262 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which held its first meeting in 1862, has been continued to the present 

 time. Many important inventions, as for instance the earliest forms 

 of the Bell telephone, were first publicly exhibited at its meetings. 



In outlining his plan, President Rogers showed wonderful keenness 

 and foresight. With the added experience of the succeeding forty 

 years, it would scarcely be possible to make a more complete statement 

 of what experience has shown to be the best method of organization. 

 In fact, his Scope and Plan of the School of Industrial Science of the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology may be said to be the first 

 step toward a new order of things in education, and contains the first 

 clear statement of the desirability of teaching physics, mining, metal- 

 lurgy and other branches by the laboratory method. 



Let us now see what has been the result of the nearly forty years 

 of development since President Eogers outlined his plan. Originally 



The Henry L. Pierce Building and Engineering Building. 



confined to one building, the growing needs of the school have led to 

 the erection of five others, in addition to a gymnasium. The original 

 building, completed in 1865, is now known as the Rogers Building, after 

 the founder of the school; while the one next erected, in 1883, is 

 named after the third president, the late General Francis A. Walker. 

 These two buildings each measure about 90 by 150 feet, and in addition 

 to a building occupied by the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 occupy one entire square nearly in the heart of the city, and in close 

 proximity to the Public Library and the Art Museum. Three other 

 buildings, which adjoin each other and now form one structure, are 

 situated about six hundred feet distant and form the front and part of 

 one side of what will some day be one large quadrangle. The first 

 of these buildings to be erected was the Engineering Building, built 

 in 1889, measuring 52 by 148 feet on the ground, adjoining which is 



