THREE:One of the earliest cares of an apprentice should be to divest his mind of what I will call the romance of mechanical engineering, almost inseparable from such views as are often acquired in technological schools. He must remember that it is not a science he is studying, and that mathematics deal only with one branch of what is to be learned. Special knowledge, or what does not come within the scope of general principles, must be gained in a most practical way, at the expense of hard work, bruised fingers, and a disregard of much that the world calls gentility.
THREE:The gruff voice suggested diplomacy, and promised immediate assistance. The caller had only to lie low and the desired aid should be on hand immediately. With a sense of pride and exultation Leona Lalage hung up the receiver and made her way to the dining-room.Castings, forgings, and general supplies for erecting can be easily brought to the erecting shop from the other departments on trucks without the aid of motive power; so that the erecting and foundry cranes will do the entire lifting duty required in any but very large establishments.
THREE:The requirements which Epicureanism failed to meet, were, to a great extent, satisfied by Stoicism. This philosophy had, from a comparatively early period, won the favour of a select class, but had been temporarily overshadowed by the popularity of its hedonistic and anti-religious rival, when a knowledge of the Greek systems first became diffused through Italy.169 The uncouth language of the early Stoics and the apparently unpractical character of their theories doubtless exercised a repellent effect on many who were not out of sympathy with their general spirit. These difficulties were overcome first by Panaetius, and then, to a still greater extent, by Posidonius, the elder contemporary and friend of Pompeius and Cicero, who was remarkable not only for his enormous learning but also for his oratorical talent.267 It seems probable that the lessons of this distinguished man marked the beginning of that religious reaction which eventually carried all before it. We have already seen how he abandoned the rationalistic direction struck out by his predecessor, Panaetius; and his return to the old Stoic orthodoxy may very well have responded to a revival of religious feeling among the educated Roman public, who by this time must have discovered that there were other ways of escaping from superstition besides a complete rejection of the supernatural.Materials consumed in an engineering establishment consist mainly of iron, fuel, sand, and lumber. These articles, or their products, during the processes of manipulation, are continually approaching the erecting shop, from which finished machinery [72] is sent out after its completion. This constitutes the erecting shop, as a kind of focal centre of a works, which should be the base of a general plan of arrangement. This established, and the foundry, smithy, finishing, and pattern shops regarded as feeding departments to the erecting shop, it follows that the connections between the erecting shop and other departments should be as short as possible, and such as to allow free passage for material and ready communication between managers and workmen in the different rooms. These conditions would suggest a central room for erecting, with the various departments for casting, forging, and finishing, radiating from the erecting shop like the spokes of a wheel, or, what is nearly the same, branching off at right angles on either side and at one end of a hollow square, leaving the fourth side of the erecting room to front on a street or road, permitting free exit for machinery when completed.
TWO: