The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer

In Canada, graduating students of engineering take part in The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer, a ceremony in which participants are presented with a traditional token called the Iron Ring, symbol of their profession and their attitude towards it.

I've had concerns about participation in this tradition. I'm very careful about who and what I choose to associate with and make part of my identity, and certain elements of the Ring custom and culture made we want to take a good look before I decided whether I could approve of it or not. This post describes the policy developed to address the Iron Ring and issues surrounding it.




1. History

It's common knowledge that medical doctors take a Hippocratic Oath at the beginning of their careers. In both its ancient and modern forms, it swears the taker to certain ethical and professional standards:

I swear by Apollo the physician ... I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death. ...

Like medicine, engineering is a regulated profession. People depend for their safety and their lives on the work of both physicians and of engineers; both are specialist roles carried out by extensively educated practitioners because of the complex and detailed knowledge necessary to do it properly, and as a result, both are things that laymen depend on those specialists to do. A sick man surrenders himself to the knife and the chemicals of the surgeon; carelessness or error on the part of the practitioner could result in death, paralysis, or injury to the patient. A traveller boards an airplane, perhaps not even realising quite how the machine works. But a poor wing structure design or a bad choice of engine bearing could result in the passenger's death in a crash; the passenger puts his life in the same position of trusting vulnerability as the patient.

With the slip of a knife or the slip of a pencil, a living, breathing member of society can find themselves in great danger. But the work is worth doing nonetheless: both surgery and the subways make a big difference in the world. To the one patient on the operating table, or to the dozens of commuters on the platform, the people who make it happen have a responsibility that extends at least to getting things to go right, and sometimes to life and death.

Medical doctors have been around since people believed in Apollo, but the ability of humankind to really use the forces of nature to transform the environment on a large scale didn't hit its stride until the industrial revolution. It's only with the ability to harness powerful sources of energy -- like in steam engines -- that railway networks could cross countries, bridges could cross great barriers, and society could come to depend on huge works of engineering for its very operation. Suddenly we could go faster than horses, build things taller than ever with material stronger than before. We could move hundreds of people at once. Raze or create whole hills for the convenience of roads. Do things never before possible, and never before tried, with tools never before used.

There was a drive to the new, and the ambitious. Abandonment of old bricks-and-mortar, brawn-from-bread construction methods. New structures. New ideas. Faster, higher, more exciting. Ultimately, it seemed like there was nothing the new technology couldn't do. Bridges that crossed whole estuaries. Trains that whisked you to faraway cities in hours, crossed whole continents in mere days. Later, horseless carriages, flying machines, and artificial, fireless, electrical light. In all the excitement, there was plenty of motivation for ambitious engineers to show what they could accomplish. To build bigger, more ambitious, more stunning structures. To be the one to bridge some famous river, or build the fastest locomotive. To make a new kind of design that would be memorable.

But this was a profession that had learned to build by tradition. Cathedrals all look the same because that's the way you build them. And that's how they're built because over the years, the ones that didn't fall down soon after construction were the ones that were built this way. It was a tradition of following norms, of obeying old rules, of being confident in something because it was common sense: "We've always done it this way", or "You can't build a bridge like that!" In a tradition like this, customary knowledge of good from bad design elements precludes a need for rigorous, calculative investigation. You don't design by dreaming up concepts and proving they work, but rather by doing things because you know them to be sound.

And so, as the boundaries were pushed, the old, trusted ways laid aside for new and uncertain paths, and the materials and techniques of antiquity exchanged for new ones with unfamiliar dispositions, there were great achievements... and great failures. Bridges collapsed, ships blew up, and trains crashed. It didn't take long for such things to gather the public's attention, and with a risk of real public danger and of distrust in the safety of public works, governments started to take steps to regulate and reign in the practice of engineering and its works.


2. Intended purpose

Which brings us, more or less, to the early decades of the twentieth century. Governments have already begun to put rules on certain technologies to try to prevent some of the more high-profile disasters. In Canada, the first few years of the 1920's see the establishment of provincial professional bodies to try to promote diligent and ethical practice. The Quebec Bridge fiasco is just a few years behind when, in this atmosphere of scrutiny of the engineering profession, a group of engineers hold a meeting in Montreal. One of them, a professor from the University of Toronto, proposes some kind of bond to promote a community spirit among practitioners of engineering. Along with it, he suggests developing a statement of ethics for young engineers to pledge themselves to when they complete their studies.

Apparently, the idea went over well. But if you've spent any time among engineers, you may have some idea about their penchant for creative writing. So a group of them (who would come to be known as the Seven Wardens of the tradition) wrote to one of the big literary figures of the day for help. Rudyard Kipling, best known for stories like The Jungle Book and poems like The White Man's Burden, had also written about the work of engineers in, for example, The Sons of Martha:

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and
      cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that
      the switches lock.

He sent them back the text of an 'obligation' that engineering graduates might take, and a 'Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer', in which this might be taken. The elements of the ritual are... well, in fact, that's where the story ends, and an explanation of my concerns begins.


3. Secrecy, Privacy, and Publicity

There are plenty of people who don't even know that engineers do this. I didn't know until I'd been an engineering school for a few months. And while lots of people do know that engineers wear little rings, there's plenty of mystery surrounding the how and the why. The way it was told to me in first year of university, there's a secret ceremony just around graduation time, which only the graduates and ringed engineers are allowed to attend. Everyone goes into an auditorium, the doors are locked, and whatever the nature of the Ritual that happens inside, once it's over, the code is never to tell the uninitiated about it. Those who go through the ceremony take it very seriously; many people never take that ring off their little finger until they die, at which point it is expected that ring will be returned to the Iron Ring Camp at which the deceased was ringed.

Outsiders can't know what happens in there. Even students who aren't yet ready to graduate are kept in the dark. And my reaction to that was to reject the whole thing outright. Take your pride and your clique and your secret society and your baubles and keep them to yourselves. I'm not going to let you lock me into some room and come out with some obligation to secrecy and a band on my finger I can't ever remove. This is exactly an attitude with which I strogly disagree.

Anyway, that's how it was told to me in first year. And it lines up with the perceptions of some non-engineers I've talked to: some ringed engineers come across as pompous, this-ring-makes-me-better-than-you jerks. It's also reinforced by the culture among students at my univesity. It's heresy to suggest you might not go through with it. People are taken aback as if it was never even up for discussion; you could just feel the social pressure and the peer-reinforced mentality behind it. When the going got tough, people talked about the Iron Ring as the essential goal of sticking with it. Many of my classmates had decided years ago that convocation wasn't really worht their time, but none of them would think of missing the Iron Ring. The Ring seemed to go hand in hand with the culture of drinking yourselves stupid as community-builder, of "Engineers Rule The World", of arrogance and assumed superiority to non-engineering students.

It turns out that my description in the first paragraph of this section is pretty accurate. But you're not going in blind, after all; whatever's in the ceremony, they'll give you the gist of it at an information session a few days ahead of time. That wasn't enough for me, though, so I wrote to the address on the website and accepted the invitation of Dr. David McLean, secretary of the Ottawa Camp, to come ask him questions about the whole affair.

Dr. McLean insists on using the word 'private' to describe the ceremony, rather than 'secret'. He wanted me to be clear that the Ritual does not represent initiation into any secret society, that in fact there's nothing secret about it at all. So if that's the case, why the cliqueish restriction on observing the ceremony? Whence the culture of quiet so pervasive in the engineering school?

The Ritual, you'll recall, originated in a time when the engineering profession was under significant scrutiny by the broader society; the same year that Dr. Haultain from U of T wrote to Kipling, the Ontario government passed the Professional Engineers Act to regulate the profession. The idea of a private (not a secret) ceremony open only to members of the engineering community can be seen as a reaction to this. For Dr. McLean, the intent is for young engineers to take their Obligation seriously and personally. In 1922, the intent may have been the same: to create this bond to ethics and sound practice, but to make it have substance. To make it clear -- both to the engineer and to the public -- that this is not done as an empty but loud show for the world ("Look at us with our oaths and our ethics! You can trust us!") but as a commitment... not with the goal of reassuring the public, but rather with the goal of promoting integrity in which the public would be right to feel reassured.

In other words, you can see it as the difference between a restaurant that quietly trains its staff in important safety protocols, and one that advertises to the public that its food is safe.

The language the Corporation of the Seven Wardens (the body which oversees the ritual these days) uses to describe the state of knowledge about the Ritual is that there is "to be no publicity surrounding" it. Just what 'publicity' means is up for grabs, but Dr. McLean's interpretation is that one shouldn't announce and advertise the ceremony to the public. The idea here is that the centrepiece of the Ritual, the engineer's Obligation, is supposed to be taken personally and solemnly. Fuss and attention tends to puff people up and stimulate pride and bombast; Dr. McLean figures such attention could trivialize the core importance of the Ritual, and turn it into a public announcement of achievement instead of a personal expression of dedication.

I can see where he's coming from, and how the originators of the tradition might have though this a good idea. Except that I'm of the belief that a code of conduct ascribed to for the good of the public is something that should be open and declarable. Something the public should be able to see, so they know the standard that we hold ourselves to in the work they depend on. One can't take secret oaths and expect to be trusted.

Turns out that every graduate is presented with a certificate bearing the full text of the Obligation, and encouraged to display it where it can be seen, for just this reason. The text is no secret, and it's even available on the University of Calgary and University of Alberta websites.

At the pre-ceremony briefing on Monday, I asked the presenter what he had to say about the perception that the uninitiated cannot know what happens in the ceremony. He recalled the motivation for privacy, and then said that "it's not a secret, you can chat about it with whomever you like."

So there can reasonably be a private ceremony, and express publicity about it can be avoided, while being clear that there's no requirement for secrecy. And I won't be bound by secrecy for which no case has been made and for which I can find no basis in the history of the tradition. To shut up about it clashes strongly with my own attitude to the world; the fight against ignorance can never be won by keeping people in the dark.

In fact, the very air of scerecy appears to have been counterproductive. It's promoted the reprehensible attitude among students that I described above, it's caused misinformation and misunderstanding to spread within the public, and it's caused me to want to reject what might be a valuable tradition by its association with all that. I would wager, even, that it's cheapened the value of that tradition among some who take it. How many drunken graduates have neglected the meaning of the Obligation and gone on to become dishonest, fact-hiding, arrogant stuck-ups in the working world, with the effect of spreading the disrepute of engineers among their coworkers?

I strongly reject that culture. I denounce the sense of superiority, the sense of entitlement, the cliquish brashness of the clueless peer-pressured youth, and the cry of "ERTW". I can find no call for it in the construction of the Ritual or in the Obligation, and it detracts from the intended goals of the whole thing. If I take part in the tradition, let it be known and understood that I do not do it out of any sense of duty or loyalty to the people who ascribe to this or to the social pressure that drives some to take part, nor do I do it to associate myself with any of this or them. Nor do I do it as a reward for proving my right to wear a token of my superiority.

And so, recognizing the motivation behind the private setting of the ceremony and the quiet way in which it is carried out, I find myself free from the muzzle of a 'secret' tradition. Asked by outsiders about it, I'm free to discuss what is done and why. Aside from Whether I participate or not, I'll respect the restriction on publicity for the reasons stated above.

This weblog post does not represent an advertisement or a proclamation; it is not intended nor expected to have the same effect as a billboard, newspaper ad, or letter to the editor. Rather, it is meant to inform, record, and explain why I've decided as I have with regards to taking part in this tradition. It will not glorify the Ritual or myself, but it may inform, and may serve as a reference for others faced with the same decision. The risk of damaging the ritual is considered low, and the value of exchanging information high. This is my private weblog; anyone can read it, but it is not intentionally distributed to the masses. It's material in a public filing cabinet, not a poster on a public wall. And, in fact, there's little if any information here that's not already available online; if the UWaterloo engineering newlsetter, the University of Calgary, and the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta can post this information on the internet without violating the spirit of the tradition, surely I can too. I'm free to tell anyone about it, and right now I'm telling you.

Anyone who chooses to use the information expressed herein to create fanfare or attention surrounding the Ritual -- engineer, student, or other -- is strongly requested not to do so. Anyone who wishes to use it to inform their own views about the Ritual is encouraged.


4. The Obligation

So with my fears allayed about the mechanics of the tradition or any duty I might have to keep somebody's secrets, let's look at those 'elements of the tradition' I was aobut to get to earlier on. If I take part in the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer, what am I binding myself to? What Obligation am I ascribing to?

The text of the Obligation is, as we've established, meant to be visible to the public. Here it is:

I _____, in the presence of these my betters and my equals in my Calling, bind myself upon my Honour and Cold Iron, that, to the best of my knowledge and power, I will not henceforward suffer or pass, or be privy to the passing of, Bad Workmanship or Faulty Material in aught that concerns my works before mankind as an engineer, or in my dealings with my own Soul before my Maker.

My Time I will not refuse; my Thought I will not grudge; my Care I will not deny towards the honour, use, stability and perfection of any works to which I may be called to set my hand.

My Fair Wages for that work I will openly take. My Reputation in my Calling I will honourably guard; but I will in no way go about to compass or wrest judgement or gratification from any one with whom I may deal. And further, I will early and warily strive my uttermost against professional jealousy and the belittling of my working- colleagues in any field of their labour.

For my assured failures and derelictions I ask pardon beforehand of my betters and my equals in my Calling here assembled, praying that in the hour of my temptations, weakness and weariness, the memory of this my Obligation and of the company before whom it was entered into, may return to me to aid, comfort and restrain.

Upon Honour and Cold Iron, God helping me, these things I purpose to abide.

The first paragraph is the expression of the "Engineer's Doubt". The engineer pledges himself to do thorough, sufficient, and fully-investigated work. The emphasis on materials is important, too; one can't simple be didligent in theory, but must also insist the same integrity passes to the incarnation of one's work. Engineers, after all, deal with real-world things, and the best, most carefully-designed bridge will still fall down if bad steel takes the place of the members considered int he theoretical treatment. My favourite part is that it's explicitly wholisitc and personal: not just in your public works, but in your own life and your internal thoughts. The obligation is to make your whole life and your whole self free of slip-shod or half-worked out premises. It's a call to pervasive, total, personal integrity and rationality that I can really get behind.

The second is the commitment to thoroughness. Getting it done right is too important to let convenience or anything else get in the way. Doing a good job for the sake of doing a good job is a fine creed for anyone, but for the engineer, failing to do so could mean the deaths of the people who depend on your creations. Don't complain that the job takes work: commit your whole self to doing it right, and see that it's done as right as you can possibly manage.

The third is about working relationships. About the extortion that someone with professional skills can carry out. What if I have the knowledge to prevent a disaster, or clean the water supply to a city? Should I hold the public or those at risk for ransom in demanding riches in return for my knowledge? It also touches on something I didn't expect: professional jealousy, of the sort, perhaps, that led some of the engineers of the nineteeth and early twentieth centuries to those ambitious but dangerous works. Finally, a note to keep things honourable; while ideas deserve to be criticized, the public perception of the engineering profession is not served by sniping and character attacks among professionals who need to earn the public trust.

The fourth plants a seed for memory, forces the graduate to accept humility as part of the Obligation, and addresses the critical joint in the engineer's work: the coming time of pressure to perform, cover up, misrepresent, overstate or underanalyse. Recognize now what the right thing is then.

The thrust of the Obligation is something I think has great value. The first paragraph in particular is something I think everyone should take to heart - not just engineers. The rest of it is kind of specific to the job, but note that nowehre is there anything that could be construed as a call to pride or to a feeling of superiority. I think the Obligation is solid, and it's something I would be willing to put my name to.

The only little blip is in the final paragraph, where it implies that a God has something to do with it.


5. Religious Overtones

Although I don't have a copy of the full text of the Ritual, I've been given a run-through by Dr. McLean, and there's also an outline avilable here. As far as I know there are no overt religious expression outside of four texts, which I'll treat individually.

2 Esdras, Chapter 4, Verses 5-10

This is from one of the Apocrypha, texts which some Christian groups include as sort of an appendix to the Old Testament, and which others reject as not or religious significance. Saith Wikipedia:

2 Esdras (sometimes also referred to as Ezra/Shealtiel) is a Jewish apocalypse that some many scholars purport to be written toward the end of the first century AD. It is not accepted as scriptural by most Christians, who list it among the Apocrypha. However the Ethiopian and Russian Orthodox churches consider it canonical, and it was often cited by the Fathers of the Church.

Basically, it's a mythology from 2000 years ago; a piece of history and a tale of legend no different than Roman or Greek myths of similar age. Almost no-one today considers the events described to have really happened, and it's likely people at the time of writing didn't; it's a piece of folk literature. Here's the excerpt used in the Ritual:

    And I said, Tell on, my lord. Then said he unto me, Go thy way, weigh me the weight of the fire, or measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past.
    Then answered I and said, What man is able to do that, that thou shouldest ask such things of me?
    And he said unto me, If I should ask thee how great dwellings are in the midst of the sea, or how many springs are in the beginning of the deep, or how many springs are above the firmament, or which are the outgoings of paradise:
    Peradventure thou wouldest say unto me, I never went down into the deep, nor as yet into hell, neither did I ever climb up into heaven.
    Nevertheless now have I asked thee but only of the fire and wind, and of the day wherethrough thou hast passed, and of things from which thou canst not be separated, and yet canst thou give me no answer of them.
    He said moreover unto me, Thine own things, and such as are grown up with thee, canst thou not know;

It's a conversation between the writer and and angel, in which the lesson is that not only are there things that you don't know for lack of investigation, but that there are things you cannot know. It can be seen as a command to humility, and to accept and understand the limits of our knowledge. Is it a declaration of belief in God? Hardly. Notable is that in the text itself, the lead-in to this conversation is:

    ... thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the most High?
    Then said I, Yea, my lord. And he answered me, and said, I am sent to shew thee three ways, and to set forth three similitudes before thee:
    Whereof if thou canst declare me one, I will shew thee also the way that thou desirest to see, and I shall shew thee from whence the wicked heart cometh.

Translation: You think you're smart enough to understand God? Let me show you just how little you know... and further show that evil comes from pretending to know what you don't.

But this direct reference to God is chopped off in the section used in the Ritual. Kipling took the quotation slightly out of context, changing its meaning from an admonishment of pretense to know God to a reminder that there are real things in our everday experience that cannot be understood.

The point of this passage, I gather, is to be a reminder of of our own lack of knowledge. To accept and admit what we don't know, and not forge on in arrogance of pretending omniscience. There's danger and dishonesty there; poor work and poor integrity result. It's a valuable sentiment, and I think a non-Christian would have a hard time finding a declaration of religion in this; it's a very old text that most religious groups don't consider to be scriptural, and the Goddy parts have been intentionally masked out.

The Hymn of the Breaking Strain

This is one of two poems by Kipling which might be used in the Ritual.

The careful text books measure
(Let all who build beware!)
The load, the shock, the pressure
Material can bear.
So, when the buckled girder
Lets down the grinding span,
The blame of loss, or murder,
Is laid upon the man.
Not on the Stuff -- the Man!


But in our daily dealing
With stone and steel, we find
The Gods have no such feeling
Of justice toward mankind.
To no set gauge they make us, --
For no laid course prepare --
And presently o'ertake us
With loads we cannot bear.
Too merciless to bear.


The prudent text-books give it
In tables at the end --
The stress that shears a rivet
Or makes a tie-bar bend --
What traffic wrecks macadam --
What concrete should endure --
But we, poor Sons of Adam,
Have no such literature,
To warn us or make sure!


We hold all Earth to plunder --
All Time and Space as well --
Too wonder-stale to wonder
At each new miracle;
Till, in mid-illusion
Of Godhead 'neath our hand,
Falls multiple confusion
On all we did or planned.
The mighty works we planned.


We only of Creation
(Oh, luckier bridge and rail!)
Abide the twin-damnation --
To fail and know we fail.
Yet we -- by which sole token
We know we once were Gods --
Take shame in being broken
However great the odds --
The Burden or the Odds.


Oh, veiled and secret Power
Whose paths we seek in vain,
Be with us in our hour
Of overthrow and pain;
That we -- by which sure token
We know thy ways are true --
In spite of being broken,
Because of being broken,
May rise and build anew.
Stand up and build anew!

This one's an interesting mix. At first it seems more blatantly religious; it calls men "Sons of Adam". But it also talks of Gods -- plural -- that control the forces of nature. This is downright heretical to a devout Christian, so the poem as a whole can only be taken as a mixed mythological allusion. "We know we once were Gods" isn't at all a Christian idea either, and so the "secret Power" at the end could realy be anything. It could be the inner flame of integrity that an honest person might feel. Or, any of a number of god constructs that various people believe in. Only someone who doesn't know Chrisitanity well enough to believe in it could find this poem Christian. Its mythological imagery is too mixed, too polytheistic for that to reallly be the case. Again, I think we're seeing Kipling using imagery from various old traditions to try to make a point.

The intent I see here is to remind us of our fallibility and the consequences of failure. Bridges don't care if they fall down. But we should and do care when either we, or the bridges, fail. So work against that, know the limits of your materials, know your own limits, know that you'll make errors, and when you do, acknowledge them, pick up, and start over again. You're only human: remember that.

The Sons of Martha

This is the other of Kipling's poems that might be included. It makes reference to a story in the Gospel of Luke, in which two women have different reactions to Jesus. One, Martha, goes on to make the preparations necessary to accept Jesus and his entourage as guests, while the other, Mary, eschews her work to sit and listen to Jesus talk.

The poem is as follows:

The sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited
    that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the
    careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she
    was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without
    end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and
    cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that
    the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care
    to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by
    land and main.

They say to mountains, "Be ye removed." They say to
    the lesser floods, "Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reproved-they are not
    afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit-then is the
    bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly
    sleeping and unaware.
They finger death at their gloves' end where they piece
    and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry
    behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into
    his terrible stall,
And hale him forth a haltered steer, and goad and turn
    him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till
    death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden - under the
    earthline their altars are-
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to
    restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again
    at a city's drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a
    little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop
    their job when they dam'-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark
    and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's
    day may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path
    more fair or flat -
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha
    spilled for that!
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness
    to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their
    common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they
    know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for
    them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see
    how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the
    Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons!

I'm not a fan of faith for nothing, or putting value on faith for faith's sake, or of imagining that problems can be solved simply by believing something that says it's the right thing to believe. So I love what this poem says about belief, and about what attitude engineers have to take towards it.

To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till
    death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden - under the
    earthline their altars are-

In the earth, in the physical world of material reality: this is where we'll find the things we must honour and obey if we're to accomplish our work. No religious, animistic, or mythological principle can be part of an engineer's arsenal; no bridge is built out of anything but matter and energy. And no error or disaster is avoided but by diligent applied science:

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a
    little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop
    their job when they dam'-well choose.

It's up to you, and no one else, to ensure your work is good. There's no other judge of the soundness of a design, no one else to ring the alarm of a technical error, than the engineer who reviews the plans.

And why do we do what we do? For everyone. For society in general. Not because of one of those faithful codes of behaviour...

Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness
    to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their
    common need.

Indeed, those who wish to believe in such things can go off an do so, but back here in the real world of the physical, undeniable forces of nature, it's up to us to make sure things are still working:

They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the
    Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons!


I find myself quite satisfied with any religious overtones that might be in this poem.

In the Obligation

So all that's left is that one little reference in the last line of the Obligation. It's not surprising that it's in there, even though the Obligation itself isn't religious. It's from the 1920s, when if you lived in Canada, you were assumed to be Christian (and this was a pretty safe assumption), and the influence of Christianity in society was a lot more pervasive. It was in schools, in courtrooms, in the oaths public officials took, in public speeches, and in the centre of peoples' lives. One didn't think twice about putting a "God willing" into something like this.

But times have changed. One shouldn't assume I'm a believer, nor can we do that about people in general. Plenty of the students who make the Obligation these days are certainly not. So there are three ways to deal with this:

1) Change the obligation. Remove this reference, so that believers and non-believers in a God (general or specific) can be satisfied with it. This isn't likely to happen, because the people who take care of these traditions are keen to preserve them as they are. Tradition, and all. (It's interesting to note, though, that the version of the Obligation presented at the pre-ceremony briefing omitted the last line that includes the 'God helping'. At the same time we were assured that the Obligation is not one of religious overtones, nor is it "voodoo".)

2) Leave it as is, but make that line optional. In court, you can choose to swear on a bible, or simply swear. The same could go here.

3) Leave it as is, but allow the meaning to evolve. To a non-believer, it might be completely appropriate to treat references to gods as archaic references to mythology. They're designed to have a significance, but not a literal one. A believer saying the same words might find different meaning in them.

Given that my certificate (bearing the Obligation) will be printed with the standard wording, I'm pretty much left with number three. Dr. Jodoin taught us that things which are irrelevant to an analysis and have no effect on the system can be safely neglected. Sons of Martha tells us that preachings and appeals to gods are of just that character. So given that, given the age of the text, and given that I can view it as an old artifact no different from 2 Esdras, can I neglect it? I think I can. "That's not the job of that device."


6. The Ritual

There's more to the Ritual than texts and poems and words. The other elements, the bits of action that turn it from a recital into a ritual, are even less discussed than the oral bits.

The ritual makes use of some symbology. There's a "camp" for each city with one or more engineering schools, and each camp adapts the symbols to its own setting. The idea of making it locally significant is kind of attractive.

There's an anvil, or something heavy and steel to replace one. The Calgary camp uses a piece of an original CPR rail.
There's a hammer to strike the anvil to open and close the ceremony. It should have a similar local significance.
Iron chains, symbol of land surveying and of 'binding together' are the last piece. That binding, I suppose, is both to the Obligation and to each other as a community of engineers.

I asked at the pre-ceremony briefing about the particular "landmarks", as they're called, at the Ottawa camp. The response was that essentially they don't have any special meaning. It's not clear (to the guy at the presentation, anyway) where the anvil came from, and in the end it doesn't really matter because the symbolism is what's important. (Which might be perfectly approriate for the University of Ottawa, a school where the engineering students don't seem to have actual traditions or community or links to the place or its history, and where the student culture seems quite satisfied with that.)

During the ceremony, the young engineer is called to place a hand on "cold iron", symbol of the material of construction, most important engineering material in the time Kipling wrote the Ritual, and probably still today. The Obligation is made, of course, and the other readings happen.

So, so far -- as long as there's nothing sinister in the way the symbols are used that's been hidden from me -- the ritual is kind of attractive in its simple construction that tries to make ties to society, practice and community. The most famous element, though, remains to be addressed: the Iron Ring.


7. The Iron Ring

The presentation is intended to symbolize the welcoming into the community of engineers: an old, experienced engineer places the ring on the finger of the new initiate. Some initiates choose an experienced engineer with whom they have some bond, or a favourite professor. Else, one of the veterans in attendance will present them their ring. I don't have anyone like that, and haven't picked out a professor to give me my ring, if indeed I go for it.

It's cut to appear rough, rather than with the finely polished curves of most jewelry. It's coarse like ram materials, and has the appearance of having been rough-hammered into its shape, as the young engineers, Kipling is purported to have said, "have their hammerings coming to them." It's worn on the small finger of the working hand. Firstly, this is far from where an expensive jeweled ring would usually be worn, to show the distance between money and integrity. Second, being on the little finger, it's likely to rub and knock against things all the time (like the desk one works at), continually reminding the wearer of its presence and what it represents.



As far as rings go, it's kind of nice. Very plain, very simple, with a design intended to mean something. But I'm not a big jewelry guy. I never wear rings, and I don't have necklaces, bracelets, or much of anything else. I have a few pins; poppies for Remembrance Day, a Canadian coat of arms for the occasions (like International Air Cadet Exchange) where that's been appropriate, a small airplane and a glider, each of which I've worn at flying-relate dressy events.

But this isn't just for dressing up. This is for every day. And how do I feel about rings, anyway? On some level, I don't like them. To me, they stand for expressed opulence: I have wealth and I'm going to waste it and valuable materials on this hand ornament, so I can show it off. I recognize that that's not the case with the Iron Ring, and that people sometimes put other importance on them, too. But the Iron Ring is something similar. Instead of using gold and diamonds to show off, it uses its unusual design and position, and the exclusivity of who can wear it, to do the same thing.

Now maybe that's just the culture that surrounds it. Maybe it's that thing I denounced earlier in section 3. Maybe, because it's small, not very shiny or bright, and without a big stone sticking off it, it's not meant to be so salient. If I don't like some of the culture that surrounds a symbol, can I still take that symbol for what I think it means, think it should mean, while rejecting the parts of the culture I find distasteful? If I'm afraid people will perceive me as part of the undesirable culture for my use of the symbol, should I avoid displaying it?

Maybe there's a similarity here to this:



I don't wear it constantly, but I'm willing to rotate it into my dress or wear it where appropriate. The gay pride colours have a meaning for me that I support, and so I've made them mine. Along with the RCAF Tartan, green and burgundy for schools I've attended, and the belt from my Air Cadet days, it's found its way into my dress and my self-expression. Well, actually, it hasn't quite, because I don't have a single thing with those colours on it, and haven't ever found any I liked. Were I to, though, certain formulations of this colour pattern meet my standard.

In any event, there are people who have associated those colours with things that aren't me. And there are those who would have misimpressions about me because I wore them. But that shouldn't and doesn't stop me. Are there people who associate with those colours whose views on them I don't support? Perhaps. But I have my own take on what I think they should mean, and I'm confident I can defend that position. I'm entitled to them, I believe in the sentiment I associate with them, and in fact I think it's productive to display them. So they're approved.

A very similar argument could be made about the Iron Ring.

When I wear a burgundy tie to the graduation breakfast, I express my association with and membership of the University of Ottawa, alongside the idea that I think a tie is an appropriate thing to wear to that event. When I wear a rainbow-pattern necklace on a Thursday, I say "I associate with the sexuality these colours represent, I support the acceptance and celebration of that facet of humanity, and I'm not afraid to wear these". If I wear the Iron Ring every day, what am I saying?

"I have some understanding of how my world works, at least with regards to applied science, and I believe in the principled, open, and honest use of that knowledge. I've committed myself to such integrity in my person and practice. I associate with the profession of engineering: the application of science to the real world, and I see this ring as a fitting expression of that."

And I'm willing to go along with most of that. But how do I feel about the Ring, itself? I've got no problem with people wearing it. But me? Me, with jewelry? Me with adornments and decoration? So far, I chose embellishments that take advantage of soemthing existing; I was already going to wear a tie, I've just held onto the burgundy one. I need a jacket, so I wear the one that says "Power 99 Centralia" because I'm pleased to associate with that summer. I like my scarf and how it looks, but it also keeps me warm. But a ring?

I've thought about it a lot the last few days. Sometimes I think i's kind of neat. Sometimes I've looked in the mirror and imagined a band around my finger and been almost sickened by it, as if I've let them put their symbol on me. As if I've become one of the pretenders who does whatever's popular because he doesn't have the courage not to, and hates himself for it. But sometimes it's not so offensive. And just because I do something, doesn't mean I do it for them, or to look good in their eyes. I can do it because I like it, and my doing it for my own value can be my defiance of their culture. I've thought about how I feel about it, and whether there's any reasoning left or just feeling. I've compared it to the gay pride colours, to pilots' wings, to the finance minster's shoes, to wedding rings and neckties and a host of other things that people do for symbolism, for tradition, or for association.

Yeah, it's a little unusual for me ot wear a ring. But then, I've never had one to wear. If I hate rings for some reason, I'd need an even better reason to wear this ring over that, because I don't owe my adherance to it to anyone. But if I don't have a strong personal reason not to, if I like the rest of the tradition, then to throw it all away over a slight change in my habits -- now I have a ring to wear -- is being a little stubborn. I don't have anything to prove by not doing it. And, in fact, the ring custom can be seen as kind of nice. It's just a bit unusual to me.

So to heck with the morons who do this out of peer pressure or who see something in this that I think is counterproductive. It's a nice tradition with a nice meaning, and nobody's forcing me to wear the ring all the time if I come to be uncomfortable with it or its overtness. I can see a way for me to dislike it, and I can see a way for me to like it, and either of them are worthwhile.

I think I can make room for the Iron Ring.


8. Other sentiments

There's a certain relationship between a pilot an airplane. While a car can fail and roll to a stop resting on solid ground, an airplane takes its occupant to a place outside of his natural element. I have to trust the airplane to be adequate the the task, well-designed and well-maintained, and simultaneously accept that this cannot be perfectly true. Every airplane has its limits, and I can surpass them to destroy the craft and myself. Every airplane is subject to failure; it can run out of gas, it can develop a crack in a structural member that propagates until a wing comes off, it can have a faulty component. I know that, and I know that if that happens, as the craft goes, so go I. It's not unusual: it's a fundamental part of putting yourself in a flying machine. So the entire aviation community has to work to prevent it. Pilots, maintenance crew, baggage handlers, regulators, operators... the actions of each help stop the aircraft from breaking away under the people. Flight safety is paramount. And even with perfect actions by everyone, sometimes machines fail. I have to be ready to react to small failures, and to fall three thousand feet to the trees for large ones.

It seems to me that the sentiment behind the Iron Ring is virtually identical. It's the other side of the same coin. Given an airplane, a pilot must react as I've described. The craft is the root. But the engineer plants the seed. The engineer will never die when his design fails, but he creates situations where peoples' lives depend on his work. The engineer produces the airplane; he selects the seed and the soil, plants it, ensures it receives nourishment and not poison, and carefully tends to it before giving the plant to someone to eat.

The nature of the airplane is the game that the pilot has to play; its stakes extend unto his life. The engineer sets the rules of that game. Both are called to impeccable integrity, to openness, to sound reasoning and to acceptance of best practices to see that the pilot gets through each round. The Iron Ring is the symbolic burden the engineer carries; a noose wrapped tighly around his finger to replace the noose that he forces the pilot to wear loosely about his neck on each flight.


9. Practical concerns

My hands are my tools. Most of the ways in which I manipulate my environment every day, I do with my hands. A keyboard, a pen, a knob, a snow shovel, a shoelace... for each I rely on the dexterity of my hands to move, twist, grab, or affect some object. I reach reflexively out to cushion my fall when I slip on an icy sidewalk. I pull myself up, push myself away, draw myself closer, reach out to touch, arrest, feel, investigate. Most of these things I do without thinking very hard about them. I reflexively use my hand because I'e got decades of experience of it behaving a certain way.

But while my hand is compliant, dextrous, soft, and agile, a metal ring is hard, unyielding, sharp, and rigid. My hand will twist and bend to slide out of a hole; a ring will catch on an edge or in a restriction, and stay there. My hand will compress and slide over a tree branch; a ring will then stick out from around my squished finger, ideal for catching on a bump or burr in the bark. A ring is magnetic, conductive, and liable to get caught on things.

And when it does, it will tend to twist as it pulls off, jamming itself against my skin, its metal edges cutting into my flesh and resisting further motion. Surprisingly, it takes only 35 lbs of force to amputate a finger by pulling on the ring. 100,000 accidental finger amputations occur each year in the United States, of which a fraction are caused by rings. Further injuries come from nervous and tissue damage when shock or another trigger causes swelling of the hands; the uncompliant ring can cut off circulation to the digit. Electrocution from working on electrical components adds another risk, as does the danger of getting chemical irritants -- from vinegar or household cleaners to laboratory chemicals -- under the ring where they can attack the moist and enclosed skin.

For all these reasons, it's a very good idea not to wear finger rings when you're working with your hands. Industrial plant workers know this. Doctors know it, and are studying ways to reduce the risk. Machinists know it, soldiers know it. I know it.

So no matter how I feel about the Iron Ring, I'm certainly not going to wear it when I'm working on things. And not when I'm in "work clothes" (like the old things I wear to crawl under cars). I'm definitely not going to wear it around airplanes, where in addition to everything above, it could slip off my hand and fall someplace to jam or damage a critical control element. Already I don't wear pins or jewelry; this is no exeption.

I might dress up a little bit for school, but my everyday clothes aren't flashy. To me, they're a presentable extrapolation of the practicality of work dress. When I'm in my ordinary, everyday clothes, I should be able to work on a computer, wash the dishes, leap over a railing, climb a tree, or reach out to stop a fall. A ring would get in the way of that; safety and practicality come before sentiment. I don't want to feel restricted in how I use my hands in the bulk of my life. Constantly having to remember that I have a ring on so I should be careful turns me from a sentient agent capable of interacting with my environment to a self-restricted observer, crippled in my physical freedom, expression, and utility for the sake of a bauble.

At best, then, I might wear a ring for formal dress. When I'm also wearing impractical dress shoes, a jacket, and a necktie. Here I know that I need to be careful. I know the shoes are slippery on concrete and ice, I know the jacket restricts my arms movement and that the tie can get caught in things or dragged in my spaghetti sauce. It's only one more thing to remember to be careful what I do with my hand, and I'll probably not be in especially hand-risky situations when I'm dressed like that, anyway.


10. Conclusion

I'm going to participate in the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer.

I'm trained and educated in engineering. I understand it, I like it, and it's part of and in line with the way I work and think. It can be said to be a contributor to my identity. I think, I analyse, and when necessary, I use the results of this along with my knowledge and judgement to alter my environment.

The Obligation has value. The Ritual is part appropriate, part inoffensive, and part traditional. And I feel free to work the wearing of the Ring into my life as I see fit.

I like the call to humility, diligence, and thoroughness. I like the connection to the history of engineering.

But I dislike some of the culture that surrounds it. I disapprove of the arrogance and sense of superiority that some students and engineers have built on it, I disapprove of reflexive participation, and I disapprove of social pressure to participate. And I won't say "God helping me" when I make the Obligation.

How exactly I will wear the ring is something I'll settle on as I further develop my policy on jewelry. I won't wear it constantly; I have good reason for removing it sometimes.

I am who I am because of what and how I think and what I do. I am not my symbols. But symbols can be useful, and they can be a source or colour in life. Engineering is not all of me, but the application of science is a big part of my life, and I can identify with it. Keeping in mind the notes above, I'm pleased to make the Obligation. Let me not forget why I did this, and why I didn't, and let no one ever lose themselves in such material things as rings:

So, when the buckled girder
Lets down the grinding span,
The blame of loss, or murder,
Is laid upon the man.
Not on the Stuff -- the Man!