                          THE FIRST TOOL ENGINEER 
        
                        by  George L. Miller, PDDGM 
                          


    The background material for this short presentation was suggested to 
    me by Worshipful Brother John J. Miller, a Past Master of Tuscan 
    Lodge #77, holden under the Grand Lodge of Minnesota. We both 
    thought that it might be a good lesson in Masonic Education and 
    that you might enjoy it. 


    It concerns the question of who was the first tool engineer.  Much 
    of the thesis was given us by Mr. Robert B. Douglas, whom we do not 
    know to be a Mason, but we do know he is a Past President of the 
    American Society of Tool Engineers.  It is an expression of how 
    some of the things we learn as Masons are also part of the 
    sectarian world, and as we know them as part of our legend many are 
    pretty close to the facts. 


    Time and again one finds Eli Whitney, famed for the invention of 
    the cotton gin and for the introduction of mass production 
    techniques in the manufacture of arms, accoladed as the first tool 
    engineer. 


    In the cavalcade of tool engineers, Mr. Eli Whitney is very much of 
    a johnny-come-lately.  Let us bow to his genius; let us acknowledge 
    his extraordinary contribution to interchangeability in complex 
    mechanisms; but, let us not call him Father.  The art and science 
    of tool engineering has deeper roots than the nineteenth century. 


    The Father of Tool Engineering was born just eight generations out 
    of Eden in the anti-diluvian night.  Scholars put his birth at 1056 
    years after the birth of the first man.  He was the son of Lamech, 
    and the grandson of Metusaleh and his name was Tubalcain.  We can 
    read his brief but eloquent biographical sketch in Genesis, IV, 22 
    "Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron."  
    In other words, the Father of Tool Engineers and Tool Engineering 
    Education. 


    "There were giants in the earth in those days."  Lamech, crude, 
    cruel, lusting descendant of Cain was a mighty hunter and a mighty 
    warrior.  But his scope was limited.  The old man was so taken up 
    with the day by day task of protecting the family and homestead 
    against the depredations of rival families and wild beasts, that 
    there was no progress and but little feeling of security in the 
    family.  The oldest son was a musician, the other a singing cowboy.  
    Then came Tubalcain, son of the practical mother Zillah. 


    Watching his father hunt with rough but precious weapons, he 
    realized how tenuous was the claim to survival of the whole tribe, 
    should ill fortune break or carry off one of the few miserable 
    spears or arrows in the side of a wounded lion.  The family was 
    left defenseless for days while a new one was painstakingly 
    fashioned out of stone by hand methods. The herds were neglected, 
    the music was stilled, while everyone pitched in to make a new 
    supply.  The key to survival was production. 


    Only with a large and assured supply of weapons could the family 
    maintain the unrelenting struggle against its environment.  Stop or 
    threaten that supply and not only the arts of his Brother Jubal, 
    but food itself must be rationed or cut off altogether until the 
    deficiency was made up. 


    So little Tubalcain, while hardly more than a boy, studied the 
    problem of production.  From foundry to forge to finish grind, he 
    studied and experimented with the processes of forming and shaping 
    metal.  When one process had been mastered, he lost no time in 
    breaking in a couple of slaves to keep production rolling, while he 
    went on to pioneer the next step.  Thus was the division of labor 
    first applied. 


    The same techniques that made arrowheads were gradually applied to 
    spears, knives and short swords.  A continuous flow of weapons came 
    from the production lines out behind old Lamech's hut.  Behind the 
    wall of weapons in the field, Jubal's commerce, and Jubal's 
    cultural arts were free to flourish, and in Lamech's yard the music 
    of Tubalcain's forge made fitting background for the melody of 
    Jubal's oaten pipes.  But, restless Tubalcain must needs press on 
    if the future be secured. The discovery of the techniques must be 
    formulated into an organized body of knowledge, certain theories 
    drawn, and the principles laid down for the guidance of others.  
    Tool engineering as a formal science was conceived and born in the 
    wilderness in the Land of Nod. 


    The safety of the tribe, the advancement of science, the 
    encouragement of commerce and the arts, in short, the upward 
    progress of mankind, could not be secured or consolidated, if these 
    secrets were left to rust and grow stale in the mind of one man.  
    So Tubalcain called them all in - his brothers and his cousins, and 
    their slaves, and their children - and he taught them those things 
    that he knew and they laboured together, each according to his 
    abilities and his industry. 


    As great as had been his contribution in the perfection of 
    technique, greater still was his vision of the "free interchange of 
    scientific knowledge." 


    When the critical shortage of arms had been changed to an abounding 
    surplus, their lines were converted to the implements of peace - to 
    the production of brass bowls and lamps and great was the light and 
    prosperity that settled on the land. 


    Unfortunately, with the great floods that were sent, after his 
    death, to cleanse the world, were washed away both the tools and 
    the memory of Tubalcain's works. 


    To Eli Whitney and the famous tool engineers that have followed him, 
    has been given once more the key to gradually unlock the door of 
    that golden science once put into the hands of Tubalcain in his 
    youth. 


    As later children of their heritage, let us honor Father Tubalcain's 
    memory and cherish his dream. 
