Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 99

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Here was a little group of teachers engaged in a noble task that often taxed their patience and their courage. Poorly paid, they lived frugally, yet gave their students evidence that thrift was a virtue. Often they must have appeared to be tyrants for discipline, but when viewed from a mature vantage point, this discipline appeared to graduates as one of their major educational gains. Certain it is that majority opinion rates these teachers as men of high ability, earnest purpose, and abundant kindliness.

Each student was considered an individual, discussed and rated as such. Early in 1873 a basis of faculty rating was adopted, in which the element of personal judgment of the instructor was to become a part of the marking system. This personal mark, which was later to receive scathing condemnation from students, was to be averaged with the practice mark, the result to constitute one-half the tetra mark. The other half was the result of the written examination. Unexcused absences were denounced by the faculty, and the student who amassed too many of them was suspended. In 1872 the dead

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