The situation of the attractive building is ideal. The outlook to the south, over the rolling farming country of Ipswich, affords an ever-interesting and changing View for the patients, as every window and every airing balcony commands this view, which is enhanced by a patients' court about zoo feet square, surrounded by a low brick wall, with a small summer house at the exterior angles of the court. Flower beds and shrubs add further to the pleasure of the patients.

In the plan adopted, the patients are placed generally on the south side of the building. The airing balconies, which are

1's Bath Room

commonly placed at the south, were in this case made as cloisters extending to the east and west, with full opening to the south. Openings to all private rooms allow the beds to be wheeled into the open air.

On the ground floor, kitchen and diningroom accommodations are secured, as well as a complete X-ray, laboratory, and dental clinic. The autopsy and pharmacy, electric automatic elevator, and vacuum cleaner are also on this floor.

On the first floor, in addition to the wards above noted, a well-equipped operating-room has proved interesting, with a gray "sand" tile for the floor, dark buff

Grueby tile for the lower six feet of the walls, surmounted by a darker brown border, and upper walls and ceiling of a light buff. The lighting is not only all that is required but is of such a tone as to prevent eye-strain. The usual skylight for operating rooms is eliminated and the wall light carried above the ceiling line, giving practically the same lighting as if carried on the ceiling, but avoiding the ugly skylight features on the exterior.

The children's and maternity departments are complete.

In the service court, the garage building affords both storage for the ambulances and living quarters for the orderlies.

The elevator is run by electricity, and the cooking, sterilizing, and vacuum cleaning are also done by the same means.

The exterior of the building is in the Georgian style of architecture, with red brick and white marble trim. The walls around the forecourt and patients' court are of the same material.

While the interior details are simple, as befits any building for the care of the very sick, nevertheless the entrance or memorial hall has a slight claim to architectural detail. A bronze memorial tablet, mentioning the name of the man in whose memory the building was erected, occupies a prominent space.

The furnishings and coloring of the interior were carefully selected, not only for utility but for a therapeutic effect on the patient as well.

The sanitary and heating equipment, part of which is shown in the accompanying pictures, was furnished by the Boston Branch of Crane Co.

The sanitary fixtures were installed by A. E. Roberts, and the heating contract was handled by the Cleghorn Co., both of Boston. Edward F. Stevens, of Boston, was the architect.

Part of the Utility Room

T

HE HOUR of opportunity for the engineering profession really seems to have arrived. All the problems of our common life have come to be recognized as of a size and complexity requiring basic solution. On the one hand we see indications that the public is beginning to lose faith in short cuts and political expediency and will more and more demand social and economic readjustments based on a full understanding of all the facts and a thorough-going orientation of all the elements in any given situation. On the other hand, there is clearly discernible throughout our profession a growing sense that somehow the engineering approach is what is needed if ordered progress is to be the watchword for a civilization in the agonizing process of seeking new levels. Every day sees us ready to broaden our definition of engineering. To the fields of design and construction we are adding operation with everincreasing emphasis. No one has stated this expansion in the scope of the field of our profession in a more illuminating fashion than Herbert Hoover, when, in speaking of the engineer, he said:

"Unlike the doctor, his is not the struggle to save the weak. Unlike the soldier, destruction is not his prime function. Unlike the lawyer, quarrels are not his daily bread. Engineering is the profession of a creation and of construction, of stimulation of human effort and accomplishment.

Such a job is certainly there to be done. Even if we have not been officially tagged or designated to do it, we must admit that there is no other agency or division of society competing with us for the opportunity to do it. It therefore comes down to the question of our capacity to embrace an opportunity as splendid as it is obvious. Are we ready for it? And what must we do further to prepare for it?

Co-ordination Is Essential

In the first place, our efforts must be co-ordinated first into societies, then into a national unit, and ultimately throughout the world. We have long had our engineering societies, and we have been revamping them and developing them in recent years. We are now organizing our Federated American Engineering Societies, which form the national unit. The international aspect of the case is part of our future problem. The development of engineering solidarity will be impossible, however, except as we break down the distinctions between men practicing in different branches of the profession. This will require a high spirit of broadmindedness and co-operation.

Our current schemes of organization of engineering bodies our management, administrative and directive methods- are all very crude, permit much duplication of effort and anxiety over non-essentials. In the light of historical development perhaps it could not be otherwise. But in view of the fact that management and its allied activities are now a recognized part of engineering, it behooves us to study the problems of our own organization. We

Abstract of a noonday luncheon talk before the Philadelphia Engineers' Club.

should be a model in this respect for other social agencies. Cultivation of Imagination

Perhaps the highest attribute of an engineer is imagination; and yet you will look in vain for a course in engineering where a conscious effort is made to cultivate the imagination of the student. Fortunately, however, those in charge of technical and engineering education have come to understand this, and the trend of the times is to devote a little more attention to humanistics and the engineering of men.

In a world where nothing but moral values really counts, we must introduce something akin to spiritual values into engineering. Any possible difficulty in the way of working out a satisfactory code of ethics for engineers is removed when as in the new draft of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and in the constitution of the Federated American Engineering Societies the public interest is recognized as the supreme test of professional conduct. If a given act is not, broadly speaking, conducive to the public welfare, it is no longer good engineering. Thus the master step has already been taken.

Nothing can be truly great unless it is beautiful. The cultivation of esthetics as a feature in every branch of engineering must be insisted upon. Sometimes we associate noise and ugliness and even filth with accomplishment-with "getting things done, as we say. This is wrong. Largely because we need the influence of their love of the beautiful, we should try to get closer and closer to the architects so that ultimately we may find ourselves one profession.

Spirit of Democracy Must Be Developed

Last but most important of our needs is the development of the spirit of democracy in every nook and cranny of our organization. We must not discriminate against the young man simply because he is young. We must adjust ourselves to the entrance of women into full participation in public affairs. We must further develop the idea of engineering home-rule; even the national organization will profit by strong, even self-assertive local units. Finally, nothing promotes genuine democracy so effectively as publicity. Hence we should be grateful to the sponsors of the new Federation who provided in Article X of its Constitution: "This organization shall stand for the principle of publicity and open meetings. puts our profession clearly in advance of all others on this very important point. It is significant that, recently, two engineering organizations numbering over 30,000 members published at the head of the correspondence columns in their official publication a pledge to publish in whole or in abstract any communication contributed by a member. Let us study the technique of reaching the people through non-technical publications, and throw open our engineering laboratories, libraries and halls to the widest possible public use. Let us seek to have engineering grow up, as it were, out of the necessities and desires and life of the people.

This

I

F the cost of producing electric current can be kept down to a point that will enable its more general use, it seems certain that there will soon be a striking expansion in that field. Carl Fowler points out in the Boston Evening Transcript that in the comparatively near future the more important railroads of the United States are likely to be electrified. He believes that the present practice of supplying each train with a complete individual power plant is inconsistent with sound engineering principles.

While it is true that great central stations are being built in Europe and in this country to-day, engineers have something still greater in view. This is the so-called super-power central station, built with multiples of 30,000 kilowatt units up to a total station capacity of, say, 100,000, 300,000 or even 500,000 kilowatts. In the development of this super-station a point will be reached where substantially one-half of the average coal consumption will be used, and a probable reduction of the men and payroll per kilowatt output will result.

John A. Stevens, a consulting engineer of Lowell, Mass., has discussed such a proposed super-power station in recent articles contributed to Power. According to Mr. Stevens, "the super-station should be used to relay and re-enforce hydroelectric developments where possible, and to supply practically all the energy to manufacturing and other plants, outside of the power that can be made as a by

product to manufacturing and heating steam requirements, which are usually supplied by non-condensing engines and non-condensing turbines of various types. With the present advance of electrical transmission systems and the use of high voltages, the opportunity to locate such a super-station either at or near the coal mines or on large and navigable rivers or at tidewater, is available."

By locating super-power stations in large industrial communities a great reduction would be made in the amount of coal necessary to handle the power in such communities. Broadly speaking, it is estimated that the coal consumed per unit in such stations is about one-half that of the isolated plant. Mr. Stevens is familiar with at least one instance in which the saving of coal is about 500,000 tons a year. In his opinion New England will eventually have not more than five or six of these great stations. Since a super-station of the kind projected requires enormous amounts of condensing water, it can be located only on a river like the Connecticut or Merrimac, or at shore points on rivers, lakes or oceans, where the intake canal and discharge canal or conduit from the condensers should be 1000 feet apart.

Transmission lines from the hard and soft coal fields, Niagara Falls, Cedar Rapids on the St. Lawrence, and the main hydro-electric plants have been suggested. Mr. Stevens finds that there is a 300,000-kilowatt load, not including the steam railroad