Engineers and International Affairs

Abstract

IN his address to the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders, when he received the diploma of honorary fellowship of the Institution on June 24, Rear-Admiral G. H. Rock, of the Constructive Branch of the United States Navy, made special reference to the education of engineers and the participation of engineering organizations in international affairs. In educational circles in the United States, there has been an astonishing increase in the interest in such matters. All the leading nations, he said, are exporters and importers of education in its various forms. There are about 8,500 foreign students in the colleges and universities in the United States and an even larger number of American students are studying abroad. In the academic year 1936-37, 204 American professors were either studying or teaching in foreign universities, while at the same time in American colleges and universities there were 175 foreign professors. No professions are more concerned with international activities than those of shipbuilding and ship operation, and he suggested that institutions such as the North-East Coast Institution should lend encouragement to the improvement in the education of naval architects and marine engineers, encourage successful professional men to assist actively in teaching, make more suitable arrangements for ensuring young engineers more reasonable opportunity for employment, and arrange for a more general exchange of students between Great Britain and the United States. Admiral Rock recalled that he received a part of his education in 1890-92 at the University of Glasgow, and he was then sometimes bewildered by leading articles in the Glasgow Herald which criticized the enrolment of foreign students in naval architecture and marine engineering. International cooperation, however, he considers, offers more of gain than of loss, in fact, "gain for all, with loss to none".