Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 42

It is the design of the Institute, when it shall have reached its full operation, to give instruction in all the different branches which relate to the applications of science to the arts of life. The field of science is now so extended, and the applications so varied and numerous that it is necessary for us to make a selection of such departments of instruction as are most obviously needful, and which in the opening of the Institute will come within its capabilities.

Of the subjects which should properly receive attention, in the opinion of your committee, the first in importance is Mechanical Engineering. Next to this we should place Civil and Topographical Engineering. The third subject should be Chemistry, with special reference to mining, agriculture, and the manufacture of chemicals, with the application to dyeing, bleaching, etc. The department of Chemistry is so wide and various that a selection of topics for special attention can only be made under the direction of a professor in arranging a possible course of study.

As a fourth, and a very important subject, a course of Commercial Study embracing all the necessary instruction for the counting house, banking, and general management of finances.

These subjects necessarily imply a thorough mathematical course as fundamental to the instruction in both branches of engineering, and also a course in Physics applicable both in the Engineering and Chemical courses.

Drawing would be essential in the engineering departments to enable students to draft plans of machines and the various structures to which their attention would be given.

There are other topics which in their importance fall but little below those which the committee have indicated. But as the range of study must be limited until some experience has demonstrated how much can wisely be attempted, your committee submit the above to the consideration of the Trustees.

These subjects if pursued will necessitate procuring a sufficient philosophical and mechanical apparatus for illustration and experiment in connection with recitations and lectures, and also the preparation and furnishing of an ample chemical laboratory, adapted to the advanced state of science at the present day.

The trustees fully realized the importance of choosing a capable man for the position of Principal in the new school. In the summer of 1866 they considered several college professors in New England, and reached a unanimous decision in favor of Prof. Paul A. Chadbourne, head of the department of Natural Sciences at Williams College. Dr. Chadbourne, a

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