Critical Response #1: Jeffrey Forrester

While I agree with your view of Lucena’s article of the history of engineering and the differences it has created in modern engineering, you fail to mention the differences between the countries’ governments during the development of engineering. I believe that the differences in government, not the history Lucena describes is a better explanation for the differences in engineering.
Looking at the state of government of Britain, France, and the United States during engineering’s earliest stages we see that France and the United States have both had revolutions, while Britain had not been successfully invaded (last successful invasion was in 1066 by the Norman French) or had a revolution for hundreds of years. This is why Britain’s government, which due to their long lasting government are slow to pass bills, leave engineering to the people. So, the development of engineering in Britain is left to the engineers who themselves learned through experience, which gave them a bias towards experience. This bias still holds. On the other hand, France and the United States both had new governments while engineering was developing. These new governments passed laws and bills promoting engineering schools to be built. France’s early engineering universities were based off of the classical learning system (partly to be accepted by these universities) which emphasizes theory, and America’s universities were based off of France’s successful engineering schools. This early emphasis of theory in the classroom leads both of these countries to lean towards theory today. As America formally gained its independence from Britain in with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, it had time to be affected by Britain’s view of engineering. This may be why America values experience more than France.