IRLF 
 
 SB 33 bOfl 
 

 
 GIFT OF 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES; 
 
 THEIR NATURE, POSITION, AIMS AND WANTS. 
 
 "Is there any such happiness as for a man's mind to be raised above the confusion of things, 
 where he may have the prospect of the order of nature ? " 
 
 "Are we the richer, by one poor invention, by reason of all the learning that hath been these 
 many hundred years ? " 
 
 BY S. EDWARD WARREN. C. E., 
 * > 
 
 PROP. OF DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY, ETC. IN THE RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, AND 
 GRADUATE OF THE SAME. (CLASS OF '51.) 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN WILEY AND SON, 535 BROADWAY. 
 1866. 
 
A. W. SCRIBNER, PRINTER, CANNON PLACE, TROY, N. Y. 
 
 '": ,V I-7H ' 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 These unpretending pages, put forth in advance of a possible fuller 
 treatment of their subject, are an attempt to respond, even if but very 
 briefly, and provisionally, to much earnest inquiry concerning the true 
 nature, position, and aims of Polytechnic Schools; and to the evident 
 immediate need of correct popular information relative to them. It is 
 hoped that they may also contribute to unity of sentiment and action, 
 both among their friends in the community at large, especially their 
 alumni, and among their officers and thoughtful and earnest members. 
 That the need just alluded to exists, is riot surprising. The whole class of 
 Polytechnic otherwise called Scientific, Technical, Technological,' or 
 Industrial Schools is of modern origin everywhere, and in this country, 
 comparatively unique. Hence misapprehension of their true nature and 
 grade, and consequent legitimate mode of administration, not unnaturally 
 arises, on slight misleading occasions. 
 
 For statements of facts, we have relied on official publications, corres- 
 pondence, and standard educational literature, without, however, inter- 
 rupting the reader by continual foot note references to them. The 
 statistics of the concluding section are mainly abridged from the valuable 
 report on the reorganization and proposed development of the Rensselaer 
 Polytechnic Institute, prepared in 1855, by the then Director.* We 
 have been unable, in the short time which could be spared for recording 
 these notes, to hunt up many later or fuller authorities. 
 JANUARY, 1866. 
 
 B. FRANKLIN GREENE, A. M., C. E. 
 
 3G1399 
 
NOTES ON POLYTECHNIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 i. 
 
 It will be convenient to present, first, in these notes, a list of 
 the existing "Scientific Departments" and Technical Schools 
 in the United States, so far as they are known to the writer. 
 
 In reference to the first section of the following table', it 
 should be understood that it embraces those schools, whose 
 character as truly distinct professional schools, is most apparent. 
 This distinctive character is more or less obscured in the case 
 of the schools named in the second part of the table, owing to 
 their comparatively undeveloped condition, so far as now known, 
 or else to their being merged in the general courses of the institu- 
 tutions including them. Hence it has been impossible to 
 arrange them in the same list with those of the first section, in 
 the order of definite dates of beginning. 
 
 The familiar professional schools Theological, Medical and 
 Legal are, as is well known, sometimes separate institutions, 
 and sometimes, attached to colleges. The same is true of Sci- 
 entific Professional Schools. Hence, in any case where the 
 name does not indicate the fact, the first column of the table 
 shows the condition, in this respect, of each school mentioned. 
 
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 Gen'l Scien. & Tech. Course. 
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 Schools of Univ. of N. ' 
 
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 TON UNIVERSITY. 
 
 10 COOPER UNION FOR THE 
 MENT OF SCIENCE AND 
 dependent.) 
 
 
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 INSTITUTE. (Independ 
 
 12 SCHOOL OF MINES. (Of 
 College.) 
 
 13 MASSACHUSETTS INST] 
 TECHNOLOGY. (Full 
 years. Independent.) 
 
 14 WORCESTER Co. FREE Ii 
 INSTITUTE. (Independ 
 
 1 5 CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 
 
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 yet in operation.) 
 
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 AND ENGINEERING SCH 
 
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 with Harvard College ) 
 
8 
 SEOTIO3XT III 
 
 LOCATION. FOUNDED IN : ATTENDANCE. 
 
 Brown University. Dep't. 
 
 of Chemistry and Engineering, Providence, R. I. 
 
 New York Free Academy, N. Y. City, 1853, 482 in 1864. 
 
 Brooklyn Collegiate and 
 
 Polytechnic Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1855, 
 
 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Dep't. of Mines, Arts and Manu- 
 factures. 
 Washington College. Lexington, Va. 1866. 
 
 Dep't. of Practical Mechanics. 
 
 Some of the institutions named in the foregoing table, are 
 characterized by distinctive features, so marked and peculiar, 
 that a brief mention of them is added, so far as it may favor a 
 fuller understanding of the table. It is, however, as foreign to 
 our purpose, as to our place, to offer critical notices, or enter 
 into comparisons, at least in case of actually existing institu- 
 tions. 
 
 THE RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE is distinguished as 
 the pioneer of its class in this country. At first, more known 
 as a school of Technical Natural Science, than of late years ; 
 its present character, to which it owes so much of its pres- 
 tige, was impressed upon it during a transition period of 
 about five years, beginning in 1849. If it be added that, until 
 within a very brief period, it stood alone in respect to the 
 extent and elevation of its curriculum, it is saying no more 
 than ought to be true of the senior institution. The assertion 
 is also justified by the facts : first, that most of its graduates, 
 of late years, have required the full four years for the comple- 
 tion of their course of study ; and second, that, nevertheless, 
 
the average age of its first year men, or " Division D," has 
 been from one to two years above the minimum age (sixteen) for 
 admission, while the average age of its present second year 
 men, or "Division C," of over fifty members, is scarcely less 
 than three years above its corresponding minimum required age, 
 (seventeen). 
 
 THE SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL is in part characterized 
 by its connection with Yale College, which has long been a 
 distinguished home for the culture of the Natural Sciences. 
 
 THE LAWRENCE SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL possesses a distinctive 
 peculiarity of organization, by which limited fields of study 
 are marked out as departments, which are kept so far distinct, 
 that separate arrangements, as to tuition fees and times of 
 instruction, are required for each. 
 
 THE COOPER UNION is distinguished by its character as a 
 most noble charity, bright, it is not too much to say, in the 
 constellation of the world's best charities charities of that 
 nature that it is no humiliation at all, but a high honor, to be 
 intelligent and appreciative recipients of them inasmuch as it 
 acts, in an elevated sphere, on the sound principle of co-opera- 
 tion, uniting its benignly facilitating aids to progress, with the 
 worthy efforts of those " who carry weight in life." 
 
 We cannot here stop to give statistics of its practical work- 
 ings, since they are duly stated in its reports. 
 
 THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY is remarka- 
 ble for the comprehensiveness, and large scale, of its organiza- 
 tion. It embraces three grand divisions : A Society of Arts, 
 in several sections, each devoted to a specific subject of 
 theoretical or practical inquiry; and working on such a scale, 
 as to furnish motive power for use in exhibiting the action of 
 full sized mechanical inventions ; a Museum of Arts, analagous 
 to the Paris "Conservatory of Arts and Trades," and a School of 
 Technology, in six divisions, as seen in the table, and marked, as 
 it would seem, by a purpose to test the extent to which instruc- 
 2 
 
10 
 
 tion, in exact science, can be effectively given, by lectures, on 
 the basis of sixteen years of age, and an academy preparation, 
 as the minimum of age and training required for admission. 
 
 This institution also has a notable collateral feature, in its 
 system of free evening instruction to intelligent and earnest 
 artizans of both sexes, given in Boston by joint arrangement 
 with the " Lowell Institute." 
 
 THE WORCESTER COUNTY INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE has a quite 
 unique feature, in its unusual proposed provision for the prac- 
 tical study of mechanism. It contemplates nothing less than 
 what might be called a Laboratory of Mechanism, to consist of 
 a well appointed machine shop, with power, machines and 
 tools ; in which the special student of mechanical engineering 
 can find a counterpart to the Chemical Laboratory of the indus- 
 trial chemist ; the Physical Laboratory of the professional 
 student of physics, (optics, telegraphy, etc.) ; the Metallurgic 
 Laboratory of the student of mining, and the Mechanical 
 Laboratory (for testing materials, truss combinations, etc.,) of 
 the student of civil engineering. 
 
 THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY to embrace a school of agricul- 
 ture and the mechanic arts, as a condition of its claim to the 
 share of New York in the national public land grant to the 
 states for the endowment of agricultural colleges therein, con- 
 templated in the law of July, 1862 stands with few or no 
 rivals in the magnitude of its moneyed and landed endowments, 
 The former, including the grand donation of the State Senator, 
 whose name it bears, with the proceeds of the national land 
 grant, amounts, it has been stated, in round numbers, to one 
 and a half millions of dollars; and its grounds are required, by 
 the incorporating act, to contain not less than tw r o hundred 
 acres. The same act allows it to hold an aggregate property 
 not exceeding three millions of dollars. 
 
 When it is considered that there is a limit, fast approaching, 
 to the most useful number of such institutions for a given pop- 
 ulation, having reference, we mean, to the full development of 
 these technological schools, it is most earnestly to be hoped 
 
11 
 
 that the organization of this institution will be distinguished 
 by unity, breadth, and comprehensiveness of design, so that, if 
 built up in successive parts, each part shall fall into its fit place 
 as a component of a predetermined organic whole. The 
 opportunity, afforded by its resources, for realizing the ideal of 
 an essentially complete Polytechnic University, is too fair to 
 pass without the most studious and assiduous endeavors to 
 improve it. 
 
 In most just, though sad, contrast with the preceding bright 
 array of the crowns of freedom, there appears the shadow of 
 the so called University of the South, at Sewanee, Tenn. This 
 proposed institution has met the fate, due to the representative 
 educational head of a frustrated attempt to upbuild the collos- 
 sal barbarism of a political and social state, on the foundation 
 of a legalized dehumanization of an amiable, docile, and capa- 
 ble race of the fellow men of the members of that state ; a 
 state, which, besides being, as respects humane civilization, 
 barbarous, was, in the face of the nineteenth century of Chris- 
 tian civilization, a vast organized practical blasphemy. 
 
 Having an offensive dash of haughty sectionalism in its very 
 name, which was, doubtless, significant, this University was, as 
 exhibited in its constitution arid statutes, largely pervaded by 
 the sectional spirit of oligarchy and autocracy. It even made 
 a provision, so revolting to a worthy and justly high minded 
 professorial corps, for a counterpart to a plantation overseer, in 
 the person of an officer who was to have very much such dis- 
 ciplinary power over the Faculty ! ! as the latter should, if at 
 all w r orthy of their places, have over the immature, or readily 
 misled, youths committed to their (should be) cherishing care. 
 But, in this provision, we only see the form assumed in the 
 field of higher education, by that inextinguishable subtle spirit 
 of disesteemfor labor, even so elevated as that of the professorial 
 chair if only it be useful labor a spirit which is the neces- 
 sarily blasting accompaniment of a system of bond labor. 
 
 In its ambitiously inflated organization, this institution was 
 but a confused collection of no less than thirty-two separate 
 schools, so called, some relating only to single, general subjects 
 
12 
 
 of study, as Physics ; others, to comprehensive departments of 
 professional knowledge, as Law, or Engineering, each properly 
 embracing a circle of such general subjects. 
 
 We spoke of the above University as having met with a 
 destroying fate. It is reported that its very foundations were 
 Carried away piecemeal, as relics, by the armies of National 
 Unity, Broad Humanity, and Emancipated Industry. Let us 
 hope, however, that when, in due time, the spade, the 'loom, 
 the press, and the free school, as secular instruments of free, 
 christianized humanity, shall have done their regenerating 
 work, this institution will reseat itself on its mountain estate 
 of eight thousand acres, as a powerful centre of humane, polite, 
 and industrial culture. 
 
II. 
 
 0f f njstnwlifltt of 
 
 1. EDUCATIONAL PLANE. Systematic education, or the or- 
 derly development of the powers of the human mind, by the 
 aggregate of methods and appliances employed in school in- 
 struction, exists in four grades, viz : 
 
 \ ' 
 
 Rudimentary, 
 
 Elementary, 
 
 General, or "Liberal" 
 
 Technical, or " Professional." 
 
 These grades, or successive stages, are, moreover, natural and 
 not artificial, since each has its peculiar, and strongly marked, 
 defining characteristic. Neglecting, here, their recognized 
 varieties and subdivisions, they may be defined as follows : 
 
 1. Rudimentary Education. This is the germ, embracing 
 the alphabet ; reading, of merely narrative or declarative 
 sentences, of the simplest kinds, about the commonest things ; 
 writing, of detached letters, or their mere elements ; singing, 
 by the ear ; observation, of common things ; arithmetic, of 
 operations on small whole numbers, so small as to be realized 
 in thought. 
 
 2. Elementary Education. This initiates the mind into the 
 beginnings of the use of the keys of knowledge. It opens to 
 view, and teaches, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, Composi- 
 tion, Domestic and Neighborhood Morals. Indeed, it acquaints 
 
14 
 
 the mind with the elements of the many branches of knowl- 
 edge, as pursued in Grammar and High Schools, and the 
 equivalent private schools. 
 
 3. General Education. This begins, when the mind has 
 so far developed as to have an original, free, love for knowl- 
 edge, and becomes conscious of individual intellectual, artistic, 
 or moral tastes of its own. This education, it is the chamcter- 
 istic office and aim of the college to afford. These institutions 
 give, to the awakened, eager and active mind, facilities for 
 gaining a comprehensive view, as from a hill top, of the whole 
 field of knowledge. They also labor to secure for their mem- 
 bers such a degree of acquaintance with the various mathe- 
 matical, physical, philosophical, and classical studies, together 
 with invigorating practice, by composition and declamation, in 
 the enlarged use of written and spoken language such a 
 degree, we say, of all this, as qualifies the mind, thus " liberally" 
 trained, to choose which select group of studies it will after- 
 wards more fully pursue to a practical end. 
 
 4. Professional Education. This, when found in the most 
 favorable condition, is planted in, and grows out of, the well 
 prepared soil of liberal general culture just described ; or, to 
 change the figure, it is erected upon that as a broad and sub- 
 stantial basis. Its office and aim is, to give the due, full, and 
 exact training, necessary for qualifying one for that successful 
 and honorable professional practice, in which trained and culti- 
 vated intelligence is the prime agent in the mere gaining of a 
 livelihood, but, better, in the life work of making a sensible 
 contribution to the commonwealth. 
 
 By now comparing the professed objects and actual results, 
 of at least the more well developed, of the institutions named 
 in the table, with the foregoing principles, we learn, that, at 
 least in their two or three upper years, they are strictly and 
 fully professional schools. For Civil, Mechanical, Topographi- 
 cal, and Mining Engineering, Physical and Chemical Technol- 
 ogy, and Architecture, are not taught in them merely to 
 discipline the mind, or to qualify one to participate in the 
 
15 
 
 intercourse of polite society, though, together with previous- 
 general culture, they should richly contribute towards accom- 
 plishing these elevated and most desirable objects. These 
 great subjects are taught, principally, as elevated scientific 
 practical professions, that is, as means of gaining ample and 
 honorable support, and of ennobling the state, by the applica- 
 tion of fruitful principles of science, to the beneficent arts of 
 ffeace. 
 
 Summarily, the end of College education is the discipline of 
 the mental faculties, as working forces. That of Professional 
 education is the endowment of the already fairly disciplined 
 faculties, with the principles of exact science and applied 
 learning, considered as instruments of higher, productive and 
 physically, socially, and morally, conservative, industry. 
 
 Going through this, or any land, with these determining 
 definitions in hand, there would be no difficulty in distin- 
 guishing its professional schools, of every name and kind, or 
 however disguised by unfamiliar names, or other irrelevant 
 particulars. 
 
 But to present the Polytechnic class of professional schools 
 as in the focus of vision, a distinction must be explained. 
 
 Science is subjective, relating to man himself, his physical and 
 spiritual constitution; and objective, relating to all external 
 nature. In the former, lies the foundation of the ancient profes- 
 sions of Medicine, Law, Divinity, and Polite Literature as a Fine 
 Art. In the latter region of science, lies the foundation for the 
 distinctively modern technological professions of Engineering, 
 Applied Physics and Chemistry and Natural History, and the 
 material fine arts, of Architecture, Music, etc. 
 
 Schools, then, alike truly professional, and equal in dignity, 
 as determined by either of three decisive tests, viz : The talent 
 demanded by them, the extent and elevation of tlieir courses of 
 study, or the magnitude and beneficence of their results, stand in 
 two distinct groups, appropriately distinguished as Humanistic, 
 or Polytechnic, according as their chosen scientific field is 
 subjective, or objective ; relating to Man in himself considered, 
 or to External Nature as able to be richly tributary to man. 
 
16 
 
 In case of any to whom the previous statements and conclu- 
 sions of this section are new, and who hesitate about accepting 
 them till reassured by the argument from competent testimony, 
 it may be sufficient to refer them to the official publications of 
 such high and well established institutions as Harvard and Yale 
 Colleges, or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the 
 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The two former, in that 
 simple, matter of course way, which is the strongest form o*f 
 assertion, as if the question admitted of no dispute, speak of 
 their scientific departments, as professional, equally with their 
 other professional departments. The latter uniformly assume, 
 as a thing everywhere understood by the well informed, that 
 their courses are professional ones, in the full sense. And 
 numerous other scientific institutions, both the detached class, 
 and those which form professional departments of colleges, do 
 the same. This question, then, of the grade of Schools of 
 Technology, may therefore, it is to be hoped, be considered as 
 finally settled. 
 
 2. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION. From a different point of 
 view than the one here occupied, this topic might justly claim 
 a full section, or even a separate treatise. But it serves our 
 present purpose to mention it here but briefly. 
 
 The method of instruction in the old professional schools, is 
 largely that of lectures. Hence, some seem to be ambitious to 
 have the same method prevail in polytechnic professional 
 schools also. But we think the connection between the two 
 things the grade of the school, and the method of teaching 
 is mostly arbitrary, and that the methods of teaching are prop- 
 erly dependent, rather, upon the nature of the subjects taught. 
 Now it is well known, or may be readily understood, that all 
 knowledge of mathematical subjects must necessarily be exact, 
 or worthless. Hence, a point lost, or misunderstood, in a mathe- 
 matical lecture, may occasion hours of discouraging perplexity, 
 and annoying possibilities of one's entire work in writing up 
 the lecture being vitiated. Therefore, we would restrict 
 lecture instruction to descriptive subjects, in which an error 
 
1.7 
 
 does not vitiate the whole ; and to experimental subjects, which 
 address themselves largely to the senses; and to mathematical 
 subjects, only in case of comparatively mature, and considerably 
 proficient, students of them. 
 
 Nor do we think that instruction loses anything of freshness 
 and interest very important elements, most truly by this 
 method. For, in studying from a text book on exact science, 
 the student has the pleasing certainty that he has a reliable 
 authority to work on, and from ; then annotations and 
 reductions of his own, familiar expositions and supplementary 
 notes by the professor, arid, in case of Descriptive Geometry, 
 exhibition of curious special cases, and of models, with 
 informal expositions, will, altogether, maintain due interest 
 among those in who;n any method would enlist earnest effort. 
 
 We only care, now, to add to the above the bare statement 
 of the methods of polytechnic instruction, viz : 
 
 Formal lectures. 
 
 Familiar expositions, in part conversational. 
 
 Interrogations and Black Board demonstrations. 
 
 Practical exercises in Geodesy, Astronomy, Physics, Chem- 
 istry, botany, Geology, Graphics, and Mathematical and Me- 
 chanical problems, etc. 
 
 Excursions, for inspection, sketching, etc. 
 
 Systematic Reviews. 
 
 Oral and written examinations. 
 
 A notice of methods of instruction may, however, embrace a 
 few words about professorial and tutorial functions, and the 
 hours of daily duty of teachers and students. 
 
 A professor, properly and distinctively so called, makes 
 some extensive subject a field for continued research, either 
 with a view to enlarging the area of existing knowledge with 
 respect to it, or the bounds of it as actually taught in the 
 place of his chosen labors. He also is the responsible head of 
 his own department of instruction, and gives instruction per- 
 sonally, in the higher subjects of his department, and through 
 assistants in its more elementary portions, taking care to duly 
 superintend the matter and manner of their instructions. 
 
18 
 
 The importance of providing such amount and competency 
 of assistance as will relieve a professor from being merely a 
 tutor, ending the year, so far as advancement of his depart- 
 ment is concerned, just as he began it, is clearly recognized 
 by higher educators, and in the practice of liberally managed 
 institutions, since hardly anything conduces more to their 
 vigorous life and growth, than due provision for professorial 
 research, in behalf of increased and remodelled matter, and 
 methods, of instruction. 
 
 As to daily labor in polytechnic schools, we believe it true 
 that they are quite generally understood not to be abodes of 
 luxurious ease, or dissipated idleness. Rather they are designed 
 to correspond to the most approved mechanical motors built by 
 their professional graduates, in yielding the largest percentage 
 of useful result in a given time. It is definitely stated, that 
 in the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, at Paris, eight 
 and a half hours in the school, and four more in his room, is 
 the daily standard of student's work ; and similar information 
 is in our possession relative to other European schools. Let us 
 see what an exhibit, for the performance of the human engine, 
 can be made on this basis. Eight hours for sleep, an hour and 
 a half for dinner, and an hour for each of the two other meals, 
 including healthful repose, or light pastimes, makes eleven and 
 a half hours, leaving the twelve hours and a half for work. 
 Now in these hours, mind and body labor conjointly. In some 
 practical exercises, as in a good deal of Laboratory and Draw- 
 ing Room practice, and in Engineering Field Work, the activity 
 is largely physical, and in the latter case, as well as in out 
 door pursuit of any department of Natural History, is highly 
 pleasant and invigorating. Also in all practical exercises under 
 instruction, and attendance on the more informal expositions of 
 the instructor, there is a subdued play of the kindly social 
 element, which is by no means to be overlooked in its lubrica- 
 ting influence upon the workings of school mechanism. So 
 that the purely mental activity of the twelve and a half hours, 
 reduced to its equivalent of close study, would probably not 
 average half that time, or more than six hours daily, which 
 
19 
 
 was about the standard approved by Sir Walter Scott, when at 
 the height, equally, of his health and his success. 
 
 There would seern, therefore, to be no difficulty in realizing 
 the preceding programme, tempered too, by a half or whole 
 secular day's absence of prescribed exercises, and the inviolable 
 Sunday privilege of rest, and opportunities for self-adjustment 
 and accumulation of moral power if life be not clogged with 
 surfeit, like a locomotive choked with afire-box filled solid with 
 coal dust if it be not wasted by vice, like the locomotive with 
 inly corroded boiler, that can hold but faint working pressure 
 if it be not consumed by destroying excitements or stimulants, 
 like the boiler through whose flues, uncovered with water, the 
 fire rages with unnatural heat. 
 
 Modern civilization is bound to justify itself by producing 
 a more perfect type of symmetrically developed manhood than 
 before appeared, and the polytechnic school, as a favorite son 
 of that civilization, is bound to exhibit in the sustained activity 
 of its members, a higher percentage of effective work, than any 
 other organization can show. 
 
III. 
 
 of ,ol:i)tote 
 
 1. NOMENCLATURE, a. General Nomenclature. To treat this 
 topic clearly, settled definitions, if possible, must be given to 
 certain educational terms, which are well known to be popu- 
 larly used in a very loose manner. 
 
 First. " College." Turning from the dictionary to an encyclo- 
 paedia, for fuller standard information, we find a college, in its 
 primary meaning, to be a union of persons, having " like powers, 
 privileges, and customs, in one office, for a common end." Thus 
 the phrase, " College of the Apostles," is in use to this day, 
 and in the ancient Roman State, trade associations, as of 
 carpenters, bakers, etc., etc., were called colleges. 
 
 Again, all through the middle ages, and to the present 
 time, various protective, administrative, judicial, elective, and 
 religious bodies were, and are, called colleges. Thus, there 
 was, perhaps is, the poor men's decent burial college ; the Russian 
 " college of general superintendence," (of benevolent institu- 
 tions), the "college of justice," or supreme court, of Scotland ; 
 the United States coHeyc of presidential electors, etc. 
 
 Lastly, and chiefly, the word " college," in connection with 
 higher education, has a curious history. In that revival of 
 learning, which occurred in the 13th century, celebrated 
 lecturers drew eager crowds of youths to' their lecture halls, 
 and special buildings, under proper superintendence, were 
 provided for their meals and lodgings. These were the original 
 
21 
 
 colleges, mere endowed students' hotels, both in England and 
 on the continent. These, sooner or later, became transformed 
 into places of instruction, including the lecture rooms within 
 them, and each possessing a faculty of instruction, so that now 
 a " commons," or general eating room, in a college, is the 
 dying relic of what the entire college originally was. 
 
 The name of college is seldom applied to professional 
 schools, though Medical Schools, and these only, if we are not 
 mistaken, sometimes call themselves Medical Colleges, also the 
 table in Section L, presents one Polytechnic School called a 
 college. But, in either case, it is not to be inferred, that such 
 schools stand on the same educational plane with true classical 
 colleges, or are conducted on merely college principles. 
 
 Our limits forbid the introduction of much interesting matter 
 under this head, which may be found in reports, or papers, on 
 superior education. 
 
 Second. " University.'" This word, like " college," had, 
 originally, no reference to an institution of learning, but only 
 to corporations, who may have preferred this title to that of 
 "college," merely to express the completeness of their organi- 
 zation, or the universality with which it embraced all, fitted to 
 belong to it. Thus there were, in ancient Rome, " universities'*' 
 of tailors, etc. 
 
 The word became a term in education, in the 13th century,- 
 and did so because it expressed the idea of a corporation, such 
 as was formed by an organized body of teachers. It was 
 always, as now, a term of superior dignity, meaning an institu- 
 tion, or corporation, existing for purposes of higher instruction. 
 There were many of these universities in Europe, in the middle 
 ages, of which the first w r as at Paris, giving instruction in Law, 
 Medicine, Divinity, arid in what was then called the Arts, 
 meaning the literature and meagre theoretical science of the 
 ancients. And, as already described, colleges were nothing 
 more than the hotels of the students at those universities. 
 
 Finally, at the present time, the term university is used in 
 various senses, some having no definite meaning. First. The 
 German, or continental, sense, of a school superior to modern 
 
22 
 
 colleges called in Germany, gymnasia in which any single 
 subject, or department, of general science, can be pursued 
 to any extent desired by the student. 
 
 Second. The general English sense, of corporate institutions, 
 intended for purposes of instruction, and surrounded by colleges, 
 as incorporated and endowed lodging places ; but to which the 
 university has quite abandoned the work of instruction. Thus 
 the university is a blank form, and the colleges have advanced 
 from merely, each, giving instruction in some one or two 
 branches, to the rank of competitors, with each other, in giving 
 an entire collegiate course, mostly under tutorial instruction, 
 for an academic degree, or a professional degree, in the old 
 professions. Efforts have been made, however, to reform the 
 English Universities in this respect. 
 
 Third. The new and special English sense, of a senate of 
 eminent scholars, with its boards of examiners, called collect- 
 ively, the University of London. Students from all the other 
 colleges and universities in England, or its colonies, dissenting 
 or otherwise, can obtain degrees from it, by passing its exami- 
 nations. 
 
 Fourth. The popular American sense, so far as there is a 
 definite one, tends, perhaps, to associate the term university 
 with those institutions which embrace in their design, or actual 
 operation, a circle of professional schools, successive to the 
 collegiate course as, in part at least, their common foundation. 
 Yet, on the one hand, some institutions, of the highest char- 
 acter, in this country, are merely called colleges ; and on the 
 other, some, hardly superior to a New England city high 
 school, style themselves universities. 
 
 Fifth. There are, in addition, two American special uses, 
 of the term " university." First, as applied to State univer- 
 sities, like that of Michigan, which form, each, the crowning 
 member of a state educative structure, whose foundation is the 
 state common school system. The University of Michigan is a 
 favorable example of these universities, having two parallel 
 collegiate courses, of four years each, one classical, the other 
 largely scientific, and both succeeded by professional courses, 
 
23 
 
 in Law, Medicine, Chemical Technology, Civil and Mining 
 Engineering, aided by ample and varied cabinets, etc. Second. 
 There is the so called University of the State of New York, 
 giving no instruction, but embracing a board of regents, to 
 whom all the academies, colleges, and professional schools, 
 make annual reports including some meteorological observa- 
 tions as a condition for receiving their respective shares of 
 the "literature fund" of the State. 
 
 Among and, in part, better than all these numerous, and 
 partly confused senses of the term university, the following 
 might be adopted as a standard one, due to the historic, as well 
 as essential, dignity of the term, viz : A university is an insti- 
 tution for instruction, in which, besides professional instruction 
 in one of the two grand divisions of professional schools, 
 humanistic, or polytechnic, (p. 15) provision should be made 
 for carrying those, who have time, means, and inclination for 
 being students for life, through a course as extended as the 
 existing resources of human knowledge will permit. Also such 
 institutions may properly include a foundation general, or col- 
 legiate course, congruous, in each case, with their distinctive 
 professional courses. 
 
 Third. "Academy" This word originally meant only a 
 public park in the city of Athens, where Socrates and his chief 
 pupil, Plato, imparted instruction, in their pagan philosophy, 
 to Athenian youth, assembled in its groves. The disciples of 
 Plato were- called Academists, and each, on opening a school of 
 his own, called it an academy. 
 
 At present, the term "academy" has three applications. 
 First, to a school, usually private/ of about the same grade as 
 any city public high school, and intermediate between the 
 grammar school and the college, as the latter is, between the 
 academy and the professional school. Second, to Government 
 Military and Naval schools. Third, to associations of men, 
 eminent in any one or more departments of general or profes- 
 sional knowledge, or art. These are found in all civilized 
 nations, the most celebrated being the five conjoint academies 
 of France, unitedly composing the Imperial Institute of France. 
 
24 
 
 These are the French Academy, the Academy of inscriptions 
 and polite literature, the Academy of sciences, the Academy 
 of fine arts, and the Academy of moral and political science. 
 
 Fourth. " Institute" This, also, is a name of very broad 
 application, meaning anything instituted, i. e. set in place, 
 whether, a custom, or a book, or a school, or association of any 
 grade. Nothing can be inferred from this nnme, of the grade 
 of a school of learning, or association, adopting it, as these 
 range all the way from boys' boarding schools, up to the unri- 
 valled Institute of France, just mentioned. 
 
 Fifth. " School." This is by far the broadest, or most 
 generic, of all these educational terms, being merely any 
 aggregation of appliances, systematic or not, organized or not, 
 which, intentionally or not, act to develope, either well or ill, 
 the human being. Thus, human life is truly a school. Nature 
 is a school. So, too, particular forms and spheres of life, as 
 street life, workshop life, and business life, are schools. Asso- 
 ciated opinion, as general public opinion, or sectarian opinions, 
 are schools, and the adherents to such opinions, are, themselves, 
 collectively called schools. Thus we have schools in politics, 
 in theology, in medicine, in art. Also the term school applies 
 to the whole range of express institutions of instruction, from 
 the humblest primary, to the highest professional one. 
 
 More exactly, now, a school is any educational organization, 
 complete in itself, whether existing independently ; or, as a 
 component unit in some more comprehensive organization. 
 Thus, there are medical and other professional schools, separate 
 from any college, and there are like schools attached to colleges 
 as their basis. In the latter case, by reference to catalogues, 
 we shall find, first, the general faculty of the whole institution, 
 considered as a compound unit ; then, separate lesser, but 
 complete, "faculties" of the component professional schools. 
 
 With reference, next, to the adoption of " school " as the title 
 of the institutions devoted to the last and crowning stage of 
 systematic education under tuition, that is, to professional edu- 
 cation, there is a beautiful ground of its propriety. Stated 
 
25 
 
 abstractly, as a general principle, it is this : It is quite beyond 
 the capacity of any sounding title to reflect honor upon, or 
 exhibit the honor of, the highest ideas and objects, so that the 
 latter, being self-sufficient, rejoice in the simplest and homeliest 
 names. "Home" is better, every way, than "paternal man- 
 sion ; " the " evening star," than the " nocturnal luminary ; " 
 my " love," than my " most distinguished consideration ; " 
 " teacher," than " professor ;" and " school," than "academy," 
 "institute," or "seminary." 
 
 This really familiar principle is very generally acted on, in 
 naming professional Institutions, which are almost invariably 
 called schools, both separately and collectively, as Law Schools, 
 Scientific Schools, Theological Schools, etc. The name of 
 school is adopted then, although the simplest, yet as really the 
 highest, because, as above shown, the most generic. The 
 descriptive epithet added, as Polytechnic School, marks both 
 its sphere and grade. This, however, when but a single pro- 
 fessional course is given. Each course leading to a degree, 
 demands its special school, and the term Institute, is especially 
 recommended, by frequent continental European practice, as 
 the general title of the organization. 
 
 Sixth. Without making separate heads for the following, a 
 " department," as distinguished from a " school," and as a branch 
 of a comprehensive institution, might be defined as not being 
 subject to a special faculty, complete in itself, included within 
 the general faculty, as before described in defining a school, 
 though it must be confessed, that this definition has exceptions 
 in actual usage. In Germany, when " school " is the general 
 name, " departments " are often called " sections." Lastly, 
 " seminary " is not the name of a different kind of institution 
 from those bearing any of the preceding names, but merely a 
 different name for the same thing, a name based on the idea of 
 a school as a place for the dissemination, or seed sowing, of 
 knowledge. Divinity schools, especially, for instance, style 
 themselves indifferently, "schools," "institutes," "seminaries," 
 or " departments." 
 4 
 
b. Professorship Nomenclature. The Chief of internal ad- 
 ministration in higher institutions is variously styled, President, 
 Chancellor, Rector, Provost, Director, etc. The last term is 
 appropriate to polytechnic schools, as conformed to continental 
 usage, and as in accordance with the desirable features of 
 essential unity of administration, and an executive organi- 
 zation of chief and associates, analogous to that of a civil chief 
 and his cabinet, or a state governor and council the chief, in 
 all such cases, having due authority to act singly, in emergencies 
 demanding power and promptitude. But we had more particu- 
 larly in mind, that very important feature of true department 
 nomenclature, which duly expresses the fact that each of the 
 scientific professions has large component parts, each forming 
 matter for a full professorship. Thus, Civil Engineering em- 
 braces, as necessary and fundamental to it, Mathematics, 
 Physics, Analytical Mechanics. Geodesy, and Descriptive Ge- 
 ometry, or the Science of Form, with its applications. 
 Now when the separate chairs in a Divinity school, a Law 
 School, or a Medical School, can be consolidated in one ; or, 
 when one man can give duly elevated and extended courses 
 of instruction in the five foregoing departments of knowledge, 
 then, and not before, will the phrase "professor of civil 
 engineering " and the enumeration of " civil engineering," as a 
 simple element of a programme of study, co-ordinate with 
 other single studies, as History, Geology, Mechanics, Drawing, 
 etc., cease to be absolutely ridiculous. This assertion, is, of 
 course, no intended reflection upon those who act under such a 
 nomenclature, since they find it ready made for them, and, 
 very likely, tolerable only as a provisional concession to popular 
 misapprehension of the real constituent parts of engineering 
 science. 
 
 According to the misapprehension alluded to, civil engineer- 
 ing is about equivalent to geodesy, which is only one of its 
 subordinate components. For the end of geodesy, relative to 
 engineering, is the instrumental determination of field data, as a 
 basis for the proper designing of works, which last requires an 
 extended knowledge of Mathematics, Technical Physics, 
 
27 
 
 (strength of materials, etc.,) and Mechanics ; and, then, the 
 intelligible representation of works, whatever their complexity, 
 and in all their details, by an application of the principles of 
 Descriptive Geometry. Hence, in no continental polytechnic 
 programme, that we have yet heard of, can be found any such 
 anomalous expression as " professorship of civil engineering," 
 or any analogous nomenclature. 
 
 c. Class Nomenclature. Turning next, for a moment, to 
 class nomenclature, we find the numerical system (1st, 2nd, 
 etc., classes) in general use in all lower schools. In colleges, 
 the titles " Freshmen," " Sophomores," " Juniors," and "Sen- 
 iors," are doubtless unalterable, and well enough so. In some 
 professional schools, classes are designated in partial repetition 
 of the college nomenclature, as " Junior," " Middle," and 
 " Senior," in three year courses, or Junior and Senior in two 
 year courses, such as are usual in Law and Medical Schools. 
 In others, the mere terms " First year," " Second year," etc., 
 indicate the classes. 
 
 In the case of professional schools, having a four years' course, 
 as in two of the polytechnic schools named in the Table, (p. 6), 
 there are manifest objections to a mere repetition of the college 
 nomenclature ; since the entering member of any professional 
 school, whatever his previous studies may have been, stands in 
 a scholastic position four years in advance of the college, "fresh- 
 man," and probably does not propose to become, or be regarded 
 as, a freshman a second time, after such an interval. Assuming, 
 then, that the polytechnic variety of professional schools may 
 reasonably have some distinguishing badge, in its class nomen- 
 clature, there is reserved for these schools the alphabetical 
 system, adopted by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, also 
 by the Cooper Union (p. 9), for the classes in the five year 
 course of its night school. Only, in the former case, the badge 
 is one of total distinction, the classes, being styled ." Divisions" 
 " Division A" (the highest), etc. ; while in the Cooper Union, 
 a badge of union with the entire fraternity of educational insti- 
 tutions, together with a duly distinctive nomenclature, is found 
 in the retention of the universally employed word " class " its 
 
28 
 
 classes, above mentioned, being Class E (the lowest), etc. ; a 
 very good system, we think, and worthy of general adoption 
 by Technical Schools. 
 
 II. SPIRIT. Passing to the Spirit of Polytechnic Schools, it 
 should, in common with that of other professional schools, 
 above all things, not be in any degree a weight upon the neck 
 of the local civilization where it exists, but itself a centre of 
 refinement, no less in its grounds and other material appoint- 
 ments, than in the life of all its members, and in that of its 
 officers. The fundamental social, and moral, qualification no 
 less important than scholastic ones for membership in a pro- 
 fessional school, as such, is, possession of both ability and dispo- 
 sition, to act steadfastly in the spirit of a man of a young man, 
 by all means, but still of a man ready to be governed by the 
 laws of the land, and by the equally inviolable, though unwrit- 
 ten, laws of social propriety, and of honorable professional life. 
 
 Again, in colleges, the unwilling attendance, perhaps, of 
 some, and the absence of any definite high aims on the part of 
 others, and the varied ultimate aims of most, tend to disunite 
 their members, and the existence of secret societies tends, one 
 would suppose, still further to narrow and hedge in a spirit of 
 broad fraternity. But in a professional school, the unity of aim 
 of all its members, at least of all who contemplate taking the 
 same degree, is a natural basis for that comprehensive unity of 
 feeling, and sentiment of substantial equality, which would 
 render all class jealousies and disaffections impossible, which 
 would make each member regard each, us, primarily, a member 
 of the institution as a whole, secondarily, as a member of a 
 particular "school," or class, in it. 
 
 Last, but by no means least, every member of every poly- 
 technic, or other, professional school, should pursue his work 
 with free ardor, in the spirit of voluntary and interested research ; 
 and not in that of reluctant fulfilment of unwelcome prescribed 
 tasks. This radical element of the professional student's spirit 
 is also most unequivocally demanded by the primary facts of his 
 position. For every candidate for a profession is supposed to 
 have freely and devotedly chosen it ; and this choice involves 
 
29 
 
 in it an equally hearty choice of all the labors, and parts of the 
 course of training, necessary for honorable and promising 
 entrance upon that profession. To this end, effective and per- 
 manently reliable command of professional knowledge, consid- 
 ered as indispensable to real and permanent success in life, will 
 be his absorbing aim. He w r ill therefore never be satisfied with 
 such merely provisional knowledge as will serve only the 
 shallow and aimless purpose of a mere technical "passing" of 
 an examination ; while he can but despise all knavish shifts, 
 and aids to the mere form of success, without the reality, as 
 mean in themselves, and as too pitifully short-sighted, in view 
 of the exacting demands of a professional career. So reasonable 
 is all this, that it would seem, and is, doubtless, generally true, 
 that nothing more than an occasional suggestion true, earnest, 
 and friendly could be necessary to hold even a moderately 
 right thinking and well meaning young man steadfast in 
 obedience to it. 
 
 III. USAGES. Out of the proper spirit of professional schools, 
 some of whose elements have just been indicated, there will 
 grow a spontaneous rejection of certain inferior and ignoble 
 usages native in lower schools and of the sometimes absurd 
 tyranny of class majorities, whenever, for example, it acts, as 
 it sometimes seeks to in lower institutions, to interfere with the 
 inalienable right of each individual student to enjoy and im- 
 prove every privilege and opportunity offered by the institution 
 which he attends things which are acknowledged as blem- 
 ishes, if not as serious evils, in those lower institutions, and in 
 the earlier stages of student life. And, so far as new usages 
 are instituted, they will be made to harmonize with professional 
 student life, as the highest and closing stage of that life. 
 
 These lower usages, and customs, will be, and usually are, 
 exotics, impossible to naturalize in the soil of any professional 
 school, which is true to itself; and even the best designed 
 secret society should hardly claim recognition as an active 
 organization in such schools, in competition with the other 
 broader, higher, and worthier grounds of fraternity, which have 
 been shown to be afforded by professional student life. Indeed 
 
30 
 
 we believe it to be true that secret societies rarely, or never, 
 maintain an active organization in professional schools, subse- 
 quent to college courses. 
 
 In this connection, however, a much more interesting and 
 important question arises. The legitimate objects and doings 
 of voluntary associations for mutual improvement, if indeed any 
 such should exist in professional schools, presents itself as a 
 subject not without difficulty. As every one knows, nearly, or 
 quite every college possesses one or more large and flourishing 
 literary societies. Their existence is readily justified by the 
 facts that the characteristic office of the college is to develope 
 the mental faculties, and that these faculties are rapidly devel- 
 oped by voluntary painstaking exercise, in view of criticism by 
 quick and watchful competitors. 
 
 But the office of the professional school is quite different. It 
 presupposes faculties already fairly developed, and although it 
 does, incidentally, expand, strengthen, and polish them still 
 further, yet this is not its primary aim. For its aim, as before 
 shown, is, to store the capable mind with fruitful truths, that 
 is, with principles, and to initiate the eye and hand in the ele- 
 ments of material professional practice, all with a view to a 
 productive application of these principles and scientific physical 
 accomplishments, in subsequent professional life. 
 
 Now the determining question is this : Can a professional 
 student secure accurate scientific information which, by its 
 nature, must be exact, or worthless and practical scientific 
 skill, more rapidly and effectually than by devoting all his 
 energies to the most faultless possible preparation of all his lessons, 
 and execution of his practical exercises, under thorough professorial 
 direction and supervision ? The usual practice of professional 
 schools, so far as we are informed, replies in the negative. We 
 are not aware of voluntary associations in professional schools, 
 supplementary to the declared objects of those schools, that is 
 analogous to college literary societies. Besides, as above 
 shown, the entire course, itself, of a professional school, is 
 supposed, by the very position and proper motives of its mem- 
 bers, to be entered upon and pursued, in the free spirit of 
 voluntary and interested research. 
 
31 
 
 Still, in the polytechnic division of professional schools, we 
 think there is a legitimate, though duly limited, field for the 
 occupancy of voluntary scientific student associations. 
 
 First. They may be made the occasion for the interchange 
 of valuable results of study and investigation, provided that 
 every member of them is qualified to contribute something, and 
 pledged to do it, so that all may share the discoveries of each, 
 and thus add to that permanent fund of information which it is 
 a primary object to acquire. The results alluded to may be 
 elegant mathematical reductions; lucid supplementary notes to 
 obscure passages in text books ; original solutions of problems, 
 and discussions of their special cases; contributions of industrial 
 drawings so much more stimulative to student ambition than 
 engravings, or copies made by an instructor or models and 
 cabinet specimens, such as can be made or collected in vacations, 
 etc. 
 
 Second. A second general object, in apparently entire har- 
 mony with the main objects of the school, would be the 
 collection, through regular correspondence with graduates, and 
 others belonging to the professions taught in the school, of 
 copies of professional reports, prepared by those persons ; also 
 the exchange of the various regular, or occasional, official issues 
 of similar professional schools, and the collection of valuable 
 pamphlets, etc., bearing on professional education. 
 
 Such a society would not exist for purposes of debate, nor 
 w r ould it probably be well, save in case of a very large institu- 
 tion, perhaps embracing a resident graduate staff of high talent, 
 or in conjunction with several other like institutions, collect- 
 ively sufficient to afford, at all times, an undergraduate staff of 
 high merit, to maintain a periodical publication, inasmuch as a 
 worthy one would otherwise be apt to abstract too much time 
 from devotion to the student's really best interests already 
 pointed out as a professional student. The society would be 
 whatever its name, or organization, substantially a " Society of 
 inquiry" analogous, in the scientific field, to " Societies of 
 inquiry," in other departments of research. 
 
32 
 
 IV. DISCIPLINE. The actual Grade, correspondent Spirit, and 
 consequent legitimate Usages of polytechnic and other profes- 
 sional schools, being substantially as thus far described, the 
 question of discipline in them is narrowed down to the smallest 
 limits, barely entitled to recognition as a proper question. 
 Every member of such a school, having made free choice of a 
 high profession, cannot but be imaged in thought as diligently 
 devoted to the means of fulfilling his choice, under the kindly 
 guidance of his teachers, whom he will be necessarily incapable 
 of regarding otherwise than as, only and always, co-operating 
 with him, to secure most fully the end he desires, and, thereby, 
 incidentally, to promote the best honor and welfare of the 
 school, with which both parties are identified inspirit. Where, 
 it may well be asked, is there room for the idea of discipline in 
 such a picture ? 
 
 But let us proceed to search into the elements of this topic. 
 For though it may cover ground very familiar to many, conver- 
 sant with classical colleges, and the variety of professional 
 schools, which have been called humanistic, yet to the newer 
 community of scientific general intelligence, and eager interest 
 in general and technical scientific education, such a re-discussion 
 may not be untimely. 
 
 The administrative affairs of the higher schools of learning 
 resolve themselves, then, into two main divisions : their external 
 or material affairs, and their internal or immediately educational 
 -ones. 
 
 These two classes of interests, being quite different, though 
 intimately connected, are, in common practice, as by natural 
 propriety they should be, committed to two distinct, yet, 
 though in separate spheres, really co-operative bodies, viz. : to 
 a Board of Eegents, Overseers, or Trustees, and to a Faculty, 
 embracing, or not, the entire professorial corps, according to its 
 numbers, and other obvious considerations. 
 
 A Trustee is one to whom is committed the execution of a 
 trust ; and, in case of permanent institutions, as those of 
 learning, this execution includes, as cardinal elements, the 
 establishment, maintenance, and, if credit is to be given to the 
 
33 
 
 founder, as a growing, progressive man provision for the 
 growth of the institution. 
 
 But, by expanding this statement somewhat, we have the 
 following view : 
 
 I . The external affairs, embrace these principal points: 
 
 1. The holding of the course of the institution true to the 
 general plan designed by its founders ; so that, for example, no 
 medical school could be transformed by its faculty into a theo- 
 logical one ; or a classical college, into an academy of music. 
 
 2. The construction and equipment of fit and necessary 
 buildings, located on suitable and sufficient grounds ; the build- 
 ings to be designed, as far as desirable, by their professorial 
 occupants, or with their approval and supervision. 
 
 3. The provision of adequate compensation for professorial 
 work demanded, according to a justly recognized value of the 
 same. 
 
 4. The appointment of officers of instruction, which, to 
 best promote desired success, should be in accordance with 
 nomination, recommendation, or known approval of other such 
 officers, if already existing in the institution. 
 
 5. The holding of an existing faculty responsible, in behalf 
 of material interests, for the successful working of the institu- 
 tion, unavoidable external hindrances excepted, under a sys- 
 tem of instruction and government to be devised and adminis- 
 tered by the faculty ; and expecting them singly, or severally, 
 to give place to more competent successors, if their department, 
 or general systems and administrations, respectively, manifestly 
 fail of success, owing to inherent imperfections. 
 
 6. The establishment of appropriate regulations for preserv- 
 ing the buildings and other property of the institution, and for 
 the management of its funds ; also in some cases a certain ex- 
 tent of active participation in forming outlines of a system of 
 rules of internal government ; especially for academies, and for 
 institutions of the collegiate type, particularly for State Univer- 
 sities, like that of Michigan, for example, which, being creations, 
 of the people, may reasonably be regulated, in a general way 
 
34 
 
 by agents chosen by the people ; as is done in the case referred 
 to, but with an important qualification, soon to be noted. 
 
 These high and honorable functions are committed, as before 
 stated, to a Board of officers, chosen, in part, for their posses- 
 sion of such liberal culture, and enlarged views, as would 
 make them readily sympathetic and co-operative with an ear- 
 nest Faculty, in appreciating, and laboring to meet, the claims 
 and wants of an institution ; and in part for their possession of 
 business capacity and energy to secure, in conjunction with 
 Faculty efforts, due pecuniary response from wealthy liberality, 
 to these claims and wants. 
 
 . The internal affairs of superior institutions, are ranged 
 under these two principal heads : 
 
 1. Instruction. 
 
 2. Government. 
 
 The department of instruction, in a general sense, includes 
 the designing of a comprehensive and symmetrical curriculum, 
 in harmony with the declared objects of the institution, and of 
 a practicable daily working programme, as a means of realizing 
 the proposed curriculum, as well as the actual work of class 
 instruction. 
 
 The department of government, embraces the equitable and 
 charitable, while efficient, enforcement of such written rules as 
 are found expedient, for those institutions which are fit subjects 
 ,for government under the system of written rules, viz : acade- 
 mies, and, in part, colleges. It also embraces the strict hold- 
 ing of professional students responsible for violations of the 
 obvious proprieties of their position, without rules of general 
 moral or social conduct, either to instruct or to constrain; these 
 being the legitimate functions of rules. For the whole theory 
 of a professional school supposes that eveiy member of it is, as 
 before stated, both able and willing, by virtue of the very 
 nature of his position, to do his duty as a student, man and gen- 
 tleman. If he is not thus able, owing to social or moral back- 
 wardness, nor willing, owing to obliquities of moral purpose, 
 he is simply out of his proper position. Accordingly, with the 
 
35 
 
 clearly pronounced moral character, properly correspondent 
 with the general maturity of mind and character naturally 
 belonging to membership in any professional school, every 
 member either is, or is not, entitled to his position. If he is 
 fully, or nearly, so entitled, or is readily accessible to influences 
 tending to make him perfectly so, he should be retained. If 
 he is not, he should be promptly exscinded, we would say, not 
 " expelled," as appended to, but in no true sense of, the proper 
 membership of the institution. The professional school is no 
 field, we think, for the exercise of that tentative, or expectant, 
 method of discipline, w r hich consists in a long drawn gradation 
 of penalties, embracing college rustications, etc., etc., etc. 
 Indeed, it is not such a field, in prevalent practice. But of this 
 somewhat further, in the next section, as it cannot be discussed 
 just here, without too much complication of the topic imme- 
 diately in hand. 
 
 Now to whom are these internal affairs legitimately commit- 
 ted ? To the faculty, as supreme, acting under the abundant 
 regulative agency of a general, bufc high, responsibility, already 
 explained, for the success of its administration. This position 
 is no less supported by sound reason than by prevalent usage. 
 
 First, in reference to instruction. A curriculum must be 
 made, first, to accord with the declared objects of the institu- 
 tion adopting it. Then, as the time demanded for completing 
 the course of study required by it, also material alterations in 
 the length of the course, may decidedly affect the financial 
 prosperity of an institution, through effects upon the attend- 
 ance which it can command, these points are matters for mutual 
 conference and agreement between the officers of external and 
 internal government. But beyond these general preliminaries, 
 the control of the officers of instruction, over the arrangement 
 of studies, and methods of teaching, is probably nowhere ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 Second, in reference to government, several rational grounds 
 for supreme faculty control present themselves. 
 
 1. If at all competent to their other duties, as teachers in a 
 professional school, would not men intellectually capable of 
 
36 
 
 giving the elevated instruction expected of them, also know 
 what and how much of student propriety to ask, and how to 
 secure it? 
 
 2. Principals of academies, may, in many cases, regard their 
 positions as provisional, while seeking some other, as a perma- 
 nent one ; but professors in superior institutions, usually con- 
 template their positions as permanent, unless called to better 
 ones, and enter into their duties as more or less a labor of love. 
 They identify their own reputations with that of their chosen 
 institution, and thus having every motive to study and promote 
 its welfare, and no motive to defeat that welfare, they are under 
 no dangerous temptation to do deliberate injustice to any one 
 under their care. Besides, 
 
 3. Which is worthy of separate mention, they act, according 
 to their legitimate form of responsibility above mentioned, 
 knowing that they justly forfeit their places, if a system of 
 their own free devising, and externally unhindered administra- 
 tion, manifestly fails of success. 
 
 4. And not least, how could those who, week after week, and 
 month after month, come in daily intimate contact with the 
 members of an institution, but be infinitely better qualified to 
 deal justly with offences, than those who rarely, or never, meet 
 with those members? 
 
 Testimony also is clear in support of our position. Two 
 representative specimens will here be introduced, since some 
 are so constituted as to be better satisfied with the argument 
 from experience and testimony, than with a purely rational one. 
 
 1. From the "Seventy-sixth annual Report of Regents of the 
 University of the State of New York," 1863. After noticing that 
 some academies had lapsed into partial inefficiency, and attrib- 
 uting it immediately to want of the exercise of trustee super- 
 visory care over their internal affairs, needed, perhaps, for the 
 reason just now explained, they proceed thus; " The faculties 
 of colleges are necessarily intrusted with their internal administra- 
 tion. (The italics are ours.) Composed of gentlemen, of expe- 
 rience and ability, who, in most instances, have chosen their 
 profession as the employment of life, their character being that 
 
37 
 
 the institution with which they are connected, they have every 
 motive to faithful and earnest duty." 
 
 And it only needs to be added : If this be true for colleges, 
 how much more for professional schools, of every kind, as 
 belonging to the next succeeding educational stage, 
 
 2. Extract from the constitution and laws of one of our larg- 
 est and most successful universities : 
 
 For the General Department. " The immediate government 
 of the department shall be vested in the faculty, and it shall be 
 their duty to (Jirect and instruct the students in the several 
 branches of learning taught in the department, [to encourage 
 them in the acquisition of knowledge and the practice of virtue, 
 to counsel and warn the offending, and faithfully and impartially 
 to administer the law established by the Regents,"] the last 
 phrase being in accordance with the fact that the institution is 
 a creation of the people of a state, and therefore under a general 
 supervision, by agents periodically elected by the people. 
 
 The whole paragraph, it may be added, is happily expressive 
 of what every worthy professor voluntarily and gladly does. 
 
 For the Professional Department, taking the medical school as 
 an example. " The immediate government of this department 
 shall be vested in the faculty, whose duty it shall be to instruct 
 the students in the several branches of learning, taught in the 
 department." This is all, and in addition to the testimony to 
 the lodgment of control over internal affairs solely with the 
 Faculty, how significant the omissions, how strong the asser- 
 tion, by implication, that every member of a, professional school 
 is responsible for being a self-governing man, in spirit ; to stand 
 in, or fall from, his position, according to his conformity to that 
 standard. Indeed, in the report of the Regents, just before 
 referred to, the almost stereotyped phrase in the separate 
 reports of the numerous professional schools, is, "No rules of 
 discipline have been adopted. General propriety and decorum 
 are required." 
 
 Once more, an instructive citation, from the same source, 
 merely to show what, and how much, is meant by the vesting 
 of the internal government of all departments in the faculty 
 
38 
 
 alone. " The presenting of petitions, or other papers, to the 
 Board of Eegents, in regard to the government of the Univer- 
 sity ; etc. ; etc., are regarded as disorderly ; and any student 
 who engages in such practices may be dismissed from the Uni- 
 versity ly the faculty (italics our own) of the department to 
 which he belongs." 
 
 In view now of all this extended re-discussion of ground, 
 embracing well established principles and usages, familiar to 
 many higher educators, no anomaly could be more evidently 
 unseemly than would be the extension of the college system of 
 rules, with pains and penalties annexed, over the superior do- 
 main of professional student life, unless it should be such an 
 extreme misapprehension of the grade of the polytechnic class 
 of professional schools as level with that of other professional 
 schools as would lead to the sinking of them even below 
 colleges, to the plane of such academies as might seem to be 
 in need of an active trustee administration of their internal 
 affairs, as well of their external ones. 
 
 It is only necessary to add, in conclusion of the remarks 
 under this head, first, that they are not a plea for what is not, 
 but ought to be, but are the result of inquiry as to the natural 
 grounds of the usages already generally established, by com- 
 mon consent, as right and proper ; and second, that nothing 
 now said militates against the existence of rules for the proper 
 use and care of special rooms, and conduct of special exercises, 
 as Laboratories, Observatories, etc., Field Exercises, etc. 
 
IV. 
 
 fcttuwn tie fitel antl 
 0ii0Ji of djjiwfati: &dunA$, and 
 
 There is no motive for concealing the fact that the preceding 
 views are, in part, ideal, because, in a few of the most devel- 
 oped cases, the actual so nearly approaches the ideal in many 
 substantial particulars, or can easily be made to do so, in these, 
 and other, cases. 
 
 In reference to instruction, the great want of polytechnic 
 professional schools, is a class of preceding institutions, bearing 
 the same relation to them, that a classical college does, for 
 example, to a theological school. This want is, however, not 
 totally unsupplied. For, first, Norwich University, Vt., Michi- 
 gan University, Union College, the University of New York, 
 Brown University, and some other institutions, expressly set 
 forth two parallel courses of general training and liberal cul- 
 ture, the one classical, the other substituting the French and 
 German languages of living and fruitful science, physical science 
 itself, and modern history, for ancient history, and the dead 
 languages of still more dead gods, and their corrupt intrigues. 
 Other colleges, as Harvard and Yale, partly accomplish the 
 same thing by a more or less liberal provision of elective studies, 
 embracing mathematics, physics, natural science, modern lan- 
 guages, and history. 
 
 Every distinguished and high-minded professional man earn- 
 estly desires, by his love for his profession, that every one 
 
40 
 
 entering it should possess a previously acquired liberal educa- 
 tion ; either a collegiate one, or the nearest attainable substan- 
 tial equivalent for it that the still incompletely organized and 
 classified educational instrumentalities of the country allow, in 
 preparation for that profession. But, as is well known, there is 
 a want of adaptation, on the one hand, of collegiate culture to 
 the wants of all the different professional schools, and a readi- 
 ness in the community, on the other happily decreasing it 
 may be hoped to accept boldly self-asserting superficiality. 
 Wherefore, it comes to pass, that, in looking through the cata- 
 logues of professional schools, we find it not insisted on, as a 
 condition for admission, that their members shall be college 
 graduates, and but few of them are. A few scattering statistics 
 will sufficiently illustrate this point, as seen in the following 
 
 PAKTIAL TABLE 
 
 OF MEMBERS OF PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS, HAVING COLLEGE DEGREES-, 
 
 
 LAW. 
 
 MEDICAL. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC 
 (Technical.) 
 
 Dartmouth, 1 864 
 
 
 8 of 47 
 
 of 37 
 
 " 1865, 
 
 
 
 of 48- 
 
 University of Michigan, 1858, 
 
 
 6 of 137 
 
 7 of 36 
 
 " *' 1805 
 
 48 of '">60 
 
 25 of 414 
 
 7 of 2 
 
 Harvard College, 1851-2,.. 
 
 71 of 104 
 
 34 of 116 
 
 17 of 69 
 
 " * 1861-2, 
 
 53 of 103 
 
 45 of 206 
 
 13 of 57 
 
 " " 1863-4 
 
 75 of r>3 
 
 50 of 167 
 
 15 of 75 
 
 Yale College, 1863-4 
 
 12 of 31 
 
 10 of 45 
 
 7 of 57 
 
 Union College, 18HO, 
 
 
 
 2 of 46. 
 
 44 ** 186o, 
 
 
 
 5 of 40 
 
 Columbia College, 1864-5, 
 
 88 of 158 
 
 
 3 of 43 
 
 Philadelphia Polytechnic College, 1864,. . 
 
 
 
 2 of 136 
 
 Reusselaer Polytechnic Institute, I860,. . 
 
 
 
 3 of 75 
 
 41 " 1865,.. 
 
 
 
 10 of 152 
 
 The above results show that all professional schools stand in 
 an attitude of compromise. While their most earnest friends 
 would like to see every member of them possessed of a " de- 
 gree," representative of a previous "liberal" or general train- 
 ing, they must accept the nearest attainable equivalent for it. 
 Considering, now, at what a disadvantage the scientific techni- 
 cal schools are placed, in the scarcity of collegiate institutions 
 giving a previous general culture, suited to their wants, the fair 
 
41 
 
 proportion of collegiate graduates among their members is sur- 
 prising, and gratifying. In connection, too, with the undoubted 
 fact that many others of those members have, by diligence, and 
 pursuit of extra studies in the best academies and high schools, 
 obtained the substantial equivalent of a college education, the 
 above proportion of graduates is a new vindication of the claim 
 of these technical schools to full recognition as professional 
 schools. 
 
 Definite statistics, in respect to the nature and extent of the 
 previous studies of members of the "Scientific Schools," are, of 
 course, not very readily obtainable. 
 
 The following view exhibits the results of inquiries, for three 
 times of admission to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 
 Out of 132 men, of whom inquiry was made, the figures below 
 show how many had studied, more or less, the subjects against 
 which the figures stand : 
 
 Botany, 32 History, 75 
 
 Chemistry, 73 Composition and Rhetoric, i)2 
 
 Geology, 26 Mental Philosophy, 24 
 
 Physical Geography, 48 Moral Philosophy, 28 
 
 Natural Philosophy, 101 Greek, 25 
 
 Physiology, 47 Latin, 65 
 
 Astronomy (Popular), 49 French, 65 
 
 Music, Vocal or Instrumental, 49 Other Languages, ...'.. 25 
 
 Free Drawing, 50 
 
 This result gives nearly seven subjects, on an average, to each 
 man, besides the fundamental subjects for admission, viz : 
 Arithmetic, Elocution, 
 
 Algebra, Penmanship, 
 
 Geometry, General Grammar, 
 
 Geography, Orthography, 
 
 and besides something done, perhaps, in 
 
 Zoology, etc., Geometrical Drawing ^ 
 
 Logic, Book Keeping, 
 
 Political Economy, Trigonometry, 
 
 Surveying, 
 
 subjects not embraced in the inquiry, though they very perti- 
 nently might have been. 
 6 
 
42 
 
 Much might be gained to the cause of sound and advanced 
 scientific professional scholarship, by the general adoption of 
 the Elements of Physics (Natural Philosophy), of Trigonometry, 
 of French, and of Geometrical Drawing, as requirements for 
 admission to Polytechnic Schools, in addition to the eight sub- 
 jects above mentioned. 
 
 A second method, by which the polytechnic institutions are 
 supplied with due preparatory courses, is by carrying back- 
 ward their own courses of study behind the point at which they 
 are wholly or strictly professional. As may be seen by refer- 
 ence to numerous catalogues, two years, only, occasionally 
 three, is the usual length of Law and Medical courses of in- 
 struction, the commonly required three years' residence with an 
 approved practitioner, in the latter case, being offset by the 
 subordinate positions generally occupied by young engineers, 
 etc., for an equal time. But, by reference to the Table in Sec- 
 tion I, we see that the scientific school courses are frequently 
 of three, and sometimes four, years' duration. Now, in several 
 of these institutions, the earlier portions of these extended 
 courses, embracing as they mainly do, subjects which every 
 one, aiming at a high standard of " liberal" scientific culture, 
 should be acquainted with, are expressly placed within the 
 sphere of collegiate, or general, disciplinary culture. Thus, at the 
 Philadelphia Polytechnic College, there is a separately entitled 
 general "scientific course" of one year, disclaimed as profes- 
 sional, surrounded by a circle of six professional courses of two 
 full years each. In the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
 the first two years study, while evidently designed to corres- 
 pond to a very elevated standard of what general scientific 
 training should be, is only assigned to the sphere of such train- 
 ing, while the several parallel courses of the last two years are 
 designated as strictly professional. And once more, in the 
 Eensselaer Polytechnic Institute, whose course is one of four 
 years, the studies are, from the beginning of ** Division D," 
 narrowly, but increasingly, and at last almost purely, profes- 
 sional ; and, correlatively, at first widely, but decreasingly 
 general ; or of a kind necessary to be understood by persons 
 desiring only a liberal disciplinary education. 
 
43 
 
 From the results thus far indicated in this section, two 
 important inferences, and a concluding reflection, arise. 
 
 First. The Officers, Members, Alumni especially, and Friends 
 generally, of technical schools, have a mission to perform, in 
 elevating them to an unobscured, and undisputed, level of rank, 
 with the universally acknowledged professional schools of other 
 kinds. This mission embraces such particulars as the follow- 
 ing : 1. As college graduates, other things being the same, 
 naturally make the most appreciative and well qualified mem- 
 bers of professional schools, every effort should be made to 
 increase the number of those colleges which afford scientific 
 general courses, of riot less than three years' duration, as the 
 legitimate forerunners of scientific technical courses. To expedite 
 this desirable movement, academies also for in them the work 
 must begin should divide their upper classes into sections, the 
 members of one of which should be put in special training for a 
 scientific college course, while the members of the other would be 
 preparing for the parallel classical course. 2. That the profes- 
 sional rank of the technical schools should be unobscured, the 
 more fully developed among them, so far as they desire to do 
 their own preparatory training, might well resolve themselves 
 into a distinctly pronounced two-fold general organisation, the first 
 department of which should be of a collegiate character, and 
 adapted to the earlier wants of youth seeking a finished scien- 
 tific education ; the second department embracing any proposed 
 number of strictly professional schools, managed exclusively as 
 such, in respect to matter of instruction, and tone of administra- 
 tion. 3. The establishment of resident graduate, or true univer- 
 sity, courses, according to the standard, named on p. 23, for the 
 benefit of those who have means, and desire to pursue particular 
 subjects to an unusual extent; also, efforts to secure, at all 
 times, at least a few students in such courses, who would also 
 peculiarly benefit, both themselves, and the institution, by be- 
 coming assistant instructors in it. 
 
 4. The general adoption, in full, of the three fundamental 
 tests of student proficiency, viz : 
 
44 
 
 a. The daily recitation, or interrogation, upon assigned les- 
 sons, or performance of assigned exercises, and solutions of new 
 problems, as the distinctive test of regular daily fidelity to duty, 
 and growing command of principles ; first, in advance; second, 
 in review. 
 
 b. The oral session examination, or test of power to retain 
 matter once learned. 
 
 c. The written examination (upon new applications of gen- 
 eral principles) the test of retained available command over one's 
 knowledge, for purposes of varied practical application. 
 
 The examinations, should, moreover, to possess the greatest 
 value, cover three different periods, first, each term as a whole, 
 second each year as a whole, third the total course, as a whole, 
 so that the graduate could, most truthfully, as by the law of 
 public morality bound, be represented as possessed, at gradua- 
 tion, of at least a fair available knowledge of the entire course 
 of study pursued by him. 
 
 The efficient maintenance of these three tests, and legitimate 
 external stimulants, on the one hand, and natural adaptation, as 
 the natural internal stimulant, on the other, might doubtless be 
 relied on to secure results, permanent and solid, if not brilliant, 
 and such as would demonstrate the impertinence of every arti- 
 ficial stimulant, such as prizes, etc., etc. 
 
 5. With the adoption of such essential measures as the above, 
 the merely formal representative, but very desirable, ones, of 
 increased age, and scholastic requirements for admission to 
 technical schools (see p. 42), would fall into place as matters of 
 course. They are worthy of separate mention, however, since 
 their adoption would doubtless react, especially in conjunction 
 with the fourth particular just named, to secure the desired 
 movement in respect to the first three of the above fundamental 
 measures. It is our conviction that the best rule for settling 
 the somewhat arbitrary point of age for admission, would be, to 
 subtract the total length of the course from the age of twenty- 
 one years, as the minimum for professional graduation. 
 
 Second. In view of the more or less mixed character of most 
 existing Technical Schools, as now explained, the grand ques- 
 
45 
 
 tion arises, shall their governmental administration accord with 
 the provisional, abnormal, and subordinate general, or colle- 
 giate, character found in their earlier stages, or with their per- 
 manent, normal, and more and more prevailing character, as 
 purely professional schools ? With the latter character, by all 
 means, we most heartily say, after much experience, with many 
 a company of efficiently self-governing young men. If a single 
 qualification is to be made, as a provisional concession to the 
 mixed character of our Technical Schools as at present found, 
 it would be in favor of the adoption of the single rule requiring 
 regularity of attendance, and responsibility for preparation, 
 since, when these points are secured, nearly everything is se- 
 cured, so true is it that idleness is the open door to every vi- 
 cious folly. For all the rest, uniform conformity, without rules, 
 to the standard implied in previous statements, is to be tacitly 
 demanded, and practically enforced, quietly, and as matter of 
 course. But while the inviolable honor of a professional school 
 demands this plain speaking, it should be regarded, first, as no 
 less the voice of all its members, than of its Faculty ; arid 
 second, as in no way inconsistent with that sacred regard for 
 human nature in the stage of young manhood, which would, by 
 every kindly means, forestall all need of discipline. 
 
 Few are so strongly self-centred, through possession of that 
 controlling personality, which consists of a vigorous will, guided 
 by enlightened reason, as to be the same, in character and con- 
 duct, under the strain of greatly varied surroundings ; as to be 
 free from the sway of the principle that men will often be to a 
 great extent what you, by your manner of dealing with them, 
 practically declare them to be. Wherefore, if a professional 
 school is operated on college or academy principles, i. e., under 
 a code of formal rules too often embracing petty provisions, 
 or commanding, and enforcing by an espionage, humiliating to 
 all concerned, those higher duties, performance of which must 
 be free, or worthless the characteristic blemishes found in the 
 weaker and frivolous elements of college and academy life, will 
 find their familiar " habitat" and spring up with the certainty 
 of fate. But, conduct the almost completely professional school 
 
46 
 
 in the interest of its own best aspirations to be undisguisedly 
 and undisputedly such, and there is abundant and bright evi- 
 dence to show, that, even with its youngest members, regard 
 for its honor and dignity, as well as for the home whose wish is 
 law, will maintain all needful supremacy over the natural im- 
 pulses of earlier young manhood. Why then repress this rising, 
 and easily cultivated, spirit of healthy manliness, and profes- 
 sional honor ; and, for no equivalent good secured, postpone the 
 full attainment of the acknowledged rank of professional school 
 for, and of, young men? 
 
 But the most complete and decisive justification of the policy, 
 here advocated, lies, it seems to us, in the obvious propriety, if 
 not positive obligation, of making the closing stage of a young 
 man's student life correspond, in its prominent features, with 
 the closely subsequent practical life, in which he must stand, or 
 fall, according to the amount of his own knowledge, and power 
 to use it, and according to his self-governing power. Is it jus- 
 tice, we ask, to the unalterable constitution of human nature, 
 to plunge it at once from a system of floats, and guide-ropes, in 
 a shallow tank, into deep and troubled water, where the powers 
 of a practised swimmer are required? Are not educators for 
 professional life bound to afford, by a system o administration 
 which demands substantially self-governing manliness, a little 
 experimental, and last, school circle of practical life, prelimi- 
 nary to the world's great circle of real life ? Should not the 
 discipline of the professional school, as the closing one, be stim- 
 ulative of interest and alacrity in the good work of self-disci- 
 pline and early self-government, instead of listless or murmuring 
 obedience to ignoble external restraints ? Why should the 
 character of the final system of control over student life be 
 based on the conduct of the meanest few, who have no claim 
 to their position, rather than on that of the honorable and self- 
 regulating many ? In other words, why should it be based on a 
 few mean facts, rather than on many goodly ones, so as to present 
 to all right endeavor the pledge of the best recognition, viz., 
 recognition of its right to real freedom. And here we add, that 
 every member of every kind of professional school, who would 
 
47 
 
 see, and be animated by, what is practicable in self-government, 
 under rules, courts, and procedures, of their own devising, 
 among such students, and practicable in elevated and refined 
 associate life, would do well to ponder the account of a cele- 
 brated Swiss school, described in the article, " Student life at 
 Hofwyl," in the Atlantic Monthly for May, 1865, an article 
 which, it is to be wished, might be separately printed for wide 
 circulation as an educational tract. 
 
 As this article may not be accessible to all, we cannot exclude 
 an intimation of the character of the system described in it. 
 According to this system, the primary disciplinary power of a 
 superior institution should be its students themselves, acting 
 through an organized and dignified tribunal with regular rules 
 of procedure, and acting in behalf of a high-toned student civili- 
 zation. The decisions of this tribunal, in reference to offenders 
 against the true honor of the institution, were to be subject to 
 revision, or absolute veto, by the Faculty. The practical effect 
 of this feature was, however, to stimulate the students, strongly, 
 to weigh and consider their decisions so dispassionately and 
 carefully, as, if possible, never to have them vetoed ; and even 
 modified, as seldom and as slightly as possible. 
 
 Under such a system, the well-being of school buildings, and 
 the absolute immunity of its furniture from all needless deface- 
 ment, could never be more complete than when committed to 
 the voluntarily responsible charge of the students ; while nothing 
 could so restrain idleness, drunkenness, or offences against 
 neighborhood peace, or property, or disorderly concomitants of 
 out of door exercises, or excursions, so effectually as wholesome 
 sense of strict accountability to the high-toned collective senti- 
 timent of one's peers, enforced, through the orderly action of a 
 tribunal of those peers. 
 
 It is also but justice further to add, in finally dismissing this 
 topic, that the writer, himself, attended, for two years, a private 
 free school* of high order, in which no code, if it existed, 
 was ever posted or heard of, and in which the grounds were 
 
 In Newburyport, Mass. 
 
48 
 
 laid out, and well kept, by the pupils, and the building was 
 treated as a home by them, and all the relations of teachers 
 and pupils were those of a polite company, bound together, 
 and to duty, by unwritten laws of social decorum and kindness. 
 But it should be added, in partial explanation of this elevated 
 character of student life, that this school embraced pupils of 
 both sexes, who associated freely, under the fewest guiding 
 restraints, not only in daily classes, but in musical and horti- 
 cultural associations, and in editorial and anniversary managing 
 committees, all of which were active organizations. Eational 
 faith, in young humanity thus put on a fair footing, here had 
 its perfect reward, in the absence, nay more, the practically 
 impossible occurrence of any indecorum. Does not, then, the 
 advancing and purified civilization of the day demand that 
 colleges should prove their ability to rise to the level of 
 deserved emancipation from sumptuary laws, rather than that, 
 by a retrograde policy, professional schools of any kind should 
 be lowered to the level of involuntary subjection to such laws? 
 
 But we contemplated a closing reflection to this section, as 
 follows : 
 
 It may be questioned whether, with our familiarity with the 
 advantages of the present, and our comparative incapacity to 
 realize, as by experience, the disadvantages of the past, we duly 
 appreciate the bearings of the great contrast between them. 
 Consider, then, that classical instruction, not essentially differ- 
 ent from the present, dates back to days when those mighty 
 agencies of popular enlightenment and kindly civilization the 
 public school ; the popular lecture ; the cheap, ever present, 
 and well-filled, periodical ; the free library ; the wide extended 
 and diffused facilities for cheap and rapid travelling, so influen- 
 tial in opening and liberalizing the mind; the Sunday school, 
 too, and generally accessible kindly and helpful pulpit minis- 
 trations, sources of intelligence as well as of moral and religious 
 soundness when all these, were nearly or quite unknown. 
 In a word, the truly educating agencies of civilized practical 
 life, were far more meagre in earlier days than now. Hence 
 many a bright and steady lad, of twelve to fourteen years, now, 
 
49 
 
 could far exceed in mental development, and general ability to 
 act in current life, many a rude bumpkin of former days. 
 Hence also and this is a point not often considered, as would 
 appear so large a proportion of one's total education being 
 accomplished by the common and constant agencies of ripening 
 civilized society, a less proportion is left to be still committed 
 to special organizations expressly designed to impart instruc- 
 tion. Therefore, there seems to be no need for the general or 
 technical scientific school to be sensitive about adopting as the 
 total time appropriated by them, the stereotyped allowance of 
 six or seven years, as in the usual classical course of four years, 
 followed by a professional course of two or three years. Indeed 
 a general and technical course, united, of from four to six years, 
 added to what the best public schools and academies can now 
 do for diligent members of them, would doubtless place their 
 recipients more than on a par in general culture and available 
 power, with the graduate, in generations gone by, of such a 
 seven years' course as could then have been had. If, then, a 
 seven years' course be still retained, as the ideal of a full extent 
 of general and professional school training, it would be with a 
 view to greatly raising the standard of both general and profes- 
 sional scholarship, over that of times when the school was far 
 less richly supplemented by the educating agencies of common 
 life than now. Such a result is most desirable, in behalf of still 
 continued human progress, while the enlarged area of know- 
 ledge offers ample resources for filling seven years of time with 
 elevated, delightful, and fruitful study. Meantime, we see in 
 these efficiently educating instrumentalities of our enriched 
 modern life, so many of which are especially consonant with 
 scientific study, a source of that substantial equivalent for the 
 old collegiate disciplinary preparation for professional study, which 
 the technical schools have, at present, partly to rely upon. 
 7 
 
V. 
 
 Sources of information concerning polytechnic instruction in 
 Europe are remarkably, and unfortunately, scarce and inacces- 
 sible. Long extended encyclopedia articles on education, supe- 
 rior institutions of learning, and nations, in Europe, pass over 
 the polytechnic institutions, which there justly claim equality 
 of rank with the highest, with bare allusions, or partial enumer- 
 ation ; quite barren of all definite information. This may arise 
 from the comparatively recent origin of these schools, whereby 
 they have not yet fallen into a recognized place in national 
 systems of education. In view of the probable lack of informa- 
 tion still remaining in various quarters, concerning the number 
 and character of European polytechnic schools, we have thought 
 that the best concluding section of these notes would be a brief 
 account of some of them, and notes of matters suggested by a 
 view of them, as follows : 
 
 IN FRANCE. The Imperial Polytechnic School. This cele- 
 brated institution was founded in 1794. Its course of study 
 occupies but two years, but this is only because its require- 
 ments for admission, especially in mathematics, would be a fail- 
 qualification for a professorship in many institutions, while its 
 own professors have often been the generally acknowledged 
 leaders in their respective branches. This school being, more- 
 over, mainly one of general science, it is supplemented for pur- 
 poses of strictly professional and technical education, by various 
 special schools, some of which are the following : 
 
 The School of Eoads and Bridges, for the special training of 
 civil engineers. Course three years. 
 
51 
 
 The National School of Mines, with ample illustrative collec- 
 tions, and a course covering three years, for the professional 
 training of mining engineers. 
 
 Three National Schools of Arts and Trades, in conjunction 
 with the splendidly equipped Conservatory of Arts and Trades 
 at Paris, form an effective instrument for educating higher arti- 
 zaris. 
 
 The Imperial School of Forestry. 
 
 The Imperial School of Agriculture. 
 
 All these high and useful institutions, and others like them, 
 are as yet, being of so recent origin, out of the pale of the 
 great central state department of National education, known as 
 the " University of France," and which embraces the whole old 
 and long organized graded system of National instruction, from 
 the primary schools to the Academies, so called, which are 
 under the charge of eminent Faculties, and have a university 
 character. 
 
 The above institutions are, however, national ones, but there 
 is one, the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, which is a 
 private institution, founded in 1829, of too high grade to be 
 overlooked. Its courses occupy three years, and provide for 
 the wants of Civil Engineers, Mining Engineers, Mechanical 
 Engineers, arid Chemical Technologists. 
 
 IN GERMANY. Here, as might be supposed, from the reflect- 
 ive turn of the German mind, national education is more 
 thoroughly organized than anywhere else in the world, and 
 popular education, through common schools, more universal 
 than even in this country, except perhaps in the most favored 
 portions of New England. 
 
 The comprehensive organization of German schools, of all 
 
 grades, is as follows : 
 
 Primary. 
 All the Elementary Schools. 
 
 Secondary. 
 Classical Schools ; Real Schools ; Artizan Schools. 
 
 Superior. 
 Universities ; Polytechnic Institutes. 
 
52 
 
 The Classical schools, called gymnasia, are of about the same 
 grade as our classical colleges. The Real schools are about 
 equivalent to the parallel "scientific courses" advertised in 
 some of our colleges, where physical and mathematical studies, 
 with modern languages, largely replace attention to sundry 
 frivolities of pagan mythology. The Artizan schools, or indus- 
 trial colleges, are yet more decidedly modern and practical, and 
 stand in a relation to the Polytechnic Institutes, or Industrial 
 Universities," similar to that of the Classical Schools (colleges) 
 to the old Universities. In 1852, there were 26 of these indus- 
 trial colleges in Prussia, and their substantial equivalency to 
 the classical schools, and our own colleges, is seen in the fact 
 that there, as here, fourteen years is the minimum age for 
 admission to them, while the actual age on entering is consid- 
 erably higher. 
 
 Coming now to the true Polytechnic, or Professional Insti- 
 tutes, we find, among others : 
 
 The Royal Trade Institute of Berlin, founded in 1821, with a 
 general course of three years, followed by three special courses, 
 for civil and mechanical engineers ; for professional chemists ; 
 and for architects. 
 
 The Polytechnic Institute at Vienna was founded in 1815. It 
 includes its own preparatory (real school) course, of two years, 
 followed by a technical course of five years, also a commercial 
 one, and commanding a total attendance upon its regular 
 courses, of 1637 students in 1852. 
 
 The Bohemian Nobles' 1 Technical Institute at Prague, founded 
 in 1806, with a preparatory course of two years, and a tech- 
 nical course of three years. 
 
 In Bavaria, also, there are twenty-six of the artizan or trade 
 schools (industrial colleges) having courses of three years each, 
 preparatory to the three superior polytechnic schools, the oldest 
 of which is the Polytechnic School at Munich, founded in 1827. 
 It embraces a preparatory course of three years, and a poly- 
 technic coarse, proper, of four years. 
 
53 
 
 The technical schools of Saxony are of a high order, embra- 
 cing in their lower grades, the Eoyal Trade and Building School 
 at Chemnitz, with courses respectively of four, and two, years. 
 
 Above these, are the Eoyal Polytechnic School at Dresden, 
 with a lower and upper section, embracing courses of three, 
 and two years, respectively. Also the celebrated Mining 
 Academy at Freiberg, the oldest in the world of its kind, which 
 was founded in 1765, and provides a four years' course of study. 
 
 The Polytechnic School at Carlsruhe in Baden, established in 
 1825, is remarkable for its completeness of organization, embra- 
 cing a foundation course of three years, followed by numerous 
 technical courses, viz. : one in Engineering, of three years ; in 
 Architecture, of four years ; in Technical Chemistry, of two- 
 years; in Mechanism and Technology, of two years ; in Forestry, 
 of two years ; in Commercial Science, of one year ; and in 
 Postal service, of two years. 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. While this nation was fancying itself to be 
 secure in its commercial and manufacturing supremacy, the 
 London Exhibition of 1851, roused it to a sense of the danger 
 of its falling into a secondary scientific industrial position, 
 owing to its comparative neglect of Modern Applied Science 
 in its higher schools of learning. Glasgow University, how- 
 ever, in 1839, Kings' College, London, and Queen's College, 
 Birmingham, in 1851, were giving formal and quite elevated 
 theoretical and practical instruction in Applied Science. 
 
 King's College embraced courses of three years in civil and 
 mechanical engineering, and in general and technical chemistry, 
 requiring sixteen years as the age for admission. 
 
 Queen's College announced courses in civil engineering and 
 architecture of three years duration, requiring their entering 
 members to be eighteen years of age. 
 
 There are also, in London, we think, a College of Civil En- 
 gineers, a Government School of Mines, and a Department 
 of Science and Art in the Institute of Civil Engineers ;; 
 besides numerous Schools of Industrial (ornamental) Design 
 throughout the United Kingdom, and a College of Civil En- 
 gineers for the Indian department, at Madras, India, notices of 
 which we have met in Madras papers ; and, without doubt, means 
 
54 
 
 must exist in scientific chairs of instruction attached here and 
 there, to the other colleges and universities, and supplemented, 
 perhaps, more than elsewhere, by private study, or by the 
 adoption of continental precedents ready furnished to hand, or 
 by attendance at continental schools for educating the accom- 
 plished engineers, to whose qualifications, however attained, 
 British engineering works testify. We therefore close this 
 notice of foreign polytechnic institutions, with the remark, 
 that the one at Carlsruhe is the most nearly typical one, from 
 its comprehensiveness of organization. 
 
 The preceding statistics may be presumed to be interesting, 
 if only as showing what earnest and intelligent fellow laborers 
 have done and are doing elsewhere, and under different political 
 systems from ours. But they serve a higher end. They de- 
 monstrate the existence of a universal demand, in all civilized 
 countries, for a new form of general educational culture, and 
 professional training ; not to supplant the old, which includes 
 much that is permanently precious, but to run parallel with it, 
 as the legitimate outgrowth of modern science and life, and as 
 the fountain of supply for the new order of intellectual and 
 industrial wants. 
 
 This view is confirmed by the fact that the continental appre- 
 ciation of polytechnic instruction is such, that the larger and 
 lesser European States make appropriations for its support 
 within their borders, as regular! 3^ as our American States do for 
 common school instruction. 
 
 Some may have a conceit that the man-developing effect of 
 freedom alone, without special educating organizations, is an 
 equivalent to the elaborate systematic instruction, thought of, 
 perhaps, as only necessary to counterbalance the repressing 
 agencies of despotic governments. But with duly admiring 
 deference to Yankee ability to fall back upon native resources 
 in many an emergency, we think the following to be, rather, 
 the true line of argument, relative to this point. If the 
 numerous and crowded polytechnic schools of Europe accom- 
 plish so much, as they indisputably do, with all the depressing 
 hindrances of a half-suffocated civil life as the political lot of 
 
55 
 
 their graduates, what might they not do, if every graduate was 
 there, as in this country every person is, one of the royal 
 family ? In other words, if partly untutored American freedom 
 can compete with the world besides, in many of the truly best 
 contributions to World's Exhibitions, and well-called "Univer- 
 sal Expositions," what might not thoroughly cultured and 
 trained American freedom accomplish, with its fire and elasti- 
 city acting through finished intellectual machinery, such as 
 thorough scientific and polytechnic education may produce out 
 of the material, turned out in an only partially wrought form 
 by the common school from the native ore of original talent ? 
 
 Finally, therefore, it is to be most earnestly hoped that at 
 least among the institutions, having so large resources as those 
 provided for by the National land grants to the States for 
 endowing Scientific Institutions in each, especially if also other- 
 wise liberally endowed, if not among the riper Technical 
 Schools of this country, some one will ere long be found, to 
 signalize an era in American scientific education, and confer a 
 new and peculiar glory on the fortunate State containing it, by 
 constituting itself a true typical Polytechnic University, charac- 
 terized by a completely comprehensive unity of design, and 
 built up, if gradually, not in a disjointed manner, but, even in 
 the planning of its grounds and distribution of its buildings, as 
 well as in its component courses, and " schools," in accordance 
 with a complete original plan. 
 
 Such a " University " should be distinguished First: by a 
 central foundation, or general, scientific school, of high charac- 
 ter, with a course of liberal training in general disciplinary and 
 useful knowledge, embracing such a proportion of elective 
 studies as to possess due flexibility in providing for the wants 
 of those who should be contemplating any particular subsequent 
 technical and professional course. Second : it should be distin- 
 guished by possession of the highest ^true university attribute, 
 of making express provision for the indefinitely extended pur- 
 suit of single or associated subjects of general science, and real 
 learning. Third : circling as it were, around this central gen- 
 eral school, which should be in a plain, but rich and massive 
 
o6 
 
 structure, there should be a collection of all the technical pro- 
 fessional schools, congruous with the distinctive idea of a Poly- 
 technic, rather than a Humanistic, University, viz : one of Civil 
 and Topographical Engineering (sections of one school) ; one of 
 Mechanical Engineering ; one of Mining and Metallurgy; one 
 of Civil Architecture, naval included ; one of Technical Chem- 
 istry ; one of Physical Technology and Technical Natural History 
 (sections of the proper school of " arts and trades") ; one of 
 Agriculture and Forestry ; one of Industrial Ornamental Design 
 (Schools of Purely "Fine Art" should, we think, collectively 
 form a separate " Art University" disconnected from the dis- 
 tinctively "Industrial" or Polytechnic one) ; a Commercial one 
 of high order; and a Technical Normal School, for the train- 
 ing of professors of general or technical science. Fourth: As 
 a collateral group of buildings, each to be as far as possible an 
 architectural model, there should be the General Museum and 
 Assembly Hall, the General Library, the Chapel and Observa- 
 tory. Fifth : The plan should include Professors' residences and 
 Students' homes, the latter to accommodate six to twelve 
 persons each, with the householder's family; a gymnasium, and 
 the requisite lodges. Also, in respect to grounds, they should 
 be ample enough to embrace, wood, lawn, ground for manly 
 field games ; a botannical garden, and arboretum ; and a park 
 and pond for animals. 
 
 Lastly, the buildings of the technical schools, should include 
 the various laboratories, cabinets, scientific society rooms, appa- 
 ratus and work rooms, appropriate to their uses. 
 
 It would be easy to add the outline of a simple plan of dis- 
 tribution for all the foregoing structures, by which the essential 
 unity of the entire establishment should be elegantly, as well 
 as visibly, expressed in the very arrangement of its material 
 components. But we forbear, and pass on to consider briefly 
 the subject of the Endowment of Polytechnic Schools. Col- 
 leges are quite generally, and not incorrectly, regarded as 
 existing for the general intellectual, and, incidentally at least, 
 for the moral good of the entire country. They exist for this 
 end more than for any merely private, especially any pecuniary, 
 
57 
 
 good of their members. Hence they are treated as having a 
 recognized claim upon the wealthy liberality of the country, 
 and are very often quite largely and cheerfully endowed, as 
 may be seen by the frequent large donations to them, reported 
 in the newspapers at " commencement " times. 
 
 Professional Schools, however, especially those of Law and 
 Medicine, while existing in a very high sense for the general 
 good, exist, to a greater comparative extent than colleges, for 
 the immediate pecuniary benefit of their members. They are, 
 therefore, except Theological schools, less generally and liber- 
 ally endowed, and more supported by current tuition receipts. 
 But the exception shows that a school should not go unendowed 
 merely because a professional one. Let us, then, examine the 
 claims of Polytechnic Schools in reference to this question of 
 endowment. 
 
 We should confess the impropriety of publishing, here, defin- 
 ite statistics as to the endowments of the schools given in the 
 Table in Section I, but it may be said, in general terms, that 
 they vary, from sums too small to name, up to $50,000, 
 $100,000, $250,000, $750,000, $1,000,000, and upwards. And 
 the life of the institutions, thus variously conditioned, may be 
 supposed to vary correspondingly, from that of a dry and wiry 
 cedar growing in a cleft of a rock, drawing support from every- 
 where but the immediate place of its growth, to the spreading 
 luxuriance of willows by the water courses. But, seriously, 
 the Polytechnic Schools provide a ready entrance to lucrative 
 positions for their graduates. Still, the labors of those gradu- 
 ates tend directly and powerfully to increase the wealth of the 
 nation, by developing its mineral resources; by opening up 
 avenues of inter-communication, as in railroads, canals, and 
 river and harbor improvements ; by adding to its mechanical 
 appliances ; and by the increased production of articles of com- 
 merce derived by application of Industrial Physics, Chemistry, 
 and Natural History to many 'arts and trades. On the other 
 hand, the studies of Polytechnic Schools, being largely mate- 
 rial, require elaborate material appliances for their most successful 
 prosecution; Models, Instruments, Apparatus, Cabinets, Botani- 
 8 
 
58 
 
 cal Gardens, and Scientific Libraries, with numerous Diagrams, 
 Illustrative Drawings, and Charts. They thus have a two-fold 
 claim to a liberal endowment, at least with funds to equip 
 them handsomely with these necessary material appliances, if 
 not with endowed professorial chairs. 
 
 But there is another fund which Polytechnic Schools especi- 
 ally need, viz: a publication fund. Being partly, at least, a 
 unique class of schools, their text-books can often best be pre- 
 pared by their own professors. The cost of making such books 
 is necessarily great, and their sale of necessity relatively small. 
 Hence, as it is by no means an unknown custom, such works 
 should be published, in part certainly, from a fund for the 
 purpose. 
 
 We here, though rather abruptly, close, considering that, if 
 these Notes have not failed of their immediate object, they have 
 justified their title page, in that they have shown that Poly- 
 technic Schools are, in their nature, truly professional ; that 
 their position is, provisionally, and in part, one of compromise 
 with their ideal condition ; that their aim is, to attain the 
 everywhere undisputed rank of fully professional schools ; and 
 that their wants are, adequate preparatory schools, (colleges) 
 which, in turn should have previous academy training courses 
 of general science ; and material detachment from collegiate 
 and professional schools of the humanistic type not, of courses 
 in any narrow exclusiveness of spirit, but as a matter of expe- 
 diency. Our work thus done, we only add a word of ancient tes- 
 timony to the impossibility of knowing the whole of anything, 
 much less, of everything, and hence, to the propriety of the 
 recognized double line of learned pursuit, humanistic, and 
 polytechnic, which we have advocated. In this testimony, the 
 great regal example of the polytechnic learning and practice 
 of old, who says, " I gave my heart to search out by wisdom 
 concerning all things that are done under heaven," and, " I 
 made me great works," declares : 
 
 " He hath made everything beautiful in his time : also He hath 
 set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work 
 that God maJcethfrom the beginning to the end" 
 
OTHER 
 
 BY THE SAMP: AUTHOR, ON 
 
 Practical and Descriptive Geometry and Geometrical 
 
 Drawing. 
 
 Published by JOHN WILEY & M>\, 535 Broadway, \. Y. 
 
 ELEMENTARY COURSE. 
 
 J|. ELEMENTARY PLANE PROBLEMS. (In preparation.) 
 
 <1. DRAFTING INSTRUMENTS AND OPERATIONS. Div. I. Instruments 
 
 and Materials. Div. II. Instrumental Operations. Div. III. 
 
 Constructions in two dimensions. Div. IV. Elementary ^Esthetics 
 
 f>f Geometrical Drawing. Price $1.25. 
 5. MANUAL OF PROJECTIONS, ETC. Div. I. Elementary Projections. 
 
 Div. II. Details in Masonry, Wood and Metal. Div. III. Ele- 
 
 mentary Shades and Shadows. Div. IV. Isometrical Drawing. 
 
 Div. V. Simple Structure Drawing. Price $1.50. 
 6. ELEMENTARY LINEAR PERSPECTIVE. Part I. Primitive Methods. 
 
 Part II. Derivative Methods. Price $1.00. 
 
 HIGHER COURSE. 
 
 7.- 
 
 8. DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY. General Problems. Price $3.50. 
 
 9. 
 
 10.- 
 
 The above published works are all fully illustrated with cuts and plates. 
 They are used in several of the Scientific or Polytechnic Schools of the 
 Country ; and have received warm commendation in various quarters. 
 The volumes of the Elementary Course, are especially adapted for the 
 upper classes in High Schools and Academies ; and for the Scientific 
 Undergraduate Courses in Colleges, as well as for the lower classes in the 
 Polytechnic Schools; and for the self-instruction of Artizans, etc. Vol. 6 
 is also especially adapted for Ladies' Seminaries and Schools of Design, in 
 which the principles of perspective are taught. 
 
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