Julw 1933
WALTER J. MURPHY, EDITOR
The Professional Road Ahead *
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HE April 1955 issue of the Carnegie Technical, student publication of Carnegie Tech’s College of Engineering and Science, was built around the theme “The Infinite Cathedral,” with the thought that while all structures which we, as engineers, build are intrinsically finite, the cathedral of professional development and technological advance has no such finite boundaries. We have stolen as our editorial title the title of Dean Richard B. Teare’s opening broadside along this theme. Dean Teare’s remarks are so very apropos for all technical men today, and so close to some of the kind of thinking we have been trying to put into effect as editors, that we feel privileged to pass some of them on to you. K h a t alternative routes are there for engineers and scientists to choose consciously or to accept by default? There are two, Dr. Teare shows:
On the one hand you niay think of yourself as a person who has learned a trade and then will practice it 40 hours a week or less, the less the better, for all of your working life. This point of view makes you like the skilled mechanic who is handed a blueprint and is expected to turn out a faithful part within the specified tolerances. His responsibility goes no further than executing the plan that is handed him; it is not his fault if the completed machine does not work, nor, indispensable as he is, does he get the real credit for a new creation when the work is successful. . . . The other way you can practice is at a higher professional level You can be the one who is responsible for the blueprint that a mechanic follows, or for the analysis and invention that precede the blueprint, or at a still higher level, you can be responsible for seeing the need for the new machine, for thinking of the idea that led in the first place to the analysis and invention and later t o the blueprint. Moreover, much of your work at a really high professional level well may be in new and uncharted areas. . . . So we may say, with some obvious oversimplification, that there are two levels at which you may practice, the professional or creative, and the subprofessional or craftsman. On the one you blaze new trails on the professional road, on the other you follow old ones. . , . The real advances in engineering and science have not been made by men who were worrying about a 35-or 40hour week-but by those who were thinking professionally long after the whistle blew for quitting time.
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There are many people in the “skilled mechanic” rut in their reading. They read only what they must. They resent the intrusion of any new thing in their old pattern of reading. They resent the attempt by anyone to call their attention to things which require their departure from the rut. In building “infinite cathedrals,” editors find that the building of such cathedrals for themselves and for their readers offers oveulapping, inseparable projects, often indistinguishably different in their boundaries. How does one contribute in any way to his own professional success as an editor if he publishes in the same old format, with the same old approach, year after year-and how does he do anything July 1955
but contribute by this approach to “reader delinquency,” to the tendency of the technical men to stay in their own comfortable ruts? In all of the ACS industrial publications we try not only t o change with changing times, but to be ahead of the times. It is our job to trail-blaze with the printed word in science and technology, to point out to the reader what is important now, to preview what may be important five years, ten years from now, and to help condition him for these advances. It is our job to trailblaze in ways of presentation which will make technical literature searching and reading, both for pleasure and for profit, an easier and more pleasant job. Those who are content with what we did ten years ago, five years ago, or last year, on our staff or among our readers, are deep in Dean Teare’s subprofessional or craftsman level. We can all contribute to a rounded chemical profession by building infinite cathedrals.
Down to Specifics we wrote the editorial above we had planned to give you a quick preview of things to come-things in the immediate future, as contrasted with our usual December preview of the coming year. S o w the stage has been set for us to show some concrete evidence of our “tower building.” In this issue we start a section old to most magazines, but new to I&EC--“Letters.” Do not confuse this with our “Correspondence” section, which consists entirely of comments-carefully reviewed by writer, author, and some of our regular reviewers-on contributed technical articles. “Letters” will bring you some of the interesting comments which our columnists receive, and which we receive as a result of other special features. Product and Process Development will be a new grouping of I&EC articles for easier reader use. Every issue of I&EC contains many articles, through the gamut of scales from laboratory to commercial, covering the development of processes, and the development and evaluation of specific products. Beginning with the August issue all articles in this category will be found in the new section, immediately following the section Engineering, Design, and Equipment. A real innovation is in store for September! I&EC Briefs have been amorded wide approval since their inception just a few years ago. Many readers have indicated they would like to see Briefs in a format enabling easy clipping and filing on 3 X 5 cards. The editors have agreed heartily, and have also been interested in improved Briefs-the hardto-get combination of better writing and more information in less space. We think we have achieved all of these objectives in the new Briefs format which will be presented in the September Part I i s s u e a n d , incidentally, don’t forget Part 11, I&EC’s Chemical Engineering Reviews, covering Unit Processes and Materials of Construction. EFORE
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
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