learn in no other."

Let not the reader think for a single moment that we have no
appreciation of the labors of a De Witt Clinton, or of a Livingston,
--that we at all underrate the services of the Eastern capitalists
who render available the public-land grants of the West, whether to
build ship-canals or railroads. We have the highest respect for that
talent without which our Western lands would still be left to the
buffalo and the deer, and the gold and silver of Europe would remain
on the other side of the Atlantic. These capitalists are the
mainsprings of the system; but we should no more apply their energy
and skill to the detailed operation of so mechanical a structure as
a railroad, than we should attach the mainspring of a watch to the
hands directly, without the intermediate connecting chains and wheels.

Not less incompetent for the construction of railways, than are the
directors for the management of the completed roads, are at least
one half of the so-called engineers in America. Obliged to complete
no course of education, to pass no examination, they are at once let
loose upon the country whenever they feel like it, to build what go
by the names of railroads and bridges, but are in reality traps in
which to lose both life and money. Indeed, any man (in the United
States) who has carried a rod or chain is called an engineer; while
the correct definition is, a man who has, first, a thorough knowledge
of mechanics, mathematics, and chemistry,--second, the knowledge
necessary for applying these sciences to the arts,--and last, the
knowledge requisite to the correct adaptation of such arts to the
wants of man, but more than all, that experience which is got only
from continual practice. We have such a class of engineers, and to
them we owe what of fame we have in the engineering world. Second,