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It was a case of now or never.Either the school would fall apart completely, or it would pick

itself up and become wiser for the tumble. As it happened, thenext twenty years were one of the most determining periods inWorcester Tech’s whole history, a time when standards and stand-ing were raised to unexpectedly high levels.

The pieces to pick up in 1896 were actually of considerable sub -stance. Perhaps the school’s greatest asset was its recent change toa four-year course. That, and the cumulatively amazing record ofits graduates. On the material side, there were several new build-ings, an increase in endowment—thanks again to the State ofMassachusetts—and the fact that Tech was no longer a free institute.

The work in the Tech classrooms went on as if nothing had 5to sign a pact with Dr. Mendenhall to be “good boys,” to keep

unpleasantness at a minimum; but there were few other studentswho knew anything at all about the recent turmoil in administration.

The ink was not long dry on the student agreement when “ ’98”appeared in big numbers on the shop steps. To answer for thisreprehensible development the boys were hurriedly summoned.Frank Harrington, president of the class, promised for his class-mates that the numbers would be promptly removed. But the oil ofthe paint had already sunk far down into the pores of the cement,and no matter how hard the boys rubbed, only the surface colorwould come off. Everybody finally conceded that the class of 1898had made a permanent impression.

The controversies which stormed around the hydraulic elevatorepisode divided the City into two argumentative camps. The AlumniAssociation spoke nervously of the prospect of becoming a “bywordin the street.” “There are many things existing at the Institutewhich could be severely criticized and justly so,” continued the re - port. “All of the departments are more or less in a state of transition.”

Inevitably there came a drop in enrollment and a deficit in thetreasury. Uneasiness was further intensified by the uncertainty ofthe whole country’s economic condition. Such was the difference ininvestment value that in 1901 the income from Tech’s investedfunds was less than it had been in 1873.

Then, too, there had been the interruption of the Spanish-American War. The Worcester Volunteers had marched off forCuba in 1898, wearing dark blue blouses and light blue trousers,high leggings and rakish campaign hats. Compared to other wars,

CHAPTER VI

When Roots Would Go Deep g g g g 1896–1915

The present must be regarded as a criticalperiod in the history of the Institute.

—Alumni Association pamphlet, 1895

We have sent out year after year fromour classes young men who have beenhighly taught in the arts of life and whohave become all over the country men of moment, who have helped administergreat business transactions upon whichthe safety and prosperity . . . of thenation depended.

—George F. Hoar, 1900

Davenport Cup, given by Class of 1890for athletic trophy, in memory of Clar -ence G. Davenport, who lost his life inSpanish-America War

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this one did not last long—small consolation to the families whocarried its grief and the full knowledge that war leaves no unim -portant tears. The first Worcester officer to be killed in this warwas a Tech student, Lieutenant Edmund Benchley.

Pelham W. Lincoln, also a Tech student, wrote to his mothersoon after the battle of San Juan Hill: “We camped on the battle-field where the Spaniards made their last final stand. All day wehave been throwing up breast works with our plates, cups, bayonets,or any odd thing we could find. Was not Lieutenant Benchley’sdeath very sad? He was shot through the heart and never said aword. I heard that the Hornet was destroyed in the naval fight, butcannot help hoping Ralph Earle escaped some way.”

He did, and came back to write a later chapter of WorcesterTech’s story.

Very soon after the War a corps of extremely competent teacherstook over the task of remaking Worcester Tech’s reputation. It wasto be a growing time at many unexpected edges, a time when rootswould go deep for a later harvest.

One tangible indication of Tech’s new directions was thehydraulic laboratory founded to study “the phenomenon of flowingwater.” Ironically, it too was “hydraulic”—in partial redemptionof the word which had become anathema at the Institute.

This laboratory had been initiated at an alumni dinner in 1893by Professor Alden. He had recently seen, he said, an old water privilege which would be an ideal setting for hydraulic experi - ments. The land covered perhaps two hundred acres and at leasttwo-thirds of it was under water. Stephen Salisbury III, alwayslistening for a good cause to support, casually interrupted: “I ownthat land. If you want it, I’ll give it to you.”

There was only one other school in the country with such a laboratory.

Since time immemorial, of course, water had been a subject ofhuman study. There had been wells for holding water, canals forchanneling it, reservoirs for storing it, aqueducts for moving it,siphons and pumps for coaxing it. In addition to its obvious bene -fits on which life itself relied, it had served many other practicalpurposes. The flow of water had been used to tell time, its pres-sure to move objects. Then, too, it had been used for power. But the new concept that this power might be transformed andtransmitted great distances had pried open many fields of inquiry.

With the ponds and brooks of Mr. Salisbury’s gift, which hadoriginally provided power for three woolen and grist mills, Techalso received all “water rights, flowage rights, one corn cracker,one portable grist mill, one shoddy picker, one rag duster, onecupola fan, one water grindstone, one two-horse cart, pulleys,beltings, sacks, measures, grain, and a Fairbanks standard scale.”

To this variety was later added the Fairbanks scale which Techhad acquired soon after its exhibition at the World’s Fair in 1876.This pair of scales was so sensitive that it would as agreeably weigh

The total neglect of hydraulic engineeringduring my stay at the Institute was aserious omission which actually hascaused me much additional labor.

—John M. Goodell (’92), 1897

I think that our technical schools oughtto have for the instructors the best ma -chinists, the best machine designers, thebest engineers, the best draughtsmen, andthe best and most cultured gentlementhat America affords, regardless of whatit costs. —Milton Higgins

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a sixty-thousand-pound load as a fifty-cent piece. It was also soreliable that in Worcester Tech’s hundredth year, the old scale wasstill in constant use at the hydraulic laboratory. In a small one-story building on the site of the old woolen mill, this Fairbanksscale was placed near the copper-lined weighing tank. Other in -dispensable equipment was the Venturi meter, thirty-six inches indiameter, purchased by Mr. Salisbury after the Chicago World’sFair of 1893. Through this meter, the largest in the world, all the water used at the Fair had passed.

George Alden guided the work of the hydraulic laboratory dur-ing its first two years before his resignation; by later provisions hewas to influence its activities permanently. Assisting him was ayoung graduate of 1894, Charles Metcalf Allen, and thus begananother indissoluble relationship of “man and lab” which wouldspan more than a half century.

In the summer of 1896 young Charlie Allen shared a third-floorroom in the Higgins home with his friend, John Higgins. TheHiggins family, with the exception of John, had gone to Europewith the hope that Mr. Higgins might recuperate from a breakdownof physical and nervous energies. John, a graduate of Tech’s Elec -trical Engineering course the previous spring, had set up a com-pletely automatic system in his room. By pushing the right buttons,he and Charlie Allen could raise the window shades, open the furnaces, and even feed Nelson (the horse) his morning oats.

John Higgins had also become plant engineer and shippingclerk of the Plunger Elevator Company, which his father andProfessor Alden had bought from Worcester Tech and transferredto Barber’s Crossing near the increasingly successful Norton Com - pany. For his thesis in 1896 John Higgins had submitted a plan forinstalling steam power and electricity in this elevator factory.

Electrical Engineering was becoming the predominant course atTech, straining the resources of the Physics Department underwhose care it had started with Professor Kimball before his deathin 1897. The number of majors in Electrical Engineering equaledthe graduates of all other departments; it was evident that accom-modations would soon have to be made for this greedy innovationwhich gave signs of encompassing almost every area of humanactivity.

At the same bitter board meeting in which the Washburn Shopshad been disrupted—in the strange way incidents have of balancingeach other—a young Purdue University professor, Harold B. Smith,had been engaged to organize an extensive course in ElectricalEngineering. Its scope was to broaden so rapidly that though thedepartment offered eleven courses in 1897, it had “limited” themto forty-one by 1915.

When the fourth president of the school, Edmund A. Engler,ordered a reorganization of curriculum in 1905, Professor Smithwrote a dramatic report of his cramped department in which hesaid a complete “strangulation” was imminent.

Harold B. Smith

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“It is the hope,” he continued, “that the first decade of thisdepartment may be closed by the dedication of a suitable buildingand equipment for the work of this department.”

It was. When in 1907 the Commencement exercises were held inthe “great laboratory” (it went by no other name for years) therewas an overwhelming reaction to the splendor of the building,“the largest and best in the world.” The first program of the festiveCommencement week, and the first in the laboratory, was a lectureby a professor recently appointed to teach Electric Railroad Engi -neering, Albert S. Richey. Present at the exercises that day wasone of the boys who was graduated in 1907, Arthur J. Knight, and thus began another long story in Tech’s personal relationships.

The new building was built in a symbolic “E,” the long verti-cal stroke of the letter represented by the laboratory, the shortmiddle one by the steps and entrance of the building.

Tech activities soon revolved around this new building of whichthe students were immensely proud. For years the steps were “off-bounds” for the freshmen. Along with the injunction to “wear atall times the regulation cap,” there was another rule which wasjust as strictly enforced: “Remain away from the electrical labora -tory steps at all times.”

To have their picture taken on these steps became a primaryobjective of the freshman class, and their attempts to accomplishthis feat led to some rather frisky tangles with their self-labeled“great and glorious superiors.”

As impressive as was the equipment of the electrical laboratory—with balconies of dynamos and motors standing in neat forma -tion as if awaiting inspection by the traveling crane—everythingdwindled into insignificance when the forty-foot Tech trolley firstclanged its way through the big west door of the building, givingthe professors and the boys a very expensive new toy. No otherpiece of laboratory equipment had ever been so valuable—or somuch fun.

Pullman-green, with gold trimmings, the car had side and enddoors but no regular steps, a precaution for persons who mightotherwise mistake it for a passenger trolley. Named “1907,” forthe simple reason that that was the year it was made, the car wasequipped to test speed, voltage, current, and resistance of rail-bonds—automatically—as well as many other things which onebewildered railway engineer said “would take a Philadelphia lawyerto understand.” Before the trolley was scrapped many years laterin the progression by which electricity kept outwitting itself, thecar had tested thousands of miles on the networks of New Eng -land’s electric railways.

The electrical laboratory had been well planned. As soon as itwas privately known that Mr. Salisbury was contemplating a giftof adequate size to build such a building, Professor Smith wasgiven a leave of absence to study all similar installations. Pro -fessor Richey also visited many engineering schools to obtain

This test car is a marvel of ingenuity. The tests it won't make of an electric line are rather difficult to mention. Theseit does while the car is in motion. Notonly does it search out the defect but itrecords it . . . by means of fire, so con-trolled that even when the ink has fadedthe spark record will remain.

—Lewiston Saturday Journal1915

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ideas for equipping the laboratory, and for many months Carl D. Knight was occupied in assembling the machinery for thebuilding. For once the school had something material in whichthere seemed to be no lack—no lack at all—and the space the new building indirectly provided for the other envious departmentswas partial compensation for unfavorable comparisons.

Just as the electrical engineering building was a link with thefuture, the new forge shop was a link with the past. It looked different; it was different, for in this foursquare little structure JohnJernberg presided at a long line of forges in the same regal mannerthat Anglo-Saxon blacksmiths had sat in state with kings and wereconsidered among the highest officers of the realm. While JohnnieJernberg, with speech and manners instantly betraying his Swedishbackground, showed the boys “how to hammer ‘em fort’ and backover de horn of de anvil” and how to determine heat by the colorof the metal, his ten-year-old nephew, Carl Johnson, watched withwide-eyed admiration. That is, when he wasn’t doing errands forUncle John, for Pop Monroe or Pa Fairfield, instructors in the shop.Carl’s best friend—after Uncle John—was Burt Gray, the instructorin foundry practice and director of the commercial foundry. Al -though there was perhaps a difference of forty years in age, thecompanionship that developed because a man bothered to talk andlisten to a little boy was later to pay dividends to Worcester Techfar beyond the measuring.

In 1904 the school lost one of its oldest friends with the death ofGeorge F. Hoar. He was easily Worcester’s most famous citizen.On the day of Senator Hoar’s funeral Tech students joined thethousands of persons in the cortege to City Hall, which like everypublic building in Worcester was covered with black drapes ofmourning. Senator Hoar had served in the United States Senate fortwenty-seven years; at Worcester Tech as corporator and as trus-tee for thirty-six years.

With the death of Charles H. Morgan in 1911, after an associa-tion with Tech for forty-five years, the school lost the last memberof its first board. A few months later, Milton Higgins died.

Mr. Higgins had come back to Tech in 1904 as a board mem-ber appointed by the State. There was a flurry of embarrassmentwhen he appeared (in a few short years he had become a man ofconsiderable prominence) and Mr. Morgan, always Mr. Higgins’staunchest supporter, made a gallant motion to rescind the votewhich had precipitated Mr. Higgins’ resignation in 1896. Whensomeone deftly suggested that for the time being perhaps the sub-ject might better go on the table, it apparently slipped clear underthe table. Never again was the motion recovered.

The board did ask Mr. Higgins, however, to write his opinionabout how the Washburn Shops could again be made profitable. Hewrote, then presented the report, but the board’s reaction was evasive.

The old ashes burst into brief flame when William W. Bird,

In 1869 I made before the MassachusettsLegislature on a petition which was suc-cessful for a legislative grant to thatschool, what I believe is the first publicaddress ever made in behalf of Technicaleducation in this country.

—George F. Hoar, 1904

He [Milton Higgins] is well known allover the United States as a leader ofthought in connection with the wide-spread movement for industrial education.

—State Board of Education, 1904

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who had reorganized the Shops under his guidance as head ofMechanical Engineering, flatly declared: “If they [the faculty andboard] think they ought to make money, I am in favor of and recommend that the Washburn Shops be given up as a commercialenterprise. It has not been our policy to run the shop on a commer -cial basis for the sake of making money.”

This didn’t make sense to Milton Higgins, whose whole experi -ence had revealed no better basis for making money. The academicarguments for keeping the commercial aspect only for keeping intouch with “the work of the world” and to “keep the studentsinterested by making something that could be used” seemed al-most to be a perversion of the motivation on which all businessdepended. Besides, what was so wrong with making money?

Leaving well enough alone, however, the board decided to main -tain the policy of keeping the Shops commercial, but not profitable.Thus they remained, keeping life anything but dull and givingcountless persons an argument to chew on for many years. TheShops undoubtedly had a valuable teaching function, although noone could ever quite define it, and now when any old graduate isasked what he remembers most happily about Tech, he invariablymentions the Shops. Usually his face lights up as his heart warmswith the remembrance.

By the time Mr. Higgins came back to Worcester Tech as amember of the board, he had achieved national recognition chieflyas an innovator of trade schools, an example of which he hadorganized in Worcester. (Elmer H. Fish resigned as instructor ofDrawing at Tech to become the first president of this school.) Theelevator business had been sold to the Otis Company, and Mr.Higgins had become president of Worcester Pressed Steel Company,Riley Stoker Corporation (founded on an invention of his son-in-law, R. Sanford Riley, a Tech graduate) and of Norton Companyand its near-relative, the Norton Grinding Company.

The day after Mr. Higgins died, the flags were again at halfmast on Worcester’s public buildings. Many years later his daughter,still hurting from her father’s old wound, would write of that day:“I wished he could see them, especially the flag at the Tech flyingso valiantly for him on the tower of Boynton Hall.”

As Worcester Tech lost old friends, it gained new ones. JamesLogan was neither old nor new, but both. He had been close toTech ever since his boyhood when he had worked in the stationerystore where students bought their books. He had sung with theTech glee clubs and played on the ball teams. Named an honorarymember of the Class of 1876, Mr. Logan was later made the firsthonorary member of the Alumni Association in 1891 and a mem-ber of the board in 1899.

Mr. Logan’s business career had started in David Whitcomb’senvelope factory, and his favorite story was of how, when Mr.Whitcomb refused him a raise in salary, he had left to form hisown competing company. It thus developed that as one man had

In order to be of service, a man musthave some advantage over the other fel-low and at the same time he must havecharacter enough to prevent him frommaking use of the advantage to the dis-advantage of his fellowmen.

—William W. Bird, 1921

His life has been worth millions toWorcester and is to be worth billions as time and the industries go on.

—Obituary of Milton Higgins, 1912

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helped to establish the school in one generation, another camealong in the next—and in the same business—to strengthen it. In1898 Mr. Logan had engineered the consolidation of nine envelopecompanies into the United States Envelope Company, of which hewas general manager, then president.

Mr. Logan was widely known as Scotland’s most distinguishedAmerican. In 1907 he was elected Mayor of the City of Worcester.

The Class of 1908 dedicated their yearbook to Mayor Logan,“loyal friend of the Tech and of Tech men.” The editor-in-chief,voted the “brightest Senior” by his classmates, was Bob (“accentedon the second syllable”) Goddard. He and the two other boys whowere graduated from General Science were rated “as all good-natured pleasant fellows even though the average standing of theirdivision was very high.”

When the Graduates’ Aid prizes were awarded in 1908, thewords had a solemn sound of prophecy: “The men to receive theprizes and the order of their standing is as follows: First, RobertHutchings Goddard.” This boy had also been the first student ad -mitted to Sigma Xi, an honorary engineering society.

There were intimations of this boy’s future. According to theyearbook, Bob Goddard reveled in the “weirdest of physics” andmade a study of the “theory and application of a gyroscope forrelaxation.” Later Dr. Goddard was to reminisce of this periodwhen, as he said, “the writer was a youngster, a senior at Tech.”He told of the time when he “wrote up” an answer to the question:“Given a mass of explosive material of as great energy content aspossible, what height can be reached if a large fraction of thismaterial is shot downward, on exploding, with as high a speed aspossible?” His conclusion that “the rocket method is the onlymethod of raising apparatus of any delicacy to great height” was tohim the only answer consistent “with known laws of mechanicsand of common sense.”

The young senior submitted his speculation to several scientificjournals, but none was interested in such a fanciful idea.

As for his professors, there were several who believed in RobertGoddard’s extraordinary ability but none who suspected how radically his conjectures would alter whole curriculums in afuture generation. No more than there had been an inkling of theimportance of the tinkering done by Atwater Kent in a little shopon Hermon Street in a previous year, a tinkering which the boy hadseemed to prefer to the studies prescribed by his teachers at Tech.

The 1908 yearbook was to date the most mature contribution ofany graduating class and indicated a new depth of student percep-tion and perspective. It was all in all a sober book.

In fact, it was a sober year, the fall term starting off tragicallywith the death of a sophomore, Emil Gran, as a result of a meleeduring the cane rush. It simply happened—and nothing any-one could say or do could assuage the grief and guilt of every-one concerned. The boy was conscious for several days before his

We feel it was a part of the rivalry in -cident to college life. We most sincerelyhope, however, that this will do awaywith this custom of Tech students.

—Statement of Emil Gran’s mother,1908

A hundred years is a long time even asmen count time Monuments will decay,trust funds will vanish, even our beautifulCity Hall and all the buildings on TechHill will go the way of all works of man,but the Tech will remain, its life willprobably be longer than any of thesethings which I have mentioned, and weare today planning for this long andlarger life for the years that are to be.

—Mayor James Logan, 1913

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death and absolved everyone in generous forgiveness. So did hisfamily. Nevertheless, it was an appalling experience through whichmany thoughtless boys grew up to become responsible men.Fraternities and classes began making their own rules of conduct,thereby initiating a self-discipline which has become traditionaland has been seldom transgressed.

In 1908 the Tech community was also sobered by the resigna-tion of the beloved Johnny Sinclair as the last member of theschool’s original faculty. Professor Sinclair, who retired on the firstCarnegie annuity, shared his good fortune by turning over toWorcester Tech three paid-up insurance policies amounting to tenthousand dollars. It was his wish thus to endow a chair in mathe-matics and “to show affection,” as he said, “for the Institutewhere in the early years Mrs. Sinclair and I taught together, andto show my gratitude for the opportunity which the Institute openedto me through thirty-nine years for a useful life.” Although Pro -fessor Sinclair’s gift was not publicly disclosed until after his death,an announcement was made that a chair bearing his name wouldbe established and that the first recipient would be Levi Conant,who since 1901 had been chief assistant in the Mathematics Depart - ment. Professor Sinclair was delighted.

The teachers of Tech were becoming as well known for abilityin the classroom as for brilliance in their subjects. Reflecting thisregard, the trustees had virtually handed over to the faculty thetask of running the institution. This was the day of the giants. In thePhysics Department was A. Wilmer Duff, known in many a school for his Textbook of Physics. There was Arthur W. French inCivil Engineering; Leonard P. Kinnicutt in Chemistry; George H.Haynes in Economics and Government; Zelotes W. Coombs inEnglish; Charles J. Adams in Modern Languages; William W.Bird in Mechanical Engineering; Harold B. Smith in ElectricalEngineering, and Alton L. Smith in Drawing and Machine Design.

Serving with these men were such professors and instructors asArthur W. Ewell, Frederic Bonnet, Jr., Raymond K. Morley,Joseph O. Phelon, Carleton A. Read, Carl D. Knight, George I.Rockwood, Francis W. Roys, Arthur J. Knight, Morton Masius,Robert C. Sweetser, Daniel F. O’Regan, and Daniel F. Calhane.

In 1911 Tech lost one of its strongest professors, ProfessorKinnicutt, at the too-early age of fifty-six. His successor had beenpicked by himself many years previously, in 1896, while attendinga conference of the British Association for Advancement of Science,held at the invitation of the Duke of Marlborough at BlenheimCastle. On that occasion a picture was taken of the guests whoassembled on the front steps of the castle. Dr. Kinnicutt, who hadbeen looking for the right man for his department (Dr. Fuller hadrecently resigned as “principal and instructor of chemistry”), hadbeen told of a young scientist who was doing outstanding graduatework in Europe.

Taking a chance that he might find the man here, Dr. Kinnicutt

People who make the rules keep the rules.—Fraternity member, 1964

The corporation records its determinationto maintain status of this Institute as anengineering college of the highest gradeand directs the Faculty to establish andmaintain entrance requirements andgraduation standards suitable for a college of that status.

—Board of Trustees, 1905

Do not be deceived. The good professoris not necessarily the famous man, thegreat speaker, or the great writer, or themaster of books, or the very learnedman, or the popular man.

—John Woodman, 1868

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asked in a loud voice, “Is Jennings here? I want to ask him tocome to Worcester.”

“Worcester? Where’s Worcester?” came an answer from thecrowd. Everyone turned to look at the full-faced, eager young man,wearing, of course, the black bow tie which had already becomepart of his personality.

Walter Jennings, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, boy, was soon tofind out where Worcester was. He joined the teaching staff ofTech in 1896, and when Dr. Kinnicutt died, he became head of theChemistry Department.

In Dr. Kinnicutt’s will he left a bequest to the school with thecondition that after his wife’s death the school would be attestedas being “scientific, not a trade school” by the presidents of Dart -mouth, Amherst, and Williams.

He provided his own best guarantee, at least in his own depart-ment, by his choice of Walter Jennings.

Dr. Jennings’ wife, an English girl with a continental educationand the most proper of manners, found Worcester strange butfriendly. As she had been taught to do, she began inviting people infor tea. From this little gesture developed a warmth which includedthe ladies as well as the professors in a new kind of Tech familyrelationship. Eventually the social sessions moved to a room inBoynton Hall. Sometimes the whole Jennings family, including theprofessor, could be seen trudging up the long hill carrying cups andsaucers and the usual paraphernalia for Mrs. Jennings’ popular teas.From this custom grew the beginnings of the W.P.I. Women’s Club.

The Jennings family lived in Professor Thompson’s old house,where on window panes in an upstairs ell could still be seen thesignatures of Tech boys who had rented rooms from the first prin-cipal. This was a treasured window, and Mrs. Jennings often tookher guests up the steep stairs to see this reminder of the school’shistory so indelibly etched in glass, that is, until the sad day whena helpfully-intentioned workman replaced the scratched paneswith clear new ones and called it progress.

These were the exciting years when Tech’s new courses and newinstructors raced to keep up with the technical fields which wereconstantly being introduced. For instance, David L. Gallup offereda pioneer course in air engineering long before air flight was conceded to be a practical possibility. His students once launcheda twenty-one-foot glider thirty feet in the air as an experimentalproject. All too quickly the glider keeled over, and several ribswere broken—the glider’s, fortunately, not the pilot’s.

Professor Gallup also had an experimental ice boat which metwith frequent incident and disaster. One wintry day, after the boyshad pushed the balky boat for a half mile across the ice, theyagreed ice-boating would be more fun in the summer. When theytried it again on a warmer day and were moving nicely along atfifty miles an hour, the boat pushed its runners into mellow iceand sank into forty feet of water.

Mrs. Walter L. Jennings

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Professor Gallup and his students also made an automobilewhich he claimed was the fastest in the world under a thousandpounds. It could travel eighty miles an hour.

The automobile was just beginning to catch the fancy of thegeneral public. Only a few cars were seen in Worcester in ad-dition to Charles Crompton’s, which was of his own design and had reportedly cost fifty thousand dollars. John Higgins hada Stanley Steamer, George Rockwood a Mobile, Frank Knowles aWinton. In 1905 a new phrase appeared in Worcester’s medicalrecords when George N. Jeppson was X-rayed for a “chauffeur’sfracture.” Charlie Allen eliminated this risk by inventing his ownstarting system. It was simple, he said—just throw some gas under -neath the car and light a match.

Among the Worcester Tech alumni who notably contributed tothe development of the automobile was Elwood Haynes; his firstgasoline horseless carriage eventually found its way into the Smith-sonian Institution. When in 1914 he visited Tech and his cousin—Professor George Haynes—he was given a hero’s welcome. Al -though he was still president of the Haynes Automobile Companyin Indiana, he had shifted his attention to “stellite,” a metal alloy,harder than any other metal, and one which “would hold its cut-ting edge while red hot.” He had been working on this “stainless”steel since his schooldays at Tech, when a razor he had made an -noyed him by frequent rusting and tarnishing.

The first truck in Worcester is said to have originated in theWashburn Shops. It was used primarily for carrying supplies backand forth to the hydraulic laboratory in Holden. Roads were unreliable; so was the truck. Each time the boys succeeded in mak -ing the trip to Holden and back without mishap, they put a crosson the dashboard, which, it must be said, never became over -crowded. Ralph Morgan, a Tech student, also did much of his testing in the Washburn Shops for his three-ton power truck drivenby steam. From experiments on this truck he went on to Pope-Toledo as chief engineer to design and supervise the making of thefirst motor vehicle with four-cylinder gas engine power.

Windsor T. White, another Tech man, had developed the WhiteSteamer in Cleveland. Henry J. Fuller (President Fuller’s son) hadbecome president of the Rolls Royce Company of America and A.Atwater Kent had become a manufacturer of automotive supplies.

So many Tech graduates were now managers and owners of the businesses in which they had started out as engineers that special emphasis was given to a course in Shop Management. Thiscourse was especially popular because of its synchronization withthe theories and methods of Frederick W. Taylor, who has becomeknown as the pioneer of Scientific Management.

Continuing in the spirit of the lecture courses instituted as earlyas 1888, Worcester Tech kept its community well informed of thetechnological changes in the world. There were public lectures onwater, evolution, high building construction, even “On the Brain”

Eighty-five percent of the horse-drawnvehicle industry of the country is un -touched by the automobile. The man whopredicts the downfall of the automobileis a fool. the man who denies its greatnecessity and general adoption for manyuses is a bigger fool: and the man whopredicts the general annihilation of thehorse and his vehicle is the greatest foolof all. —Address, National Association

of Carriage Builders, 1910

Quite a number of the grads [of Tech]are the owners of machine and electricalshops in this city, and the same is true of some who were professors on BoyntonHill. —Donald Tulloch, 1914

George H. Haynes

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by G. Stanley Hall (president of Clark University). There wereelectrical demonstrations of “labor saving devices” such as electricirons, ovens, dryers, and vacuum cleaners—the latter “muchcheaper and easier to operate than the old carpet sweeper.” Wire -less telephony had also been discussed and the wireless receivingstation in the tower of Boynton Hall thoroughly inspected. WilliamW. Bird had presented his theories about transmission of power byleather belting. There had been an illustrated talk with lanternslides in natural colors by a professor of M.I.T. “Nothing of thiskind has ever been seen in Worcester,” declared the impressedreporter. Within the month, Harold B. Smith used a hundred similar slides to illustrate his lecture on “High Voltage PowerTransmission.”

No subject received so much public interest, however, as didCharlie Allen’s “Gasoline: Its Uses and Abuses.” Punctuating hisremarks with appropriate flame and explosion, Professor Allenadvised caution and respect. He also predicted that an automobileusing kerosene would be on the market within a few years.

Professor Allen was always well equipped with props and tools,which he kept in bulging pockets lined with leather. “How manyof you have a jackknife in your pocket?” he would ask his studentson their first day in class. Usually the collection was small andthe professor would admonish: “Always carry your tools. The leasta good engineer should have with him is a jackknife.”

Among the props for his lectures, Professor Allen had cans ofgasoline and kerosene and a stack of freshly laundered hand towels.As part of his routine he would pick up one of these towels, dramatically shake it out, then deftly smother the flames his gaso-line vapor had made. There was one occasion when the flameswent completely out of control. Nonchalantly he shook out histowels and went through the motions of calmly smothering onefire after another. Everyone thought it was part of his act, and onlyafterwards did Professor Allen admit he “had been scared to death.”

For many years Professor Allen gave his lecture at a ridicu-lously varied assortment of functions. He accepted every invitationas eagerly as if it were for a scientific convention. Probably theonly time he wished he hadn’t bothered was at a fraternity housewhere the boys had connected his metal-topped table to an electricalcurrent. Professor Allen leaned against the table during his talkand for the rest of his life bore deep scars on his thighs as areminder of the experience.

Again and again the bottom of Tech’s treasury barrel was scrapedin an effort to adopt the innovations of the early 1900’s. Occasion - ally unexpected gifts came from unexpected sources. But there wereother instances when the school’s expectations did not materialize,chiefly when Stephen Salisbury III died in 1905.

When Mr. Salisbury resigned from the presidency of Tech’sboard a few months before his death, he tempered the break by a gift of $100,000. In his will there was a provision for $200,000

By radio there is also promise that it will be practical to transmit motion pic-tures, to permit remote vision, in exten-sion of the present transmission of photo-graphs by electrical means.

—Tech Circular, 1905

Charles M. Allen

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more—“only $200,000,” said one trustee off-guard. Mr. Salis-bury left the bulk of his estate to other causes, principally to the Art Museum in which he had great interest as founder. Thefact that he made his will in 1896, the year in which WorcesterTech reached a very low ebb, may also have had something to dowith his decision. At any rate, the omission of Tech from a moregenerous bequest was a finality that had to be faced.

“Everyone has thought of the school as Stephen Salisbury’sproject,” said Charles Washburn, who succeeded him as presidentof the board. “We must realize that nothing further from thatsource can be received.”

There seemed to be nothing else to do but turn again to theState, just as Tech had done so many times in previous years. Theannual grant had been increased from three to fifteen thousanddollars, but this amount no longer covered the cost of the scholar-ships which Tech was obliged to give State-selected applicants.

This time asking for money was not easy. There were indicationsthat State support would not much longer be available for privateinstitutions, and many of the legislators were anxious to hurry the trend. When the bill came up for discussion in Boston, twohundred Tech men went to the hearing. Chief spokesman was Rob - ert M. Washburn (Charles Washburn’s brother), and supportinghim were Dr. Homer Gage, Mayor Logan, George Booth, andCharles Washburn. The opposition pointed out that since itsfounding the school had received more than three hundred thousanddollars. That’s really not so much, countered the Worcester men,compared to the almost three million received by the AgriculturalCollege or the more than one million by M.I.T.

These were the years when M.I.T., hard-pressed for room, wasfaced with the necessity of changing its location. The school hadthree buildings on Boylston Street plus many others scattered onfive streets in the Back Bay district. Its athletic field was a mileaway, near Jamaica Pond. For several weeks there were rumors of a merger of Worcester Tech with M.I.T., with visions of a hugestate technical school occupying the fancy of many an educator.There was considerable disappointment when the trustees of M.I.T.chose the site in Cambridge despite the editorial observation that “it seems hard to see why Cambridge would want it when allagree Harvard is a drag on the city treasury.”

The Massachusetts Legislature eventually bargained with Worces -ter Tech, promising a grant of $500,000 provided the school itselfwould raise $350,000 within the next five years.

This was talking in big terms, but sounded like a victory. Thatnight an impromptu parade of five hundred persons gave the newsto Worcester. The school’s sagging old barn was tied together(with the rope now used in the traditional rope pull) and hauled toBliss Field for a bonfire “of no small proportions.”

As pleased as Mr. Washburn was, he cautioned that this wasonly the beginning of a great deal of hard work. Soon afterwards

Stephen Salisbury was forced to confinehis intimacies to those who he knewwould ask him for nothing. Most menasked him for everything . . . A mission-ary was the only man who in his zealever ventured to slap him on the back.This was almost sacrilegious. He got nomoney. Most men handled him as tender-ly as a bit of bric-a-brac.

—Reminiscences of Worcester Fire Society

Probably at no other institution in thecountry can a poor student get as muchfor his money as he can here.

—Charles G. Washburn, in letter to Horace Wyman, 1905

We think union with Polytech would be agood thing, but it isn't worth going toWorcester for. —Spokesman for M.I.T.

1910

It [M.I.T.] is not likely to go to the proposed site on the banks of the Charlesin Cambridge because of the poor neigh-borhood. —Richard C. MacLaurin, 1910

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he called together a mass meeting of students, faculty, trustees, andalumni—the first in the history of the school—to discuss the serious financial challenge.

Worcester Tech had lost two of its presidents largely because ofthe frustrations concerned with money raising. Dr. Mendenhall’sregime had ended in 1901 with his despairing comment that hecould not “perform in the Institute the service of which it standsmost in need; that is, an increase in its endowment.”

His successor, Dr. Engler, felt the same nagging worry. It wasonly in perspective that the gains of Dr. Engler’s administrationwere properly evaluated. His personality was unfortunately not socolorful as his accomplishments and prevented people from seeingeither. During his years as Tech’s president, the enrollment wasdoubled, the departments were reorganized, two buildings werebuilt, and the power and heating systems revised. Student activitieswere increased, post-graduate courses were incorporated into thecurriculum, and scientific and engineering societies were establishedon campus, as well as an honor society. It had been Dr. Engler’shope to make Worcester Tech a first-grade professional school.

According to Charles Washburn, “all this progress has beenmade without disturbance or friction.” Nevertheless Dr. Englerwas disappointed because he could not raise the money for furtherdreams. A fellow member of the Worcester Fire Society after-wards wrote sadly, “He came to Worcester as a stranger, gave theCity ten years, then left almost as a stranger.”

With Dr. Engler’s resignation, attention shifted almost immedi-ately to Mayor Logan. He was immensely popular and thought tobe the perfect choice for Tech’s presidency. Not only was theinvitation unanimous from the board, but also from the alumniand students. Mayor Logan had left school when he was ten yearsold and had had no other academic background. “If he accepts,”remarked an editorial in the Worcester newspaper, “it will be anhonor never come to man in this country or any other.”

At the Alumni dinner in 1911, which by that time had becomean annual tradition, Mayor Logan announced that he could not ingood conscience accept the invitation to become president. Forthe time being, Levi Conant, the oldest member of the faculty,was made acting president.

It was Professor Conant who proposed to be responsible forraising a hundred thousand dollars in the drive for funds. Thealumni tackled a similar goal, and Professor Arthur D. Butterfieldwas loaned by the school to promote the cause among the mem-bers of the thirteen alumni associations. Mr. Washburn himselfpromised $50,000.

On his jaunts across country Professor Butterfield took along arecord made by Professor Coombs, Mr. Washburn, Professor Jen -nings and Professor Gladwin (now very old, but still operating anart studio in Worcester). This record, an embryonic public rela-tions aid, was a subject of much comment. All they did, said the

The three things indispensable to a goodcollege, and wanting any one of which, it will certainly fail, possessing all ofwhich, everything besides is but the dustupon the balance, are these: money, wisdom, and good teachers.

—John S. Woodman, 1868

I think the transition from our presentstatus to that of a strictly professionalschool could be made in the course of a few years without causing any specialcommotion. We are in as good a positionto make this change as any institution inthe country. —Edmund A. Engler, 1908

Edmund A. Engler

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impressed participants, was “speak into an Edison recorder and in a few minutes it was reproduced through the horn of anothermachine.”

The culmination of the successful campaign coincided with the50th anniversary of the school in 1915.

By that year the school had a new president, whose first publicannouncement was of his intention to establish athletics as an im -portant part of the school program. Ira N. Hollis had been dean ofthe Engineering Department at Harvard University and chairmanof the Harvard Athletic Commission. It was he who had designedthe horseshoe stadium of Soldiers Field. By more than passing coin - cidence, it had been Arthur W. French, now head of W.P.I.’s Civil Engineering Department, who had been the engineer incharge of constructing the field.

The vigorous Dr. Hollis had further appeal because of his Navybackground, having been graduated from the Naval Academy firstman in his class before spending fifteen years in active service.The felicitous choice of Dr. Hollis at this time, when at last theTech alumni had pushed through their objectives for an athleticfield and gymnasium, was well timed.

At last the school was to jump the street which had for so longprevented its expansion to the west. All of Tech’s buildings hadcrowded close together on the brow of the hill and as close toWest Street as possible as if bracing for this eventual leap. TheAlumni Association had previously purchased Bliss Field with theintention of turning it into a properly equipped athletic field. Butso far nothing had materialized.

Now Worcester Tech made one of its most significant purchasesby extending the campus all the way to Park Avenue. The AlumniAssociation agreed to substitute this lower area for the top of thehill as a site for their athletic field; they even bought several smallparcels of land so that the boundaries would be sharply marked bystreets.

It was announced that this extra land “would be fully capable oftaking care of the growth of the Institute for the next fifty years.”

The civil engineering students fondly adopted this undevelopedfield for their practice project. They came to know the “elevation ofevery cobblestone” and made no end of grading and drainage sys -tems for this precious plot of ground.

In 1914 the athletic field was completed and initiated by aspectacular football victory over Rensselaer, fourteen to nothing.

The boys in the Antenna of ’77 had said they knew the futureday would come when the rich alumni would provide a gymnasium.This prophecy was to come true, and they would be chief amongthe rich men to pay for it. In 1915 the laying of a cornerstone forthe long-awaited gymnasium constituted an important part of theanniversary observance.

The 50th birthday celebration was planned to last four days,beginning with a procession with faculty and seniors in academic

I come here not to direct, but to be dir -ected by the students. The credit of aninstitution is in the students. The presi-dent is merely a chore man to help thosewho want to help themselves to get whatthey want. —Ira N. Hollis, 1913

All athletics at the Institute are boundedby the Faculty on the north, by lack offunds on the south, by lack of time on the east, and by no facilities on the west.

—Aftermath, 1908

The plans for a new Tech gymnasium are made and the only thing lacking ismoney. —Alumni Association, 1909

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robes for the first time in the history of the school. One hundredand eighty invited delegates from other schools and engineeringsocieties, the trustees, faculty, and students were to proceed fromBoynton Hall to Central Church for the Baccalaureate service onSunday morning. As usual, just as it had fifty years before whenthe school had been dedicated and as it had on so many other im -portant occasions—it rained, and the procession was canceled.

It was a disappointment, especially to Professor Coombs, whohad been responsible for much of the planning and who had beennamed as marshal for all functions. But if the guests had knownhow much more walking Professor Coombs had in store for them before the week was over, there would have been no com-plaint. The processions which criss-crossed the City for four daysculminated when the guests, accompanied by several bands, marchedfrom the Bancroft Hotel through the Common and up Main Street to Mechanics Hall. There they passed through the doubleline of Tech students who had walked down in formation fromBoynton Hall.

The expected speaker, President Woodrow Wilson, had sent hisregrets with the foreboding explanation—“pressure of publicbusiness especially in connection with the European War.”

There was nevertheless no dearth of speakers at Tech’s anniver -sary party. One of them was Booker T. Washington from TuskegeeInstitute. He had, he said, almost missed the train north becausethe only coachman available had refused to drive a Negro to thestation. Dr. Washington had broken the impasse by taking the reinshimself and letting the coachman sit in style on the back seat.

This unforgettable visitor, with his unforgettable story, helpedthe other prominent guests to tie Tech’s half century into manyneat bundles of praise. Then the great throng returned to the campus, which “perfect weather” had surprisingly made a “mostacceptable place” for lunch and innumerable reunions.

The school took a deep breath. It now had a history, having survived its first fifty years. Even the weather had given its blessing.

g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g

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Water wheel experiment, 1906, Hydraulic Laboratory

101

Leslie J. Hooper and Lawrence C. Neale with old Fairbanks scale

Hydraulic Testing Station, 1897

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Electrical Engineering Laboratories, later named for Atwater Kent

Stephen Salisbury’s hayfield, the site of the above building

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Tech car superimposed on Massachusetts Electric Railways map

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Faculty, 1910. Back row: A. Smith, Read, C. D. Knight, Jennings, Kinnicutt, Engler, Butterfield, Conant, Haynes, French, R. Sweetser; front row: Phelon, Coombs, Allen, Richey, H. Smith, Ewell, Duff, Ives

Mechanical Engineering staff outing, 1906. In doorway: Carl Au, Charles Allen, President Engler, David Gallup, J. K. Marshall; top step: W. L. Buchanan, bookkeeper, A. L. Smith; second step: Albert S. Buzzell, Wm. Bird, Noah Ashworth, John Jernberg; in front: N. W. Nelson, Howard P. Fairfield, T.W. Johnson; at left, standing: Louis W. Rawson; at right standing: Wilbur R. Tilden.

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Shop Management class, Francis W. Roys third row, left. Picture still hangs in Washburn Shops

In nostalgic moment Carl G. Johnson revives old forge originally used by his uncle, John Jernberg, left