Pritchard, James; From Shipwright To Naval Constructor - Iowa State ...

24 James Pritchard
from trial and error, emerged from the French Revolution and its
great offspring, the Ecole polytechnique.102
* * *
A fortuitous combination of unusual factors and varied circumstances
rather than any single cause ensured the superior quality of
French warships during the 18th century. Though a case might be
made for government-inspired scientific inquiry into naval problems
and for technological transfer, these were probably the least important
considerations. Such factors are certainly insufficient in themselves.
The absence of any strong, hidebound, craft tradition of warship
construction was probably more important, as, too, was more than half
a century of rational collection, organization, and diffusion of preexisting
craft skills.
But, while significant, these factors, too, are inadequate either individually
or in combination to account for the excellence achieved. The
most important factors were administrative and social: first, the conscious
desire, arising from the recognition by naval administrators of
the need, to increase the social status of shipwrights and their ability to
do so through ministerial order; second, the unknown but profound
workings of administrative institutions to change social attitudes and
values. For, out of the human and organizational chemistry of the
councils of construction emerged the professionalization of the shipbuilders
themselves. A final factor was Duhamel's introduction of
constructors to a general mathematical culture, his rejection of theories
that had no firmer foundation than hypothesis, and his insistence that
constructors continue to contemplate the old rules for building ships to
find the best practice-in other words, to combine mathematics and
intuition.
French warships owed their excellence to their builders, and it was
during the 18th century that the latter became institutionalized and
professionalized.'03 These elements, nontechnical and technical, led
not so much to the successful application of the results of scientific
inquiry to the challenge of good ship design as to the development of
something newer and different, namely, the profession of naval engineering.
Ironically, as the end of the Old Regime approached, the
'02See Hahn (n. 25 above), pp. 282-85, for discussion of the changes in the educational
norms for the engineering profession.
'03Roger Hahn, "Scientific Careers in Eighteenth Century France," in The Emergence of
Science in Western Europe (n. 85 above), pp. 127-28. Hahn emphasizes the role of these two
social variables-institutionalization and professionalization-behind French scientific
creativity and productivity during the 18th century.