Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 18

apportionment of any net profits made by the shop to the support of "at least eight of the most meritorious and deserving of the apprentices, by supplying clothing, board, or other things of which they may be in need. " Net profits, alas! There was to be many a dreary deficit before the books recorded profits.

It is probable that left to his own devices, Mr. Washburn would have established a trade school, comparable in scope to schools of mechanic arts of a later era. The alliance of the two plans, under the direction of an intelligent and courageous board of trustees, produced an institution that had no counterpart elsewhere. Let it not be thought that the marriage was a completely happy one, for it was many years before the two plans could live together peacefully. Had it not been so, the history of the Institute would have been far less colorful.

The founding fathers did not establish an engineering college; that was not their intention. They gave it a generous name - in the words of Senator Hoar, "a somewhat prolix title," The Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science. That it developed into a college of engineering was due to the genius of a few eminent teachers, to changed external conditions, and to the activities of early graduates.

There was in 1865 no pattern upon which the Worcester plan could be built. In conception and aims it was unique. It adapted some of the courses and methods of the European polytechnic schools, but found little in the previously organized schools of America that was adaptable. In fact, there were but five American schools, with historical backgrounds, that remotely resembled technical colleges. One of them was the U. S. Military Academy, organized in 1802, but existing in name only until after the war of 1812. It provided only one course in the civil adaptations of engineering.

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was founded in 1824, and for nearly half a century was the solitary and undisputed leader in American engineering education. General

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