Progress

The Institute has never been stagnant, even if it has occasionally drifted. Twenty years ago it was but a young and humble follower in the wake of the other national engineering societies. The profession of electrical engineering was scarcely recognized. The assertion that an electrical engineer was nine-tenths mechanical, was accepted as a truism. If that statement was true when it was made, to-day the remaining tenth might be considered civil engineering, and behold, the electrical engineer would be eliminated. How to make the Institute of the highest value to the individual member, has been the problem continually confronting the management. The first and most important efforts in this direction were made in 1887, when monthly meetings were established, followed immediately by the monthly issue of the Transactions in addition to the annual bound volume. This practice has continued without interruption. With an international membership exceeding 4000 and rapidly growing, it is believed that the monthly Proceedings should be utilized for a more general interchange of information regarding the work of the Institute.