The magnitude of the Institute laboratories is shown by the following statements: The total horse-power of steam and other engines is nine hundred and eighty-three; the total capacity of tension, compression and transverse testing machines is over eight hundred thousand pounds, and of torsion testing machines about one hundred and fifty-six thousand inch pounds; the total horse-power of hydraulic motors is sixty-two; and the total capacity of pumps is thirty-two hundred gallons per minute.
The engineering laboratories are used by students of all the engineering departments, that is to say, by a large majority of the students in the school. The benefit derived by this actual contact with materials and with machines of commercial size, under proper instruction, is believed to be very great.
The department of mechanical engineering, one of the original departments, is now the largest in the school, having a force of instruction of five professors and twelve instructors and assistants. As an offshoot of it, a department of naval architecture was established in 1893, after a preliminary experience of four years with an option in this direction. This was the first course of its kind established in this country. It is somewhat remarkable, considering the preëminence that America has long enjoyed in the building of ships and marine engines, that our technical schools should for so long have failed to offer specialized instruction in these important branches. Schools devoted to these subjects have long existed abroad. The French Government School of Naval Architecture was established in 1865 for the purpose of educating young men for the Government service. To this school foreigners are admitted under certain restrictions. In England the first school of naval architecture was opened in 1871, but no systematic instruction seems to have been provided until 1864. At present, however, the Royal Naval College, at Greenwich, gives excellent and thorough instruction to young men desiring to enter the Government service. There has also been for a number of years an excellent course of study in naval architecture at the University of Glasgow. The Institute of Technology established in 1888 an elementary course in ship construction, and this was followed in 1890 by a specialized option in naval architecture extending through the four years. Already forty-one men have graduated from this course.
John D. Runkle, President, 1870–1878.
One of the large departments of the school is that of architecture. Forming one of the original departments established at the beginning of the Institute in 1865, when there was no similar department in this country, it may fairly be affirmed to have led in the development of instruction in this important profession. It was for many years in charge of Prof. W. R. Ware, who left the Institute in 1880 to assume charge of the newly established department at Columbia College. In common with the other departments of the Institute, that of architecture has developed enormously within recent years. Three times since 1883 has the department been obliged to change its location in order to meet the continued need of expansion. From the original small quarters in the upper floor of the Rogers Building, it has grown so that it now occupies two and one half floors in the Pierce Building, besides a large room for modelling in another building. The drawing-rooms now accommodate over two hundred students. The department has a magnificent library and a very large collection of photographs and lantern slides. Under the careful management of Prof. F. W. Chandler, who at the same time is head of the Architectural Department of the city and member of the Fine Arts Commission, it has now attained a most enviable reputation. Institute students competed for several years for the prizes offered by the New York Société des Beaux Arts, and in each competition in which they entered they carried off the gold medal and the highest honors. In the three competitions of ’94–’95, no less than seventy sets of drawings were submitted by all competitors. The two gold medals, four first mentions and two second mentions were awarded to Institute students. Of the nine designs sent from the Institute, six were placed by the jury among the first eight of the seventy designs submitted; two received second place and one was put out of competition because of too great deviation from the preliminary sketch. This great success is doubtless due to the rigorous training which the students receive in architectural design at the hands of Professor Despradelle, himself a graduate of the École des Beaux Arts, a winner of high honors in Paris, and of the third prize in the recent Phœbe Hearst world competition for the new buildings of the University of California, and within a few weeks the winner of the first medal in architecture in the Paris Salon of 1900. For three years the students are continually engaged upon architectural design, and the work of each student is examined and criticised before the class by a jury from the Boston Society of Architects. Students in architecture have also the opportunity, if they desire, of taking an option in architectural engineering, in which they are given a course in the theory and design of structures as rigid as that received by the students in civil engineering. The relations between architecture and engineering are exceedingly close and are becoming closer every year. The work of the architect, aside from the æsthetic design of his buildings, is becoming more and more like the work of the engineer, and requires a thorough knowledge of engineering construction.
During the past year, after very careful consideration, the faculty has also established an option in the course of architecture, devoted particularly to landscape architecture, including, besides a large amount of work in architecture proper, instruction in horticulture and landscape design, on the one hand, and in surveying, topographical drawing, drainage, etc., on the other hand. The landscape architect has heretofore had no opportunity to secure a thorough training in his profession, except by passing through an apprenticeship, as was formerly necessary in the older professions. On account of the steady increase in this country in the demand for trained landscape architects and the increasing attention which is now being paid by our municipalities to questions concerning public parks, and also by private individuals to the beautifying of private grounds, there seems now to be an unusual opportunity for young men to devote themselves to this branch of the profession. As usual, the Institute of Technology is early in the field with a course designed to this end.
Hydraulic Surveying in the Essex Canal, Lowell.
The last of the engineering departments to be considered and one of the largest, is that of civil engineering, a department established when the Institute was founded, and until 1881 under the direction of that accomplished scholar and teacher, Prof. J. B. Henck, and since 1887 in charge of the writer. This department has grown since 1886 from four to eleven teachers, and from sixty to one hundred and fifty-three students in the three upper classes. It now occupies the two upper floors of the Engineering Building, or about twenty-three thousand square feet. In recognition of the increasing importance of sanitary questions affecting the health of communities, a new branch of civil engineering was recognized by the Institute in 1889 by the establishment of a regular four years’ course in sanitary engineering, in which particular attention is directed to such problems, and students are afforded opportunities of studying the bearing of chemistry and biology upon them. Here again the breadth and specialization of the work at the Institute was shown, rendering it possible with no change in the teaching force and with no disarrangement of studies, to establish such a course of instruction as soon as the need for it became apparent.