of his own to cultivate his apprecia
tion of the finer things of life, and therefore enjoys
.r /
The Engineer
himself more. But the engineer just don’t seem to
know anything at>out that part of it. Us engineers can
take it though.
^ ou remember w hat some guy or other who wrote
poetry or plays and stuff like that said aliout life, lit*
said that the living of life is all that you’ll get out o®
it anyhow, so learn to live it welj. It seems like a pity
but us engineers can’t much do that. A Liberal Arts
man can prolmbiy do it, but then he isn’t really doing
something big like lieing the backbone of the nation.
Of course we don’t get our just deserts out of it. but
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