USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 9 > Part 1
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Go 974.4 EL4b v.9 1198425
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01100 5235
Richarde Maclou
Biographical History of
Massachusetts
Biographies and Autobiographies of the Leading Men in the State
SAMUEL ATKINS ELIOT, LL. D., A. M., D. D., A. B. Editor-in-Chief
Volume IX
With opening chapters on WHAT MASSACHUSETTS HAS DONE FOR HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION BY RICHARD COCKBURN MACIAUBIN, LL.D., M.A., Sc.D.
ENSE P
OVIETEM
RTATH
MASSACHUSETTS BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 1918
Copyrighted, 1918, by MASSACHUSETTS BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY All rights reserved
Special Notice -- These Biographies are fully protected under the copyright law, which imposes a severe penalty for infringement.
CONTENTS. VOL. IX.
BIOGRAPHIES AND FULL PAGE PORTRAITS ENGRAVED ON STEEL
1198425
CHARLES BEAN AMORY JACOB JOHN ARAKELYAN CHARLES ANSELM BASSETT HORACE HOLLY BIGELOW LAFAYETTE GILBERT BLAIR ANDREAS BLUME JOHN ERVING BRADLEY GARDNER COREY BROOKS NATHANIEL HADLEY BRYANT JOHN BROWN BUGBEE ALFRED MONSON BULLARD GODFREY LOWELL CABOT BENJAMIN OTIS CALDWELL JAMES BERNARD CARROLL WILLIAM ENDICOTT CLAPP CHARLES RUSSELL CODMAN WILLIAM COOMBS CODMAN MARCUS ALLEN COOLIDGE ALVAH CROCKER CHARLES THOMAS CROCKER LINCOLN CLIFFORD CUMMINGS JOHN HENRY CUNNINGHAM FRANKLIN HERBERT DOWNS LOUIS STOUGHTON DRAKE CHARLES CHRISTOPHER ELY CLARENCE HOUGHTON ESTY JOHN CALVIN FERGUSON GEORGE CLEMENT FISK RICHMOND FISK
WALTER GRANT GARRITT
EUGENE ALBERT GILMAN
GEORGE HENRY GRAVES
WILLIAM BLAIR GRAVES
WILLIAM PHILLIPS GRAVES
JOSIAH GREEN
FREDERICK GREENWOOD
SOLOMON BULKLEY GRIFFIN CHARLES EDWARD GRINNELL CURTIS GUILD
HENRY FROBISHER GUILD
MOSES HADJI GULESIAN
HOWARD PRESTON HAINES
WILLIAM TAYLOR HARLOW SETH HEYWOOD GEORGE HEYWOOD
HENRY HEYWOOD
GEORGE HENRY HEYWOOD
HENRY LEE HIGGINSON
JAMES LANGDON HILL FREDERICK MILTON HODGDON
FRANK HOPEWELL FREDERICK ALLEY HOUDELETTE OLIVER HUNT HOWE
FRED MARSHALL HUDSON
HENRY STANLEY HYDE JOHN BROOKS JENKINS
ERASTUS JONES EBEN S. S. KEITH
JOHN ERLE KENNEY WILLIAM BARTLET LAMBERT GEORGE VASMER LEVERETT PERCIVAL LOWELL BENJAMIN FRANKLIN McDANIEL WILLIAM AUGUSTUS McKENNEY DAVID HAVEN MASON EDWARD HAVEN MASON JONATHAN MASON, JR. WILLIAM POWELL MASON WILLIAM POWELL MASON, JR. JOHN MAXWELL WILLIAM GIBBONS MEDLICOTT GEORGE VON LENGERKE MEYER STEPHEN MOORE GEORGE MASON MORSE SAMUEL MAYO NICKERSON
ROLAND CROSBY NICKERSON CHARLES SUMNER NORRIS RICHARD OLNEY FRANCIS AUGUSTUS OSBORN RAYMOND HANSEN OVESON CHARLES JACKSON PAINE GEORGE JUDSON PARKER
WALTER EDWARD PARKER FRANCIS HOWARD PEABODY SAMUEL ENDICOTT PEABODY ENDICOTT PEABODY GEORGE LEE PEABODY WILLIAM HENRY PEARSON ARTHUR EMMONS PEARSON WILLIAM EDWARD PEARSON GEORGE HENRY PENDERGAST JAMES THAYER PENNIMAN JOHN BARTLETT PIERCE ANDREW W. PRESTON ABEL HARRISON PROCTOR
CHARLES COOLIDGE READ JAMES CLARENCE ROBERTSON JAMES ELI ROTHWELL HARVEY GEORGE RUHE
GEORGE HENRY SARGENT
QUINCY ADAMS SHAW
ROBERT GOULD SHAW, 2d
ROBERT GOULD SHAW ABRAHAM SHUMAN
RUFUS ADAMS SIBLEY
FREDERICK GLAZIER SMITH
JOHN BUTLER SMITH
WILLIAM STANLEY HEZEKIAH PRINCE STARR
RICHARD PEARSON STRONG
WALTER BABCOCK SWIFT JOSEPH WARREN TEMPLE OAKLEY SMITH WALKER FREDERIC AUGUSTUS WASHBURN WEBSTER WELLS EDMUND MARCH WHEELWRIGHT SHERMAN LELAND WHIPPLE CHARLES GOODRICH WHITING LEONARD WHITNEY, JR HENRY JOSHUA WINSLOW EDWARD LEANDER WOOD WILLIAM MADISON WOOD
WHAT MASSACHUSETTS HAS DONE FOR HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
T ECHNICAL education implies a systematic training in science with the end of increasing production and improving industry. The phrase as normally employed excludes medical education, a field in which Massachusetts has had a splendid record of achievement. It properly includes agricul- tural education, but this is marked off from the rest by natural boundaries and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts its culti- vation has been confined practically to a single institution, the Massachusetts Agricultural College, although some of the opera- tions of Harvard University have touched upon it. Here we shall exclude agricultural education from consideration and by so doing cut ourselves off from the colonial period during which in Massachu- setts, as in other colonies, there was nothing that could be called higher technical education outside of the field of agriculture, and not much of that. A new country rarely concerns itself with manufacture, and the abstinence of the colonies in this respect was due to natural conditions that were fostered in the United States by the political conditions of the country. The Colonial laws of the England of those remote days, like all colonial laws of the time, discouraged the colonies from working up their own raw materials. The Revolution, of course, brought a change and efforts were made in various states to work out an industrial as well as a political independence. For this purpose, skilled artisans were brought in from abroad, bonuses were offered for improvements in industrial processes, and many societies were formed for the betterment of industry. In spite of this, nothing was done in the schools to train men for these important tasks, and more than a century elapsed before anything was attempted in the field of higher technical education, with a single notable exception. This exception was made, not in Massachusetts, but in the State of New York, where in 1824 there was established, at Troy, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the pioneer of its kind in the United States. In those days, and particularly in this location, bordering on what was then thought of as the West, the primary need was to supply men capable of making roads, bridges, and canals, so that it is not surprising that the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute came to regard the training of civil engineers as almost its sole function, a tradition that it has cherished ever since.
The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute remained for twenty-three years the only school devoting itself to technical education in the
HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
sense here used, except the Military Academy at West Point, which trained many engineers for civil life, although it was founded for a different purpose. It is not until 1846-7 that we reach the first really memorable period in the history of scientific education in this country. In the former year, William Barton Rogers worked out a plan for a Polytechnic Institute in Boston, a plan which years later was put into practice in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was thus destined to play a leading part in the development of technical education, not only in Massachusetts, but throughout the country. The next year, 1847, saw the estab- lishment of three important schools :- the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard, the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, and a School of Civil Engineering at the University of Michigan. Of these, of course, the Lawrence Scientific School alone concerns us here. Its founder, Abbott Lawrence, had a clear vision of the need of education in practical science and a generous spirit in supplying the money required to meet that need. His gift of $50,000 for the foundation of the School was unparalleled in those days. The Treasurer of Harvard College in his report on the subject said, at the time, with reference to the gift, " It has met with that universal approbation which its magnitude, its generosity, its appropriate- ness to the wants of the country, its wise forecast and expansion of views, deserve. It is supposed to be the largest amount ever given at one time, during the lifetime of the donor to any public insti- tution in this country." The school opened almost immediately after the announcement of the gift, and was designed to have three main branches: Chemistry, Engineering, Zoology and Geology. A Rumford professor was placed in charge of the Chemical Department, and Professor Agassiz of the Department of Zoology and Geology, but the establishment of the Department of Engineering was post- poned for a while. In 1849 Lieutenant Eustis of West Point was invited to come to Cambridge and organize the Department of Engineering. No clear idea seemed to prevail as to what should comprise such a Department as is indicated by the story that an ex-president of the college, when asked for his views, replied, " My idea would be that you should come to Cambridge and put up a sign as a surveyor, and receive young men into your office." The building erected for the accommodation of the Engineering De- partment contained a drawing room, one recitation room, and a case of surveying instruments, as the full equipment of the De- partment. Work began in 1850, nine students appearing on the first day and the number rising to eighteen by the end of the term. Slight additions to the equipment were made from time to time, but for many years the number of students was disappointingly
HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
small. As a member of the college expressed it, " The teachers were ready but the students did not present themselves."
Meanwhile, the seed sown by Rogers in 1846 began to grow as Rogers' personality and his enthusiasm for a great cause exerted their influence on Boston, to which he had come from Virginia in 1853. In due time his ideas and plans were supported strongly by many men of prominence in the community, and were most warmly espoused by the War Governor, Andrew. This support culminated in 1861 in an Act of the Legislature, granting a charter to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and making provision for a site for the School by setting aside a part of the Back Bay lands in the neighborhood of Copley Square. The outbreak of the war caused a postponement of the opening of this School and it was not until 1865 that a preliminary class, consisting of fifteen mem- bers, was got together, and in 1866 that the Rogers Building was completed as the first real home of the Institute.
Almost from the beginning, the School flourished, although, of course, it had to pass through many days of trial and difficulty. Amongst the factors that made for its success may be mentioned the following: first, and most important, the personality of Rogers, a man of unique charm and singular insight; second, the able and enthusiastic men with whom Rogers surrounded himself as members of the Faculty; third, the new type of education that was established, appealing as it did to many spirits dissatisfied with the conditions in the older schools; last, but by no means the least, the definite plan of education, systematic and clear cut from the outset, a plan which formed the real charter of the Institute, and had a profound effect on technical education throughout the country, and indeed throughout the world. The details should be read in the "Scope and Plan of the School of Industrial Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," due to Rogers and published in 1864. There is space here for only a few of the salient features. " Provision is made for such students who by a full course of scientific studies and practical exercises, seek to qualify themselves for the professions of the mechanical engineer, the civil engineer, the builder and architect, the practical chemist, and the engineer of mines." There are five corresponding courses: one, a course on Mechanical Construction and Engineering; two, a course on Civil and Topographical Engineering; three, a course on Building and Architecture; four, a course on Practical and Techni- cal Chemistry; five, a course on Practical Geology and Mining. The studies of each of these divisions are arranged so as to extend over a period of four years. The leading principles governing the admission of students are, first, that all persons qualified to enter
HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
upon any one of the full courses shall have the freest opportunity of doing so, and second, that no student shall be admitted to any of the courses of instruction who has not the preliminary knowledge needed for a satisfactory pursuit of the studies proposed. Pro- vision is made for laboratories in which the fundamental principle of " learning by doing " can be put into practice in all of the de- partments of the School. This has become a commonplace of scientific education today, but in many departments it was a novelty in 1864. Before that, science was too often taught merely by lectures and only a small portion of the students actually per- formed experiments for themselves. The experimental method in teaching had earlier been introduced in a partial way in the field of Chemistry, but at the Institute it was extended to Physics, the practical working out of the laboratory method of instruction in this branch of science being made by Professor E. C. Pickering at the suggestion of President Rogers.
Having seen the Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched, we must return to the Lawrence Scientific School and sketch, all too briefly, its later history. We have seen that it suffered in the early days through paucity of numbers. This defect was thought to be due largely to the fact that there were few regular coordinated courses, practically all the students being " special students " fol- lowing particular branches of science without relation to other studies. This condition was modified by President Eliot almost immediately after he left the Institute of Technology, where he had occupied the Chair of Chemistry, to assume the presidency of Harvard. A four-years' course of study was provided to train men for the profession of Civil and Topographical Engineering and other branches of Applied Science. The numbers, however, con- tinued small for a long time and tended to decline, so that after forty years there were only fourteen students. Later, however, mainly under the guidance of Dean Shaler, the School grew rapidly in numbers and by the beginning of the present century, there were about three hundred students in the regular professional courses and almost as many in other courses. In 1909 a radical change was made by placing the School on a graduate basis. This, of course, reduced the numbers materially and the number of students was in the neighborhood of one hundred when in 1914 the Schools of Engineering and Mining were amalgamated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The agreement with reference to this amalgamation has recently been annulled by the Supreme Court. In spite of the paucity of numbers and the fluctuations of more recent times, the Lawrence Scientific School made notable contributions to the cause of applied science in Mas-
HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
sachusetts and in the United States. Through its association with Harvard College, it drew a considerable number of able men from all parts of the country and was fortunate in attracting men of high distinction to its faculty. The influence of these men on their students has been shown by many notable achievements in the field of engineering.
We left the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at its in- ception in 1865 with fifteen students, a teaching staff of nine, and provision made for five different courses. Except for unimportant fluctuations, its growth since that time has been steady until the outbreak of the present war, when it had about 2000 students, a teaching staff of over 300, and fifteen in place of the initial five separate courses. It has formed a model for many similar schools here and abroad. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of its founda- tion, Mr. Augustus Lowell said of it, " The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been preeminently a leader in education," and a prominent English manufacturer, a member of a Royal Com- mission sent to study technical education in the United States, said, " The spirit and energy of the students, their conspicuous prac- tical knowledge, the thoroughness of their scientific training, and the power of adaptation and resource they have on entering work- shops, manufactories, railroads or mines, public works and con- structive engineering, all these fruits of the training of the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology are, so far as I have seen, not equalled on the continent." It has trained a large number of men who have taken a leading part in the advancement of the nation's industries and commerce. Owing to their technical skill they have been employed in every State in the Union in the work of develop- ing mines, opening up the country by means of railroads, applying scientific methods to the great problems of transportation, the production and distribution of power, advancing chemical indus- tries, conserving public health, and contributing in countless other ways to the national well-being. Its influence has not been con- fined to what are usually spoken of as the "higher branches " of technical education. It has already given directors to such insti- tutions as the Textile School, the Franklin Union, the Lowell School for Industrial Foremen, the Engineering Department of the Northeastern College (Y. M. C. A.), and the Wentworth Insti- tute. It has not concerned itself merely with technical education in the narrow sense, but has done much to advance science through the admirable work accomplished in its research laboratories, or carried out by its alumni in various parts of the world. Not only has it advanced science and industry through science, but it has been a most powerful educational factor in the development of the
HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
country. It has broken down old traditions and introduced new methods into education. It has given strength and dignity to the " practical " and " laboratory " method and proved conclusively its value in dealing effectively with large bodies of men. "It was the first school to equip a Mining and Metallurgical Laboratory for the instruction of students by actual treatment of ores in large quantities, the first to establish a laboratory to teach the nature and use of steam, and a laboratory for testing the strength of the materials of construction in commercial sizes, and the first in America to establish a Department of Architecture. It was also the first in this country to set up distinct and separate courses of study in Electrical Engineering, in Sanitary Engineering, in Chem- ical Engineering and in Naval Architecture." Its influence has not been confined to Massachusetts. Almost from the first, it drew men from other states and now it has representatives of every state and territory in the Union and it draws from foreign lands more than twice as large a percentage of students as the oldest universities in the land. In 1916 it moved the center of its ac- tivities from the old site on Boylston Street, Boston, across the Charles River to Cambridge. Here it now occupies a magnificent group of buildings which, according to an impartial witness, “ have set a new standard for the schools of Applied Science of the world, especially by the completeness of the equipment and the adapta- bility of the buildings to the purposes for which they are designed."
The experiences of today are forcing upon our attention the fact that war not only reveals defects but stimulates innovations and improvements in many fields of human interest. Happily the field of education does not escape this influence. In spite of all the dis- cussion on the subject, there were only four schools of Applied Science in existence in this country before the Civil War. It was during that war that Congress passed the Morrill Act, granting federal aid to states that founded colleges for the encouragement of agriculture and what were described as " the mechanic arts." The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reaped the benefit of this Act, although the School had been chartered before its passage. The establishment of such schools soon became the fashion, for while there were only four before the Civil War, there were seven- teen in 1870, forty-one the next year, and seventy the next. It was while this ferment was working that the Worcester Polytechnic Institute was established in 1865. In the Act of Incorporation, it was called the " Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science," the name being changed later to that by which it is now known. Its establishment was made possible by a gift of $100,000 by John Boynton and of $50,000 by Ichabod Washburn. Mr.
HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
Boynton's aim was a higher academy in which stress should be placed on a general education with training for industries. Mr. Washburn contemplated something in the nature of a trade school. These diverse aims were brought into harmony through the efforts of the Reverend Seth Sweetser, who set forth the essential ideas under which the Worcester Polytechnic Institute is now working. The first class of about thirty was admitted in 1868. From the beginning, emphasis was laid in all the work of this Institute on the practical, on the close contact of students with their instructors, and on conditions approaching as nearly as possible those of the industrial world. The practical idea was attained chiefly through the unusual amount of practice required in each course. It was aided too through the organization of the Washburn Shops, which were originally planned and have since been conducted as a regular commercial undertaking. Students in their shop practice were brought into constant contact with actual commercial conditions. They gained in this way a valuable experience in practical business methods, and this experience was emphasized during the senior year by a course in shop management. The first courses estab- lished at the Institute were in Mechanical and Civil Engineering and Chemistry. A course in Electrical Engineering was added in 1889 and one in General Science in 1890. Originally, all courses were three years in length, but in 1873 an additional half year was required of students in Mechanical Engineering and in 1893 all courses were lengthened to four years. The Faculty has grown with the School until it numbers about thirty and there are as many instructors. The student enrollment in 1871, when the first class graduated, was 82, but before the present war it had risen to over five hundred. This growth has been justified by the quality of the work done. In all parts of the country the graduates - many of whose biographies and life-like portraits appear in these volumes - have acquitted themselves well.
In the same decade in which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute were founded, and doubtless under the stimulus of the generally awakened inter- est in science and its applications, another important School of Engineering was established in Massachusetts in 1869. This was the Engineering School of Tufts College, a college which had been founded many years before as the result of a movement initiated in the academically memorable year 1847. The School began with a single department, that of Civil Engineering, but the great development of Electrical Science was recognized in due time and the Department of Electrical Engineering was opened to students in 1882, and a professorship in the subject established in 1890.
HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
In 1894 the field was broadened by the addition of a course in Mechanical Engineering and in 1898 of one in Chemical Engineer- ing. Each of the corresponding courses was of four years' duration, a period that is now looked upon as normal in the engineering schools of the country. During the first two years the course of study is the same for all departments as was suggested by Rogers in the historic "Scope and Plan " of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that has already been referred to. The School has notable men on its faculty, and amongst its graduates are numbers who have earned distinction in various fields of prac- tical endeavor.
The institutions thus referred to - the Lawrence Scientific School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Tufts School of Engineering - are the four schools in Massachusetts naturally spoken of in the develop- ment of higher technical education in that state. It should not be forgotten, however, that the distinction between "higher " and " lower " in the field of education is often a very artificial one, and there are several notable schools that might well be dealt with under the heading of this article. Such, for example, is the im- portant Wentworth Institute, incorporated in 1904 " for the pur- pose of furnishing education in Mechanic Arts"; the Lowell School for Industrial Foremen, a free evening school providing courses in Mechanical, Electrical and Structural Engineering, and conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by members of its instructing staff, and supported and directed by the Lowell Insti- tute; the Franklin Union, which owes its establishment to Benja- min Franklin and which, since its opening in 1908, has given ad- mirable training to over 10,000 students in Industrial Electricity, Structures and Surveying, Industrial Chemistry, Machine Con- struction, Steam Engines and Boilers, Heating and Ventilating, Gasolene Engines and various other practical courses; the North- eastern College, which conducts an Engineering School under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A .; the Textile Schools supported by the State. Massachusetts has done pioneer work in the great field of technical education and there is good reason for her activity in this field. She has no advantages of great natural resources nor strategic position for commercial supremacy and she must consequently make her wealth by the exercise of high intelligence in all the processes of business. The necessity for a scientific basis for action in all fields of practical endeavor is daily becoming more obvious, and Mass- achusetts is fortunate indeed that she realized this necessity early and thus laid the foundations of a great system of technical educa- tion well in advance of most of the states in the Union.
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