Civil Engineering: Anachronism and Black Sheep

Adams, J. Q. (2004). The White House, ⟨http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ja6.html⟩ (July 2004). The presidency of John Quincy Adams (1825–1829) was particularly noteworthy for infrastructure engineers. He proposed that the Federal Government bring the States together with a network of highways and canals, and that it develop and conserve the public domain, using funds from the sale of public lands. In 1828, he broke ground for the $185\mathrm{mil}$ C&0 Canal thereby giving impetus to public works engineering.

Calhoun, D. H. (1960). “The American civil engineer: Origins and conflict.” The Technology Press, Cambridge, Mass. In March 1794, Congress authorized George Washington to construct fortifications for the protection of harbors along the East Coast. As there were few engineers in America, the President temporarily hired French engineers for the task. The reason for French engineers to be selected and preferred is given in (Watkins 1891). One reason why they were somewhat preferred was because of L’Ecole Militaire, which was considered the finest institution of its time, and whose graduates had left the military to work in the civilian sector, and were thus available to prospective employers.

Fitzgerald, M. (2005). “Workshop advances implementation of global principles and guidelines: Participants urged to sign anticorruption charter.” ASCE News, 30(11). This article brings out that the reputation of civil engineers is tarnished because of the corruption prevalent in the industry. It is thus possible to impute that there is serious concern in the community that civil engineers are impolite and uncivilized in the practice of their contractual obligations, a commentary on a meaning of their name that is not.

Herbert, G. (1633). “Temple, Church Porch.” st. xli, ⟨http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/George-Herbert/1/⟩ (July 2004). “Wit’s an unruly engine, wildly striking sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.” This quote shows the close proximity of use of the words “engine” and “engineer” during the formative centuries of the development of the word engineer.

History Channel. (2004). “In search of history: The Library of Alexandria.” Item No. AAE-40425, ⟨http://www.historychannel.com/⟩. The Library of Alexandria, where Archimedes studied, and which was unfortunately consumed by fire, was a major repository of drawings of ancient machines and inventions plus a storehouse of information on the science and engineering of the ancients. Many building materials of today, such as lime, bitumen, and brick are among the oldest construction materials known to mankind in the centuries before Christ.

Houghton M. (2004). “Railroads: The readers’ companion to American history.” College Division, Online Study Center, ⟨http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/aẖ073400̱railroads.htm⟩ (July 2004). (1) Railroads formed the backbone of the advancement of American civil engineering, as public works engineers gained experience and expertise in that area. There were 93,000 miles of railroads in 1880; and 164,000 in 1890. Strangely, Calhoun (1960) reports only $500\text{mi}$ of Railroads in 1850! This cannot be expected to be an accurate estimate, since more reliable historical records, as quoted above, are available. (2) There was $2.5 billion investment in railroads in 1870, equivalent to approximately $131 billion in 2004 dollars—a sizeable amount. Hence, railroads were a major source of employment for public works engineers.

Kaylor, D. (2005). “George Washington—The First US Engineer,” ASME Public Information, National Engineers’ Week, ⟨http://www.eweek.org/site/News/Features/gw.shtml⟩ (July 2005). The first President of the United States is credited with being the nation’s “first engineer,” with Engineers’ Week being traditionally celebrated during the week of his birthday—the last week of February. George Washington started as a surveyor apprentice at the tender age of 15 and went on to become reputed for his surveying skills. However, he attended no formal, technical school, but was certified as a fully qualified surveyor by William and Mary College upon the passing of an examination. This article says “On June 9, 1778, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, General George Washington issued a call for engineers and engineering education. This order is considered the genesis of a U.S. Army Engineer School, which found its permanent home at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.” Again, “In 1794, President Washington established a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers to be educated and stationed at West Point in New York, which later become the US Military Academy at West Point.” The author adds “He [George Washington] promoted construction of roads, canals, the Capitol, docks and ports, water works, and new efforts to extract coal and ores and develop manufacturing resources.” The infrastructure and know-how to build infrastructure thus developed, helped USA expand westwards in the 1800s.

Leonardo. (2004). “The life of Leonardo da Vinci,” videocassette, Public Broadcasting Station, Item No. LLDV401, ⟨www.shoppbs.com⟩. (1) This video, among other biographies of this great genius, demonstrates the development of engineering in the minds of inspired and creative people. (2) Engineering needs are seen to have their source in the needs of war. The Ruler of Milan was beset with foes, and Leonardo offered various original inventions to him for his defense. Such military needs were carried on to later centuries, with the military becoming the foremost user of engineering skills, which is what led to civil engineering receiving the name it did.

London Gazette. (1787). No. 12850 London 197. The decree posted in this gazette stated, “The Corps of Engineers shall in future take the name of the Corps of Royal Engineers.”

Shipley, J. T. (1984). The origins of English words: A discursive dictionary of Indo-European roots, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. It is not surprising that a very large number of English words have their roots in Sanskrit. O. P. Varma (2005). “Firm roots in Hindi,” Deccan Herald, January 13, ⟨http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan132005/edu10.asp⟩ reports that about 25,000 English words in common usage are derived from Hindi and Sanskrit. Among many words, Shipley writes that the words “bind, bond, band, bandage, bondage, riband, and ribbon” trace to the Sanskrit bhendh {currently bandh}, meaning to “tie.” The words “gnosis, gnostic, and agnostic” trace their root to the Sanskrit root gn from whence came gyana (meaning “knowledge”); Shipley reports that the word, “know, knew, and [knowledge]” follow from gn, and this can be recognized as the phonetics of gn and “kn” are the same in English. More interestingly, he reports that the words “come” and “go” follow from the Sanskrit gua and gue(n) (commonly known as agayo and ga), respectively, though the transformations to “come” are not explained. . . . Whereas, he alludes to Sanskrit roots for prolific variants of “stand,” he fails to mention that the Sanskrit sthun, meaning stationary and sthan, meaning fixed place, are the derivatives of words such as “stand, stay, stance, circumstance, status, static, standard, density, destination, constant, constitution, store, storage, statue, statutory, station, stationary, and tenure.” Further, the words “create and creator” bear a striking resemblance to the Vedic Sanskrit karat (to do) and kartar (meaning creator); other religious words in English, such as “saint and santa” appear to be derived from the Vedic Sanskrit root sant, meaning saint. Shipley does concur that the words “new, nouveau, neophyte, novice, neologism, nova, innovate, and renovate” come from the Sanskrit nayam (meaning “new”). At ⟨http://home.vicnet.net.au/∼umbidas/is̱englisẖaṉasiaṉlanguage.htm⟩, the web site asks “if English is an Asian language?” further stating that the word, “ignite, igneous, and ignition” derive from the Sanskrit agni (meaning “fire”).

Smeaton. (1797). SMEATON Rep. I, Pref. 7, U.K. The first meeting of this new institution, the Society of Civil Engineers, was held on April 15, 1793.

The origins of words are taken from the following dictionaries:

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd Ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1996.

Webster’s 3rd New International Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Co., Springfield, Mass., 1971.

Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2004.