846 ROBEET HENRY THURSTON. 



The tremendous drain of enero-y required for the work accomplished 

 between 1871 and 1876 was more than his physical streng-th could 

 safely be called on to furnish, and for the next three or four years he 

 was in poor health, and on duty only a part of the time. In 1880, 

 however, his health was again restored, and from that time for the next 

 twenty-three 3'ears he enjoyed, in the main, excellent health, and lost 

 no time due to serious illness. 



In 1885 he was invited by the trustees of Cornell Uniyersity to 

 undertake the work of organizing and developing a college of mechan- 

 ical engineering on the foundation provided by Sibley College, which 

 had been founded at about the same time as Stevens, but had devel- 

 oped on less distinctively engineering lines. Professor Thurston 

 brought to this w^ork all his native enthusiasm and force of character, 

 with the experience he had acquired during the preceding fifteen 

 years in similar work at Stevens Institute. The results of the organi- 

 zation which he brought about, and of the new life which was thus 

 instilled into the work of the college, were speedily seen in a gen- 

 eral elevation of the quality of instruction -and of the student 

 body at large, and in a rapidl}'' increasing number in attendance. On 

 taking charge, in 1885, the total attendance in all classes was about 00, 

 with a total teaching, force of 7, while at his death, in 1903, these 

 figures were, respective!}^, 960 and 43. Professor Thurston saw clearly 

 the possibilities of a great engineering school at Cornell University 

 and labored unceasingly for its development and perfection along these 

 lines. ^1 his ideal he included a system of schools of engineering and 

 of the mechanic arts, offering in the fundamental departments expert 

 instruction in tlie foundations of all principal dei)artments of industry, 

 and laying a broad foundation for successful work in all lines of 

 industrial activity; joined with these a system of schools of the indus- 

 tries in which the use of the essential apparatus and equipment of these 

 industries should be exhibited by expert teachers and discussed with 

 reference to their fundamental principles and their relation to broader 

 and more fundamental principles; again, a s3'stem of schools of the 

 constructive professions of engineering, and then, correlated with all, 

 a department of experimental research, in which the many problems 

 which arise in these various lines of engineering and industrial activity 

 might receive careful stud}- at the hands of expert investigatoi's, and 

 wherein the student might gain that vital contact with the actual 

 materials of engineering construction, and with the various mechan- 

 isms which he is to construct or employ, which alone can give him 

 theactual knowledge that the .successful prosecution of his professional 

 work will demand. 



Naturally, not all of this ideal has been attained. Lack of funds has 

 prevented more than the blocking out of a part of the work, and that 

 on broad lines, and in developing some few of the special lines w-hich 



