340 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVI. No. 411 



it has been our priv^ilege to work together for this end, and 

 that out of the atfiiction of a little child a blessing has come 

 to so many ? 



The success of our schools in which we' rejoice to-day is 

 due not only to the superiority of the oral system over the 

 siga-language system, not only to the energy and persever- 

 ance of their founders, but, more than all, to the devotion, 

 to the untiring zeal, and to the ability, of our teachers. No 

 other teaching is so exacting, requires such constant attention 

 and unwearied application. 



The names of all are too numerous to mention. In our 

 earthly as in our heavenly firinanent one star differeth from 

 another in glory, but bright as constellations shine the names 

 of Miss Rogers, Miss Fuller, and Miss Bond. 



This school is appropriately named the Horace Mann 

 School, since Mr. Mann was the first to recommend the 

 adoption of the oral system ; but it was to Mr. King that 

 this school owes its existence. The names of those who 

 laid the found ition and built the edifice should not be for- 

 gotten. 



But it is to Mr. King that this school owes its existence. A 

 bronze tablet should be affixed to its walls; and associated 

 with the name of Horace Mann should be the names of 

 Dexter S. King and Sarah Fuller, inscribed thereon, that thus 

 the names of the three who have done so much for the edu- 

 cation of the deaf may be perpetuated. 



THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECH- 

 KOLOGY.' 



An institution of learning may make a demand upon pub- 

 lic recognition and gratitude because of its good woi-k in 

 training successive classes of young men for usefulness in 

 life, even though it be not an innovator in education, and 

 uses only the old and familiar methods of instruction; but it 

 may acquire a further and larger claim by becoming a leader 

 in its department, by introducing new methods, and open- 

 ing the way to a better kind of intellectual and professional 

 training. 



How the Institute of Technology has dealt with the thou- 

 sands of young men who have been its pupils since 1865, 

 what i'b tjas done for them, what places they now occupy in 

 the industrial system, what services they have rendered to the 

 arts and industries of the country, common fame will tell. 

 Those who would study this matter more carefully will find 

 material in the lists of its graduates and of the places they 

 fill, as told in the annual catalogues. 



. But in addition to its work in training a certain number of 

 young men for the duties of life, the Institute of Technology 

 has been pre-eminently a leader in education. Its influence 

 has not been confined to what it has done for its own pupils, 

 but has extended as far as its example of advanced scientific 

 and technical instruction has gone. 



Almost at the very outset a long step forward was taken 

 in the establishment of a laboratory of general chemistry. 

 Up to that time general chemistry had been taught wholly 

 by means of text books, or by lectures with experiments by 

 the lecturer. The student's part was only to look and to 

 listen, and learn in this way what he could. It was not 

 until the student was put into the analytical laboratory, and 

 took the retort into his own hand, that he did or discovered 

 any thing for himself. Under the inspiration of Professor 

 Eogers and the enterprise and administrative skill of Pro- 



1 From tbe Commemorative Address by Augustus Lowell, Esq., at the 

 twenty-flftb auniveraary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 



fessor Charles W. Eliot and Professor Frank H. Storer. a 

 laboratory of general chemistry was established, and the 

 pupil from the first day of his chemical studies was set to 

 teach himself. This was no analytical laboratory. It was 

 simply designed as a means of illustrating, emphasizing, and 

 supplementing the instruction of the lecture-room in regard 

 to the nature of chemical action and the characteristics of 

 the principal elements. The student was not told what he 

 should find. He was told to do something, and note what 

 occurred. He was thrown upon his own faculties of obser- 

 vation and reflection. He learned to know himself, and to 

 measure his own power, and he acquired ease and accuracy 

 of manipulation by practice. So far as known, this was the 

 first laboratory of such a character set up in the world. Cer- 

 tainly it was the first one instituted in the United States for 

 the instruction of considerable classes of pupils. The publi- 

 cation of '' Eliot and Storer's Manual," designed for students 

 taking this course, marked an epoch in the history of educa- 

 tion. 



Another equally important step in scientific education, and 

 one of which the originality is beyond doubt, was taken at 

 about this time in the establishment of a laboratory now 

 known as the Rogers Laboratory of Physics. Under the 

 inspiration of President Rogers, the scheme of a laboratory 

 where the student of physics should be set to make observa- 

 tions and conduct measurements for himself, in demonstra- 

 tion and illustration of the physical laws taught in the 

 lecture-room, was carried out with remarkable ability on 

 both the scientific and administrative sides by Professor 

 Edward C. Pickering, now director of the Harvard Observa- 

 tory. So complete was Professor Pickering's study of the 

 needs and capabilities of such a laboratory, so masterly 

 his treatment of it, that it has required only more room 

 and additional apparatus to allow the system he then de- 

 vised and formulated to be extended successively to classes 

 of fifty, of one hundred, and even of one hundred and fifty 

 students. 



In the school year of 1871-72 another forward step in edu- 

 cation was taken at the Institute of Technology. Down to 

 that time the instruction in mining engineering and metal- 

 lurgy had been, here as elsewhere, conducted by means of 

 text-books, lectures, drawing models, and assays of small 

 pinches of ore, supplemented, in the case of the more fortu- 

 nately situated schools, by occasional visits to mines in actual 

 operation. In the year named a scientific expedition to the 

 Rocky Mountains was undertaken by a large party of stu- 

 dents and instructors from the institute. While in the Colo- 

 rado mining regions, Professor Runkle conceived the idea 

 of a laboratory which should add to the existing means of 

 instruction in mining and metallurgy the practical treatment 

 by the students of economic quantities of ores. This con- 

 ception, so fully in the line of the general work of the insti- 

 tute, was given effect by the purchase in California, before the 

 return of the expedition, of a number of pieces of apparatus 

 suitable for the beginnings of such a laboratory. The appa- 

 ratus thus obtained was set up by Mr. Robert H. Richards, 

 then instructor, and now for many years professor, of mining 

 engineering. 



From these snaall beginnings made under Professor 

 Richards's care it has grown steadily to this day. It was 

 the first proper metallurgical laboratory devoted to the pur- 

 poses of instruction in the world. It is under its title, " The 

 John Cummings Laboratory," by far the largest and the best 

 in the world to-day. Its graduates are found in the most 

 important mines and smelting and reduction works of the 



