The first serious problem with many of you will be to secure satisfactory engagements.  This problem cannot be illustrated by parables.  It needs, in general, patient, unremitting, and frequently long continued effort.  It may be that the fame of some of you, that have already acquired the happy faculty of making yourselves immediately useful, has already gone abroad and the coveted positions been already assured.  To be frank, we cannot promise you even a bed of roses.  We have in mind an instance where a superior authority in a large business enterprise who had great respect, as he should have, for the attainments of young gentlemen who have had the opportunities of a technical education, deliberately ordered out a competent mechanical engineer, familiar with the designs required in a large repair shop, and sent in his place a young gentleman fresh from school and flushed with hope, but who from the very nature of the case could know little or nothing of his duties at that particular place.  He was practically alone in the drawing room, and did not know where to find such drawings as were required, and candor requires it to be said that he desired to ask many questions about those he did find.  The superintendent unfortunately had nothing to do with his appointment, and rather resented it.  So he did not trust any of his work, and the new comer was obliged to learn his practical experience at that establishment, where he was known as the mechanical engineer, by having all his work done over by the pattern maker or others, under the eye of the superintendent or master mechanic, and be subjected all the time to the jealousies and annoyances incident to such a method of introduction.

His practical experience was certainly learned under difficulties which I trust none of you may experience.  This statement is made that those of you who have not yet obtained positions may not envy those who have, and that each and all of you may be careful not to take a position so far above your experience, if not your capacity, as to become unpleasantly situated in the beginning.  The educational facilities you have enjoyed are of such great value in some exceptional cases that the parties thus benefited may do you an injury by leading others to expect that you will be equally valuable in performing duties which require much more practical experience and knowledge of detail than it is possible that you could have obtained in the time you have been here.

The incident is ripe with suggestions.  No matter how humble a position you may take in the beginning, you will be embarrassed in much the same way as the young gentleman in question, though it is hoped in a less degree.  Your course of action should be first to learn to do as you are told, no matter what you think of it.  And above everything keep your eyes and ears open to obtain practical knowledge of all that is going on about you.  Let nothing escape you of an engineering nature, though it has connection with the business in hand.  It may be your business the next day, and if you have taken advantage of the various opportunities to know all about that particular matter in every detail, you can intelligently act in relation to it, without embarrassment to yourself and with satisfaction to your superior.