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EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN ENGINEERING 34 lary of the close tie to market conditions. Because by the beginning of the twentieth century most engineers were employees of corporations, the fate of engineers and engineering was strongly identified with the fates of companies and industries. This meant that by that time there was relatively little professional self-determination for individual engineers, and that the professional societies were largely subordinated to the interests and requirements of the industries their members served (see, for example, Layton, 1971). Thus, the panel finds that adaptability is a strong point in engineering insofar as it contributes to the security and economic survival of the professions. But it is a weak point in that professional engineers are dependent on forces largely out of their control. Diversity Much of the discussion thus far has tended to treat engineering as a monolithic, homogeneous enterprise. Yet by the end of World War II, the engineering profession consisted of many distinct disciplines (civil, metallurgical and mining, mechanical, electrical, radio, chemical, aeronautical, automotive, industrial, petroleum, marine, agricultural, and production, or manufacturing, engineering). Each of these branches tended to acquire its own characteristics and its own distinctive orientation toward the practice of engineering, springing from the particular circumstances in which it operated. The existence of separate professional societies for each discipline is one factor. Another is the compartmentalization of engineering schools. The close association of different branches with different industries strongly reinforced this tendency. Thus, the fragmentation of engineering permitted natural differences in personalities, interests, and outlook to become more firmly entrenched. In the view of the panel, the danger in this great diversity is that it may promote a tendency toward narrow specialization in engineering institutions and among the engineering disciplines. The diversification followed the natural diversification of technologies and product lines, but it meant that a somewhat narrow focus inevitably prevailed throughout an engineer's career. This may have reduced the cohesiveness of the engineering profession, so that there is less of the sense of shared commitments and values that is seen among the clergy, for example, or the military, or the medical and legal professions. However, from a structural point of view diversity is only a problem if it interferes with the profession's adaptability as it develops. One of the purposes of the next chapter is to see whether that has been the case.
