MASS. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
The oldest, the most thoroughly appointed, and largest architectural school in the country is the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. It is in charge of Professor Francis W. Chandler, with a corps of ten professors, assistants, and special lecturers. The regular course consists of four years' study. Special students are admitted after satisfying the faculty by examination or otherwise that they are proficient in the preparatory studies required and are qualified to pursue to advantage the special work chosen.
The instruction in this department comprises the study of construction and materials, the study of building processes, and of professional practice, as well as that of composition and design, and of the history of architecture. It is arranged to meet the wants both of those who commence their professional studies at the beginning, and to some extent of experienced draughtsmen who desire to make up deficiencies in their training, or to qualify themselves for undertaking the responsibilities of practice.
The more strictly professional work begins with the study of the five orders and their applications, and of architectural history. During each year there is regular instruction in freehand drawing, the last year being from life. There is also a special class in pen-and-ink drawing under Mr. D. A. Gregg. Instruction is given in watercolor drawing by Mr. Ross Turner. The students are familiarized with the material elements of their future work by a course in practical construction, illustrated by lectures, problems, and by visits to buildings. The subject of specifications and contracts is discussed. Problems in construction of all kinds are given, to fix in the memory the principles already learned.
For two and one-half years the students are continually engaged upon architectural design under the charge of Professor Despradelle and Mr. S. W. Mead. Each student's work is examined and criticized before the classes by a jury from the Boston Society of Architects.
The Boston Society of Architects has established two prizes of the value of fifty dollars each in books for students who at the end of the year exhibit the best work.
Several thousand photographs, prints, drawings, and casts were originally collected for the Department by means of a special fund raised for the purpose. To these collections large additions have been made, at first mostly by gifts, but later by regular appropriations. Models and illustrations of architectural detail and materials are arranged in the rooms of the department. The chief part of the collection of casts of architectural sculpture and detail belonging to the department has been deposited in the Museum of Fine Arts, together with the architectural collection belonging to the museum. The students of the Department have free access to the museum at all times; as the building is close at hand no inconvenience results from the change, and some of the advanced exercises in drawing are held there. The museum of sanitary and building appliances contains models of plumbing apparatus, specimens of metal work, tile work, glass work, and wood work, partly purchased, but mostly deposited with the Department by the manufacturers. The architectural library contains a large and carefully selected collection of technical works and the leading periodicals, both American and foreign. The resources of the Department have been much enlarged by the erection of a special building devoted entirely to its uses.
In 1894 a summer school of architecture was held in Salem and Portsmouth for the study of colonial work. The courtesy of owners of houses built at this epoch allowed the students to measure and sketch the best work of this interesting locality, and in the future it is proposed to make an exhaustive study of colonial architecture.
Both men and women are admitted to all departments of the Institute. Candidates for admission must be at least seventeen years of age, and must pass satisfactory examinations in algebra, plane geometry, either French or German, English, history, and either advanced algebra or solid geometry. A detailed account of these requirements and the general conditions of the entrance examinations, which are held the last of June and middle of September, can be found in the catalogue of the Institute, which will be sent upon application by the secretary. The tuition fee is $200.00 a year divided into two payments, $125.00 due in October and $75.00 due in January.
During a number of years a special course of two years was maintained in the school, which attracted many students who did not find it possible to spend the time required for the full course of four years. This arrangement has now been discontinued and no special provision is at present made for other than regular students.
The Institute has from the beginning modeled its instruction very largely upon that of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and has ranked until the last few years as the only American school in which a thorough academic training in architectural design was attempted. Its professors of design Professor E. Letang, who died in 1892, and Professor D. Despradelle, both Frenchmen, have devoted their whole time to this branch of instruction, and have maintained a standard which until recently other schools have not approached.
Although the graduates from the full four years' course are comparatively few, no other school can count so many of its former students in prominent positions in the profession, and the Institute is deservedly proud of its record in this direction.