CHAPTER I T THE AGE OF THE ENGINEER HE world has come to the Age of the Engineerwhen engineering is statesmanship and statesmanship is engineering. The demand is for facts, for exact information, and then for the application of the facts by genuinely scientific methods. The end sought is efficiency not merely, but something infinitely more important-the extension of man's promised dominion over the earth, with an unimagined increase in the security, the prosperity and the happiness of mankind. Men can live-have lived for ages-by the crude, primitive, even wasteful use of Nature's resources; but infinitely more of them can live, and live infinitely better than men ever lived before, when they shall have learned to make the most of their opportunities and environment. This is the key to the future, which is to be better than the past. Only the high spirit of the trained engineer, dwelling in the upper air of disinterested service, is equal to the obligations of leadership in a day when this fundamental truth is realized. These are facts which the world is just beginning to see; but they developed very early in the course of the inquiry set on foot by Secretary Lane in the interest of rural reconstruction. It was perfectly plain that all the great mistakes that had attended the develop ment of agriculture, nearly all of the disheartening disappointments, and a very large share of the unpopularity of rural life, could be traced to the absence of this high sense of engineering and of responsible public leadership that should make it available to the people. We had permitted the spirit of individualism to run riot in a department of the national life closely related to the common welfare. There is no reason why an acre of poor land should ever be offered to a settler. There is no reason why vast areas of land, unfitted for cultivation in their natural state, should not be made over into the best soil, whether it requires drainage, irrigation, clearing or refertilization; but, to deal successfully with such things it is necessary to enlist a quality and range of information not within reach of the average promoter or settler, and then to utilize this information in a scientific way. The great need is a form of development thoroughly planned in advance, and executed with precision. Another conclusion was arrived at: That it is not enough simply to investigate soils and do the large work of reclamation, such as the provision of irrigation and drainage, as the Government has done in the Western States. The land should be cleared, plowed, harrowed, and made ready for the planting of the seed-even fertilized if necessary. Some of these processes require scientific knowledge and methods; and all of them can be performed more economically and thoroughly if done on a large scale and standardized. After all this has been done, the settler stands only on the threshold of his new adventure. The engineer |