Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems

摘要

The extensive history of the preparation for professional practice in the UK presented by Professor Clarke awakens an interest in what was going on in the USA in the last couple of hundred years. Canals and railroads dominated the nineteenth century. Each of these required civil engineering work if they were to flourish and a significant professional step arose as railroad companies hired their own engineers rather than depending entirely on consultants. In this period the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute began engineering education leading to a degree in civil engineering in 1835. Other schools where technical education was conducted followed RPI and the number increased rapidly with the establishment of Land-grant universities. These were a consequence of the Morrill Act which was signed by President Lincoln in 1862.