Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 137

rent, and had the advantage of much free labor of apprentices. This produced another investigating committee and a long report, which attempted - none too successfully - to answer Mr. Lincoln's questions. The single change made by the trustees was to limit the value of oral contracts to be made by the superintendent to $1,000. Contracts above this amount were to be approved by the shop committee. In 1891 Charles H. Morgan gave a vigorous report for the committee, affirming that they saw no need for changing methods, nor had they any scheme to propose for future management. "All we seem to need is stronger faith in our past, well-tested policy, and more enthusiasm for the future."

The following year Charles G. Washburn, junior member of the shop committee, made a real engineering report on shop transactions. He showed that with proper accounting for instruction costs, the shops were making a profit of 15 per cent on total sales. Elevator sales netted 8 per cent, grinders, about 7 per cent, and drill grinders, 40.5 per cent. This report had additional merit in the eyes of the historian, for it was the first Institute document written on a typewriter.

The faculty also took occasion to raise a question about the shops. "Are we one educational institution with several branches having similar relations to a common trunk, or are we two institutions - the Institute and the Shops - placed side by side for mutual convenience?" judge Aldrich, Senator Hoar, and Mr. Morgan answered the question emphatically in a report of great length. "The Institute is one institution under the government of one managing board of trustees, having full power, from time to time, to prescribe such rules and regulations, in each and every department of the Institute, including the shop, as they may deem best to promote the highest welfare of the whole institution." That was in 1891, and it settled the question for nearly a decade.

The success of the Washburn Shops in building and selling plunger elevators brought a competitor, the Worcester Elevator Co., into the field. As early as 1887, this company

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Last Modified: Fri Jul 30 11:15:25 EDT 1999