ABSTRACT
We are convinced that to the engineer all things are possible. He can give us a pure atmosphere and noiseless streets, he can remove slums and make wholesome factories, he can wipe away degrading occupations and improve the occupations of leisure, he can make a fair country out of a blasted waste, and clean rivers out of foul ditches. All these things, and a thousand more, he can do without robbing us of a single one of the benefits and advantages which his works confer. We say this with confidence, because we witness daily all that he has achieved. But a vast amount remains to be done, a mountain of ugliness remains to be removed, and we deem it a good thing that the coming generation of engineers should grow up in the belief that it is the duty of engineers to make the countries in which they live more beautiful and more pleasant and wholly free from the taunts which artists, literary men, and philosophers may justly throw at them today.
