The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 109

Page Five AME USHES ENGINEERS When a Qreat Bridge Is Opened Politicians Qet Their Pictures in the Papers hut No One Thinks of Engineer, Says Arthur V. Sheridan for students. This was true even of the free engineering schools." Mr. Sheridan and a group of associates determined to take steps toward organization. They established contacts with engineers of other cities here and in Canada and issued a call for a convention.

Attention was called by Sheridan to the fact that in 1926 Columbia graduated only five civil engineers out of a class of four thousand students, and that in 1927 there were no civil engineers Aumif Hmnr 4. ft By Peter Stuyvesant WHAT'S the matter with the engineers? Why is it that so few of them become well known? Why have they failed to sell themselves or their great names to the public as the outstanding members of the other professions have? The great medical men of the world, the great lawyers, the great jurists have bkeen far more successful both in getting their names before the people and in the matter of pecuniary reward for their knowledge and their abilities. Why is it? Some of the explanations are deeply interesting. One engineer will tell you it is because he and his professional associates are chiefly subordinates, working for a salary. But that explanation immediately calls forth the question: Why should they be subordinates? The writer has discussed the question with a number of engineers.

They all agree that their profession is not held in the same high esteem as the medical and legal professions. They admit they have failed to "get themselves across' and that as a professional group they receive comparatively small compensation. One engineer not half a dozen people would recognize his name if it were given, although he is the builder of a tunnel through which high-speed electric trains operate had this to say: "Almost any one could name the twenty-five leading lawyers of the American Bar. Their names are almost household words. Almost any one could name a slightly smaller number of the world's outstanding medical men.

But who could name even half a dozen great engineers? "To my way of thinking, there are several reasons for this. In the first place, engineers work in groups. In the second place, their services have been gobbled up by the big corporations and they work in a subordinate capacity. There is no particular reason why, but this is the way the profession has grown up. The consulting engineers, those who work independently and whose services are retained somewhat in the manner of a lawyer's services, are comparatively few.

"Then there is the regrettable fact that the engineers have never been properly organized as a profession. The doctors have their medical societies and the lawyers their Bar associations. We have never had anything similar to a Bar association and that is what we need." At this point Arthur V. Sheridan steps to the center of the stage. Mr.

Sheridan Is the man who has succeeded In establishing an organization of engineers that, he hopes, will bear the same relation to that profession as the Bar associations bear to the legal profession. Mr. Sheridan began his work a number of years ago, when it became apparent to him that people generally were suffering from the lack of real engineering ability in the public service. "The engineering forces in the public service were falling to pieces," he says. "Forty percent of the men In this service who were designated as engineers were not engineers at all.

They were temporary employees given a job for obvious reasons but not for the reason of their ability. The public service could not get good engineers. Salaries were not high enough. The big engineers who had established a reputation for themselves by the high character of their work could not afford to accept the small compensation offered in the public service. That moved me to ask why the compensation was small.

I concluded it was because the engineer had not been able to sell himself to the public; that the people for some reason had failed to appreciate the real value of his work. "This situation prevailed In cities throughout the United States and Canada. The public service and the public in turn were suffering. We determined that something had to be done, and our first thought was organization. The matter of low pay for engineers had reached the point where attendance at engineering schools was falling off to a considerable degree.

Engineering schools iat once had long waiting lists had to begin advertising graduated in Columbia's class of five thousand students. "In fact," said Mr. Sheridan, "the total number of civil engineers sent forth in 1927 from eight schools in the Metropolitan district was only eighty-one." Sheridan founded the Association of Engineers of New York and took the first step toward establishing for his profession an organization that he hopes will serve the engineer as the Bar Association serves the lawyer. Progress has been made In the matter of Increased compensation, but Mr. Sheridan and his associates feel there is need for still more progress in this direction.

They are trying to establish a minimum compensation of $4,260 for engineers of the third and highest grade. Those in the first grade have a minimum of $2,160 and those in the second of $3,120. The organization founded by Mr. Sheridan has grown into a new and larger group the New York State Society of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. At present the organization has some twelve hundred members.

Chapters have been organized in eleven counties since last April. The engineers feel the same way lawyers feel about their profession, Sheridan says. Too many men of inferior capabilities are gaining admission. He says: "We must stiffen our requirements. We must put teeth into the State licensing law.

These are things our association will seek to accomplish by legislative enactment. We have to prevent the appointment of inferior men to places In the public service, and the surest way to prevent it is to eliminate the presence of inferior men." This led Mr. Sheridan again to the discussion of relatively small compensation for engineers and to a search for an answer to the question: Why are not engineers held in higher regard by the public? He attempted to answer by saying that it is because the engineers have failed to impress their personalities on the public. "They just haven't got I guess. I say that and Tm one of them," Sheridan smiled.

"Engineers are peculiar creatures. They are not good mixers nor good talkers. They don't seem to be able to convince people. Their powers of expression do not permit them to express themselves to laymen. They have perspective of great length but of little breadth." Mr.

Sheridan was saying exactly what other engineers have attempted unsuccessfully to say. Sheridan Is one engineer who can express himself. "I used to think it was the character of their work Arthur V. Sheridan that made engineers this way," he ventured. "But now I think it's the character of the individual who takes It up.

It manifests itself first in school. The engineers are studious. They keep to themselves. They don't mix socially. They take an attitude that I think was expressed by Lord Byron when he was asked why he did not take more part in the social life of his day.

If I recall correctly Lord Byron replied: "Why should I descend to a world I despise?" The engineers have to get out of that frame of mind." Mr. Sheridan lamented the failure of the public to give the engineer a full share of the credit due him. He said that he remembered the day the Brooklyn Bridge was opened to traffic for the first time. "The Aldermen made the speeches and got their names in the paper. The engineers who built the bridge were allowed to ride across it on a flat car." In England and in France, Sheridan says, the engineer is held In much higher esteem than in America.

He hopes with his organization to raise the standards of the profession so the low-brows will be unable to get in, and so to increase the compensation of engineers in public office that American cities will be able to command the services of the best men. It was suggested to Mr. Sheridan that the engineer's failure to be more popular might be due to the fact that a large percentage of the people stand in awe of him, acting almost as if they resented the challenge his technical knowledge presented to their own limited capabilities. He was too modest to reply in the affirmative. Mr.

Sheridan is forty-one years old. He was born In New York City, November 24, 1887. Even as a boy it was his ambition to become an engineer. He used to watch the men at work on the Jerome Park Reservoir. Boylike, he envied their high-top rubber boots.

To him this apparel was the mark of a great engineer. "Are you sorry you became an engineer?" "Not a bit of it. I like engineering but not engineers. We're pretty dull fellows and sometimes I don't blame the public for manifesting so Uttle interest in us." Mr. Sheridan has a domestic and a foreign education, and the mere mention of the institutions from which he has been graduated ought to convince any one without further investigation that he knows his blue prints.

He attended the College of the City of New York, Columbia University, Sorbonne University and Ecole Nationale des Fonts et Chaussees of France, which is the quaint French way of describing the National School of Bridges and Canals. In the many years that Sheridan has been an engineer his work has associated him with the American Bridge Company, the Fieldstone Contracting Company and Henry Steers, Inc. He also engaged in private work for a number of years, with offices in the Bronx. At present he is engineer of design for the Brunx Boro President and is in charge of the preparation of plans, specifications, designs and contracts for ail public improvements in the Bronx. During the World War Sheridan served two years overseas with the A.

E. F. in both engineer and Infantry regiments. For a short period subsequent to the close of the war he lectured as a member of the teaching staff at Stevens Institute of TeeuikUgy in New Jersey..