Some Engineering Developments

Never before in the sixty years' life of your Institution has a son joined his father on your distinguished roll of Presidents. My father, in 1895, was your eleventh President: I am your 56th. Between us lies less than half a century but this brief age has shown immense changes in man's relations to man and to nature. In these developments the engineer has played, and is playing, a notable part. We are surrounded to-day, and our lives are conditioned, by the results of the labour of mind and hand of the scientific worker and the engineer. In those days, to communicate with far distances was a matter of slow letter or brief cable. Now it may be as easy to converse with a friend in New York as with one a few miles away. Examples of this kind could be multiplied indefinitely. The miracle of yesterday is the commonplace of to-day, and so much taken for granted that irritation is aroused if it ever fails to repeat itself with complete regularity.