MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. 273 



benches, two brass furnaces and a core-oven; a forge shop with thirty- 

 two forges, a power hammer, vises, etc.; a machine shop with about 

 forty lathes, together with drills, planers and all the other necessary 

 apparatus used in machine tool work. 



The magnitude of the Institute laboratories is shown by the follow- 

 ing statements: The total horse-power of steam and other engines is 

 nine hundred and eighty-three; the total capacity of tension, compres- 

 sion and transverse testing machines is over eight hundred thousand 

 pounds, and of torsion testing machines about one hundred and fifty-six 

 thousand inch pounds; the total horse-power of hydraulic motors is 

 sixty-two; and the total capacity of pumps is thirty-two hundred gallons 

 per minute. 



The engineering laboratories are used by students of all the en- 

 gineering departments, that is to say, by a large majority of the students 

 in the school. The benefit derived by this actual contact with materials 

 and with machines of commercial size, under proper instruction, is 

 believed to be very great. 



The department of mechanical engineering, one of the original 

 departments, is now the largest in the school, having a force of instruc- 

 tion of five professors and twelve instructors and assistants. As an 

 offshoot of it, a department of naval architecture was established in 

 1893, after a preliminary experience of four years with an option in 

 this direction. This was the first course of its kind established in this 

 country. It is somewhat remarkable, considering the preeminence 

 that America has long enjoyed in the building of ships and marine 

 engines, that our technical schools should for so long have failed to 

 offer specialized instruction in these important branches. Schools de- 

 voted to these subjects have long existed abroad. The French Gov- 

 ernment School of Naval Architecture was established in 1865 for the 

 purpose of educating young men for the Government service. To this 

 school foreigners are admitted under certain restrictions. In England 

 the first school of naval architecture was opened in 1871, but no 

 systematic instruction seems to have been provided until 1861. At 

 present, however, the Eoyal Naval College, at Greenwich, gives excellent 

 and thorough instruction to young men desiring to enter the Govern- 

 ment service. There has also been for a number of years an excellent 

 course of study in naval architecture at the University of Glasgow. 

 The Institute of Technology established in 1888 an elementary course 

 in ship construction, and this was followed in 1890 by a specialized 

 option in naval architecture extending through the four years. Already 

 forty-one men have graduated from this course. 



One of the large departments of the school is that of architecture. 

 Forming one of the original departments established at the beginning 

 of the Institute in 1865, when there was no similar department in this 



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