The Engineer in War: With Special Reference to the Training of the Engineer to Meet the Military Obligations of Citizenship (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Engineer in War: With Special Reference to the Training of the Engineer to Meet the Military Obligations of Citizenship

In presenting this volume to the engineering profession, the author does not aim to provide a treatise on military field engineering. A number of excellent manuals and text-books are in existence, most of which are well adapted to study by the civilian engineer.

After all, military field engineering, as its name implies, is a practical art and cannot be acquired by study alone.

Engineering plays so important a part in all the operations of warfare that it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that modern war is an application of engineering science to the armed conflicts of states.

Those who have considered our military policy cannot have failed to observe how greatly it depends upon the voluntary service of our citizens. The rights and privileges of citizenship carry with them the obligation of service to the state. But the mere tacit recognition of a duty does not insure its efficient discharge. If we acknowledge a duty we must acknowledge the necessity of preparing to perform it. If we do not prepare we are evading our duty. Practical patriotism then ceases to exist and national defense becomes a term without meaning.

In this voluntary preparation of our citizens to fulfill their obligations to the state, the civil engineer will play an important part. The non-professional man cannot under existing conditions be trained in any reasonable time to a satisfactory state of efficiency for the performance of the many and varied duties that fall to the lot of the military engineer. The nation, therefore, relies on the civilian engineers and contractors of America since they alone are qualified to prepare in time of peace for the performance of these important duties.