STRENGTHENING U.S. ENGINEERING THROUGH INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Some Recommendations for Action.
Committee on International
Cooperation in Engineenng, National
Academy of Engineering and Office of
International Affairs, National Research
Council, Washington, DC, 1987. 68 pp.
In the earliest days of the American republic there were practically no home-bred engineers. As George Washington wrote in a letter to John Randolph, anyone wishing to dig a canal or build a bridge was obliged to “in vite a proper person from Europe.” Indeed Americana did invite many proper persons from Europe and subsequently sent observers abroad to see how engineering was done and how engineers were educated. In due course, American technological supremacy became unchallenged. Pride led to complacency tinged with arrogance, however, and the sudden re-emergence of foreign competition—in creative engineering as well as manufacturing and trade—has been, to put it mildly, a shock.
In the best tradition of pragmatic realism, the leaders of...
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