Before passing to a more detailed description of the work of its various departments, some general characteristics of the school should be mentioned. The first is the great variety of its courses and the specialization of its instruction. It is a college of general technology, embracing almost every branch of study which finds application in the arts. There are thirteen distinct courses of study: Civil and topographical engineering, mechanical engineering, mining engineering and metallurgy, architecture, chemistry, electrical engineering, biology, physics, general studies, chemical engineering, sanitary engineering, geology and naval architecture. These several departments mutually support and reinforce each other, and allow a specialization of the instruction which would be impossible in a smaller college with a less numerous staff of instructors. Thus, at the Institute of Technology, there are not only professors of civil engineering and of mechanical engineering, but professors of mechanism, steam engineering, railroad engineering, highway engineering, hydraulic engineering, topographical engineering, etc. Again, the chemical staff of twenty-four persons is distributed over general chemistry, analytical chemistry, organic chemistry, industrial chemistry and sanitary chemistry. There are separate laboratories for water analysis, for gas analysis, for food analysis, for dyeing and bleaching, etc. In each of these there are teachers who are able to give their entire time to instruction and research in a single line.
William Barton Rogers, President, 1862–1870; 1878–1881.
The second characteristic of the Institute is the predominance of laboratory, shop and field practice, experiment and research. These are used wherever it is found practicable to supplement, illustrate or emphasize the work of the recitation or lecture-room.
The third characteristic of the Institute, and one which is absent in the case of many similar schools, is the fact that a not inconsiderable amount of general training has from the beginning been required of every candidate for the degree. In some technical or scientific schools there are no liberalizing studies, aside from those of a professional character. The faculty of the institute have insisted that such studies should be incorporated to a considerable extent in the curriculum of every course, recognizing the fact that few students in technical schools are graduates of colleges, and that the aim of the Institute should be first of all to graduate broadly trained men. Aside from the courses in liberal studies, a broad spirit is shown in the technical courses themselves. The study of general principles is always the chief end in view, and to it are strictly subordinated the acquirement of all knacks, tricks of the trade or merely practical rules.
These characteristics of the Institute were impressed upon it from the beginning by the master hand of its founder and first president, William B. Rogers. President Rogers aimed to establish ‘a comprehensive, polytechnic college’ which should provide a ‘complete system of industrial education.’ It is now generally recognized that a complete system of industrial education would consist of three parts: First, manual training schools, for developing the eye and hand, not with the object of producing artisans, but for training alone. Second, trade schools for special training in the technique of the different trades. Third, higher technical schools for training in the fundamental principles of the sciences, and fitting men in the broadest way to become leaders in the application of the sciences to the arts. Manual training is now generally recognized as a desirable addition to every scheme of public instruction and a powerful adjunct to every technical school. It was not indicated in the original scheme of the Institute, but was added in 1877 through the wisdom of President Runkle, as a result of the exhibition in Philadelphia of the results obtained in Russia by instruction of this kind. Trade schools, for the training of artisans, were never included in the scheme of President Rogers, and are not now, either in America or Europe, considered suitable adjuncts to so-called technical schools, although they are very desirable as special and independent institutions. The original plan for the Institute contemplated simply a school of the last-named kind, together with provision for evening lectures, to which outsiders should be admitted, and which it was expected would be of benefit to artisans; and also the establishment of a museum of arts, and of a society of arts which should hold regular meetings and which should be the medium for the communication to the public of scientific discoveries and inventions. It may be as well to state here that the museum of arts was never established except in so far as the separate departments of the Institute have accumulated collections; but that the society of arts, which held its first meeting in 1862, has been continued to the present time. Many important inventions, as for instance the earliest forms of the Bell telephone, were first publicly exhibited at its meetings.
In outlining his plan, President Rogers showed wonderful keenness and foresight. With the added experience of the succeeding forty years, it would scarcely be possible to make a more complete statement of what experience has shown to be the best method of organization. In fact, his Scope and Plan of the School of Industrial Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may be said to be the first step toward a new order of things in education, and contains the first clear statement of the desirability of teaching physics, mining, metallurgy and other branches by the laboratory method.
The Henry L. Pierce Building and Engineering Building.
Let us now see what has been the result of the nearly forty years of development since President Rogers outlined his plan. Originally confined to one building, the growing needs of the school have led to the erection of five others, in addition to a gymnasium. The original building, completed in 1865, is now known as the Rogers Building, after the founder of the school; while the one next erected, in 1883, is named after the third president, the late General Francis A. Walker. These two buildings each measure about 90 by 150 feet, and in addition to a building occupied by the Boston Society of Natural History, occupy one entire square nearly in the heart of the city, and in close proximity to the Public Library and the Art Museum. Three other buildings, which adjoin each other and now form one structure, are situated about six hundred feet distant and form the front and part of one side of what will some day be one large quadrangle. The first of these buildings to be erected was the Engineering Building, built in 1889, measuring 52 by 148 feet on the ground, adjoining which is a building erected in 1892, 58 by 68 feet on the ground, and now forming part of the Engineering Building. Adjoining this is the Henry L. Pierce Building, erected in 1898, and measuring 58 by 160 feet. In addition to these buildings are the workshops, about a quarter of a mile distant, covering 24,000 square feet, and a gymnasium and drill hall.