was forcibly impressed upon me a short time ago, while in the company of
the late Charles Haswell, then the oldest member of this Society, who,
seeing one of the recently built men-of-war coming up the harbor,
remarked that he had designed the first steamship for the United States
Navy. The evolution of this intricate mass of mechanism, which, from the
very beginning of its departure from the sailing type of vessel, has
taken place entirely within the working period of one man's life, is as
graphic a showing of engineering activity as I think can be found.

Our activities are forcibly shown in many other lines of invention and
in the utilization of the forces of Nature, particularly in the
development of this country. We, although young in years, have become
the greatest railroad builders in history, and have put into use
mechanical machines like the harvester, the sewing machine, the
telephone, the wireless telegraph, and almost numberless applications of
electricity. Ships have been built of late years greatly departing from
those immediately preceding them, so that at the present time they might
be compared to floating cities with nearly all a city's conveniences and
comforts. We have done away with the former isolation of the largest
city in the country, and have made it a part of the main land by the
building of tunnels and bridges. In all our work it might be said that
we are hastening, with feverish energy, from one problem to another,
for the so-called purpose of saving time, or for the enjoyment of some
new sensation; and we have also made possible the creation of that which
might be deemed of doubtful benefit to the human race, that huge
conglomerate, the modern city.

There has been no hesitancy in grappling with the problems of Nature by
engineers, but they seem to be diffident and neglectful of human nature
in their calculations, leaving it out of their equations, greatly to