The following article ran in the April 6, 1922 issue of the M.C.M. Lode.
If you have been to any school or college
And possibly have got a sheepskin too;
If you absorbed a fair amount of knowledge,
Or knowing not can look as though you do;
If you can run a survey like a “civil”
And analyze an ore by wet or dry;
If you can build with neither square nor level
And lay out towns with just the naked eye.
If you can wear your dress suit, sack, or jumper
And look at ease in each one just the same;
If you can take the job of “Supe” or pumper
Or any other man who quits the game;
If you can set a bone and tie up sinews,
Or later preach a sermon for the dead;
If you can talk like Webster, Clay, or Depew
And turn a dinner table on its head;
If you can go to some dead far-off land-end
And see its glorious future from the start;
If you can stick through troubles till the grand end
And never lose your patience nor your heart;
If you can run a buck-saw or a kingdom,
Or turn a petty monarch inside out;
If you are there to see the final thing done,
That justifies the blows you dealt about;
If you can hold a board of cross directors
In happiness against their gaudy schemes;
If you can dodge the wrath of the electors
Till dividends will flow as in their dreams;
If you can make a mine pay from the grass roots
No matter what the time or place or year;
We’ll add the title “MINING” when
Then on my soul until the final blast we call you “ENGINEER.”
