Engineering and public service

Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson were born engineers. Washington loved mathematics; he started his career as a state surveyor, and no man without a genius for solving difficult engineering problems would have succeeded as Washington did in organizing the Continental Army which he led so successfully from the beginning to the end of the American Revolution in spite of the many almost insurmountable difficulties. Franklin´s devotion to science and constructive engineering work, particularly during the early period of his life, is well known. A student of Jefferson´s life says that as a student at the College of William and Mary he had acquired “a familiarity with higher mathematics and natural sciences, only possessed, at his age, by men who have rare natural taste and ability for those studies.” When Jefferson retired from the political arena he devoted himself entirely to engineering work. The physical structure of the University of Virginia was the result. An incident will be mentioned now which indicates that during the formative period following the War of American Revolution, there was an engineering mind which steered the course of the American ship of state.