Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 140

plan was approved by the trustees, and put into effect in the summer of 1883. Twelve boys, whose ages ranged from eleven to seventeen, were enrolled. H. W. Badger was the instructor. The following summer there were forty-two boys, and the course was continued for equally large groups until 1890. Many of the boys who received this preliminary instruction later entered the Institute. The wrench in the gears of this profitable plan was a financial one. The Institute informed the Mechanics' Association in 1890 that a payment of $800 would be a fair compensation for use of the shops. Since this was twice as much as had formerly been paid, the Association rebelled, and even though the Institute reduced the figure to $600, the Association decided to abandon the summer school and to put the money into a trade-school fund.

A few months later there came a proposal that raised the hopes of trade school advocates to a high pitch. Horace H. Bigelow, a Worcester manufacturer, submitted to Senator Hoar a plan for supplementing the good work of the Institute by establishing a trade school for high-school boys as a part of the Institute's program. To carry out this idea he offered the Institute a complete outfit of machinery, valued at more than $100,000, which had been used for the manufacture of firearms by the Bullard Arms Co., of Springfield, of which he was principal owner.

This proposal won immediate support of Milton P. Higgins, George I. Alden, Charles H. Morgan, and A. P. Marble, superintendent of the Worcester schools, all of whom wrote exhaustive reports on it. In their development of the plan, boys would have spent half their time in the high school, and the other half in the shops, under the direction of Institute instructors. Mr. Higgins also envisaged such a school as an excellent source of recruits for the Institute.

The trustees gave this plan the careful consideration it deserved, and voted to accept it when money should be available to establish and maintain such a school. They realized that additional funds would be needed to place the trade

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