Excerpt from Contracts in Engineering: The Interpretation and Writing of Engineering-Commercial Agreements; An Elementary d104book for Students in Engineering, Engineers, Contractors and Business Men In view of the prefatory form of Chapter I, extended remarks are not desirable here. There are, however, a few points to which attention is directed. The author believes that it is better for the engineer to have even a Httle information than for him to be wholly uninformed upon legal matters. The author has been warned against leading the reader or student to infer that the services of legal counsel might easily be dispensed with. This result he especially disclaims, and he feels, moreover, that a candid scrutiny of his work will show that the aim has been to enable the engineer to cooperate efficiently with lawyers and to appreciate better the need for their services. Present Aim and Scope of Work. This book aims especially to familiarize the engineering student with the major principles of common lav relating to Contracts, and touches other legal branches only incidentally and so far as will materially assist him to grasp the doctrines of contract law applying to that subject. To many engineers the only justification for this book may lie in an acceptable restatement of the principles underlying successful specification writing. The great importance of this field has been recognized, and fully a third of the book devoted to it. But with the present commercial tendency of engineering, it is believed that the contracts of business demand the modern engineers attention about equally with those of engineering construction. About one-third of the book, therefore, deals with commercial contracts, while the balance deals with elementary principles common to all contracts, and the interrelations between contracts, torts, agency, and real property. Reasons for Present Undertaking. The first reason is a belief that a considerable number of elementary legal principles should be stated in brief compass for class-room work. While of legal treatises there are a plenty, a text suitable for the special requirements of an engineering school does not exist, since this feature of class-room utihty precludes the more monumental works on engineering jurisprudence and allied subjects. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.