Civil Engineering

Mechanical engineering is now the largest branch, with nearly 40 percent of the profession's members. Civil engineering, which was the largest branch prior to World War II, has dropped to second place, with about 25 percent of all engineers.

Men build bridges and throw railroads across deserts, and yet they contend successfully that the job of sewing on a button is beyond them. Accordingly, they don’t have to sew buttons.

Mechanical Engineering is applicable rather to works connected with private enterprise, such as the designing and construction of steam machinery for the purposes of navigation and transportation, the adaptation of such machinery to mills and factories, the construction of water-wheels, the fabrication of materials, iron, steel, and brass, for the purposes of the engineer, the architect, and manufacturer ; and the manufacture of implements and machinery for agriculture, for mining, and for domestic purposes.
But the prominent feature of Mechanical Engineering, that which contributes more than any other to elevate it to the rank of a liberal or learned profession, and at the same time separates it from the science of Civil Engineering, is, that all its operations relate to power, motion, and work.