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The Education of Engineers in America before the Morrill Act of 1862 Author(s): Terry S. Reynolds Source: History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 459-482 Published by: History of Education Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/368959 Accessed: 29/08/2008 14:43

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The Education of Engineers in America before the Morrill Act of 1862

Terry S. Reynolds

The traditional view of antebellum colleges, as exemplified by the works of Richard Hofstadter and others, depicts them as dogmatic, elitist, in- flexible, and hostile both to science and to more practically oriented subjects, such as engineering. Only in recent decades have scholars dis- puted this view. Stanley Guralnick in 1975 challenged the contention that antebellum colleges were antagonistic to science, demonstrating that they made extraordinary and successful efforts to modify their curricula and add faculty to increase science offerings. Shortly after, in 1982, Colin Burke published a broadly based, quantitative study of antebellum col- leges which revealed that they were far more successful, accessible, adapt- able, and progressive than previously recognized.'

One element of the traditional view that has still not been subjected to detailed investigation is the claim that antebellum colleges made little attempt to develop programs of a practical nature, such as engineering, that were of relevance to the economic growth of the country. According to the traditional view, only with the passage of the Morrill Act in 1862 and the creation of the land-grant college did engineering find a firm place in academia.

As this study will demonstrate, this claim, too, is erroneous. Ante- bellum colleges were not hostile to "practical" subjects. Literally dozens of antebellum colleges in all parts of the nation sought to meet social demands for a more "practical" education by introducing programs in engineering. Nor were American colleges rigid about the form these pro-

Terry S. Reynolds is professor of history and head of the Department of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University.

'For examples of the traditional view, see Richard Hofstadter, Academic Freedom in the Age of the College (New York, 1955), 209ff.; Hofstadter and C. De Witt Hardy, The Development and Scope of Higher Education in the United States (New York, 1952), 19- 27; and Donald G. Tewksbury, The Founding of American Colleges and Universities before the Civil War, with Particular Reference to the Religious Influences Bearing upon the College Movement (Hamden, Conn., 1965), esp. 3-33. Stanley M. Guralnick, Science and the Ante-Bellum American College (Philadelphia, 1975); Colin B. Burke, American Col- legiate Populations: A Test of the Traditional View (New York, 1982).

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History of Education Quarterly

grams took-they made engineering instruction available in a wide va- riety of patterns and forms. It could be argued, in fact, that the success enjoyed by engineering programs in the land-grant schools of the late nineteenth century was possible only because of the foothold engineering had secured in American colleges before 1860. Thus, this study will both complement and supplement the revisionist views of Guralnick and Burke on the openness, success, and adaptability of antebellum American col- leges.

* x- t - Y.-

In America, as in England, engineers were not at first trained in colleges. They learned their craft through apprenticeship, usually by finding a position with a practicing engineer and working with him in field and office for several years before seeking an independent position.2 This on- the-job method of producing engineers had several shortcomings. The most severe, for early America, was the lack of experienced engineers to take on apprentices. Nor was recourse to foreign-born engineers a viable option. Because of cultural, economic, and language barriers few engi- neers emigrated to America, and fewer still stayed for long. Even if more engineers had been available to take on apprentices, the system had other shortcomings. Apprenticeship often produced quality engineers, but it could not produce engineers in the quantity needed when American state governments and private entrepreneurs began, after the War of 1812, to rapidly expand national transportation networks. The accelerated growth of American transportation systems meant apprenticeship methods alone could not satisfy the demand for engineers and led to attempts by Amer- ican colleges to train engineers.3

Neither broad overviews of the history of American education nor specialist studies of American engineering education have depicted these attempts as being very successful. Instead, scholars have pictured the antebellum college as generally hostile to engineering. For example, Mau- rice Caullery's 1922 study of American universities noted that early Amer- ican colleges, "imbued with an unyielding traditional classicism . . . did not show any eagerness to favor the development of the applied sciences." Edward Eddy's and Earle Ross's histories of the land-grant college move-

2 This system is briefly described in "The Engineering Schools of the United States, III," Engineering News 27 (2 Apr. 1892): 318. A modification of this system used on early American public works projects is described in Daniel H. Calhoun, The American Civil Engineer: Origins and Conflict (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 24-30.

+ This boom is described in George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York, 1951). See also Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 1800-1890 (New York, 1960).

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ment concurred. Eddy, for example, noted that early colleges "treated science in somewhat the same manner as they treated literature-to be studied but not used." This same theme has been reiterated by numerous others.4

Studies focusing specifically on the history of engineering education, often using quantitative data, have further reinforced the view that at- tempts to incorporate engineering instruction in antebellum colleges en- joyed, at best, very limited success. These studies usually compare the "small" number of engineering programs existing in the United States before 1860 or 1862 (when the Morrill Act was passed) to the much larger number in 1870, 1872, or 1880. For example, Charles Mann in 1918 asserted that before 1860 only four schools or departments taught engineering in the United States, but that there were seventy by 1872 and eighty-five by 1880. William Wickenden cited slightly different num- bers in his classic 1929 study of engineering education: "In the space of a single decade, from 1862 to 1872, the number of engineering schools increased from six to seventy, a rate of expansion without parallel." David Noble in 1976 used the same numbers. Other scholars have cited only slightly higher figures for antebellum engineering programs. Fred- erick Mavis in 1952 believed there were "seven or eight"; James Mc- Givern in 1960 placed the number at seven; Earl Cheit in 1975 counted eleven; Lawrence Grayson in 1977 identified around a dozen.5

Although some of the classically oriented, antebellum colleges were, indeed, inflexible and hostile to the study of "practical" subjects, this inflexibility and hostility and the subsequent impact of the Morrill Act on engineering education have been greatly exaggerated.

4 Maurice Caullery, Universities and Scientific Life in the United States, trans. James Haughton Woods and Emmet Russell (Cambridge, Mass., 1922), 116; Edward Danforth Eddy, Colleges for Our Land and Time: The Land-Grant Idea in American Education (New York, 1957), 10-11; Earle D. Ross, Democracy's Colleges: The Land-Grant Move- ment in the Formative Stage (Ames, Ia., 1942), 14-20. Other examples are Earl F. Cheit, The Useful Arts and the Liberal Tradition (New York, 1975), 18, 19, 61; H. G. Good, A History of American Education (New York, 1956), 288-89; and Walter P. Rogers, Andrew D. White and the Modern University (Ithaca, N.Y., 1941), 44.

s Charles Riborg Mann, A Study of Engineering Education . . ., Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Bulletin no. 11 (New York, 1918), 6; Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, Report of the Investigation of Engineering Education, 1923-1929 (Pittsburgh, 1930), 1: 816; David F. Noble, America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York, 1976), 24; Frederick T. Mavis, "History of Engineering Education," Centennial of Engineering: History and Pro- ceedings of Symposia, 1852-1952, ed. Lenox R. Lohr (Chicago, 1953), 192; James McGivern, First Hundred Years of Engineering Education in the United States (Spokane, Wash., 1960), 88; Lawrence P. Grayson, "A Brief History of Engineering Education in the United States," Engineering Education 67 (Dec. 1977): 247-50.

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The growing need for engineers to plan and build roads, canals, and railroads came at the same time that American colleges faced criticism for being elitist and irrelevant to American conditions.6 To some extent the criticisms were accurate. The traditional, classical college curriculum focused on philosophy, on mathematics for mental training, on Greek and Latin, and on the classics produced in those languages. It usually involved a rigorous, lockstep (that is, no elective) course of instruction leading, after four years, to the bachelor of arts degree. But the con- junction of a growing need for engineers and growing criticism of higher education for not serving the real needs of American society prompted many colleges to modify their classical curricula or to otherwise exper- iment with various means of offering engineering training as a way of silencing critics.

Today, engineering training in American colleges is standardized in a four-year program, leading to a bachelor of science degree in an en- gineering specialty. Antebellum colleges, however, introduced engineer- ing instruction following a wide variety of patterns. Two primary reasons account for this variety. First, little precedent existed for organizing for- mal college-level engineering instruction. Without such precedents insti- tutions tended to follow their own inclinations tempered by local circumstances. Second, American society in the nineteenth century was pluralistic and decentralized. No public consensus existed about how engineering training should be conducted, and no public agencies or institutions had the power to promote or enforce uniformity.

As a result, early American engineering education took a wide variety of forms as different institutions, responding to different social contexts, offered particularistic solutions. Among the bewildering array of different forms taken by antebellum engineering education, we can discern six basic patterns (with some subpatterns). Two of these patterns represented attempts to break completely with the traditional classical college-the military college, influenced by French precedents in combining engi- neering with a military education; and the independent polytechnic school, drawing, at first, upon English "popular science" precedents. But engineering instruction was also grafted to the trunk of the traditional, classical college in a variety of ways, but in four basic patterns. In some colleges it existed in "partial" or "select" courses offered to students not pursuing formal degrees. In others engineering instruction was added as an option to or requirement for the traditional bachelor of arts degree. After 1830 numerous American colleges began to offer "scientific"

h See, for example, Francis Wayland, Thoughts on the Present Collegiate System in the United States (Boston, 1842).

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courses leading to nontraditional degrees like the bachelor of science or bachelor of philosophy. Engineering was one of a number of "scientific" subjects in many of these new curricula; it was the primary focus of a few. Finally, engineering training was also offered in autonomous sci- entific schools linked to existing classical colleges. The extent and di- versity of antebellum engineering instruction can best be demonstrated by looking at each of these basic patterns more closely.

The inclusion of engineering in higher military education clearly had French roots. In the 1700s the French monarchy, plagued by a shortage of trained military engineers, established several institutions (such as the Ecole du genie at Meziers) which combined training in engineering with advanced military instruction. Because the American army had depended on French military engineers during the Revolution, these institutions were well known and provided the earliest model for imitation.7

Thus, college-level engineering education began in the United States outside of the established collegiate system, in military schools. The ear- liest college-level institution to offer engineering training was the United States Military Academy at West Point. Founded in 1802 to provide training for the U.S. Army's corps of engineers, the academy at first did not have a formal course of instruction or regular sequence of classes. Cadets reported to the academy at irregular intervals, were instructed more on apprenticeship than academic lines, and left as external demands warranted.

Beginning in 1817 under Sylvanius Thayer, however, West Point adopted a four-year curriculum designed, primarily, to provide scientif- ically trained officers to the army's corps of engineers and secondarily to provide such officers to the army's other branches. Thayer's curric- ulum, however, was also designed to serve civilian ends. It provided cadets with more training in civil than military engineering and promoted the idea that engineering skills could be readily transferred between military and civilian sectors. West Point's peculiar status-a military academy that paid more attention to scientific, mathematical, and engineering education than to military education-was largely the result of the pres- sures of antebellum American society. A military academy in a republic that begrudged military expenditures, looked down on the profession of arms, and despised social and intellectual elitism had to do more than simply supply professional military officers to survive. Under Thayer, the

7 See Peter M. Molloy, "Technical Education and the Young Republic: West Point as America's Ecole Polytechnique, 1802-1833" (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1975); and Frederick B. Artz, The Development of Technical Education in France, 1500-1850 (Cam- bridge, Mass., 1966).

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academy did this by broadly training cadets in engineering. In the process it became, in effect, the first formal, college-level American engineering school.8

West Point's pattern of incorporating engineering into a college- grade education was quickly imitated. In 1820 Alden Partridge, former acting superintendent of the Military Academy, founded the American Literary, Philosophical, and Military Academy in Norwich, Vermont, later to become Norwich University. Organized as a military school, Partridge's institution was designed to provide citizen soldiers and militia officers with the same type of training provided federal officers by West Point.

Rebelling against Thayer's reforms at West Point, Partridge made the course of instruction at Norwich less structured and somewhat less scientific and mathematical. For example, at Norwich students were not organized into four classes and put through a standard four-year curric- ulum. They progressed at their own pace and could complete the course of instruction in as little as a year, depending on prior skills and training. Partridge's school, moreover, was somewhat closer to the traditional classical college than West Point, requiring students to follow a curric- ulum that included more of the traditional "liberal arts." Norwich Uni- versity had a checkered early history, but had clearly initiated engineering instruction by 1820, and by 1826 it provided a formal program of courses labeled civil engineering.9

Most accounts of early American engineering education mention only West Point and Norwich. But at least six other antebellum military schools, most of which were located in the South, also offered engineering instruction. Following Partridge's example, Virginia in 1839 and South Carolina in 1843 established military academies to provide trained cit- izen-soldiers and officers for their state militia. The resulting schools- the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and the Citadel-developed curric- ula that closely imitated West Point. They were four years long and included not only military drill and tactical studies, but surveying, draw- ing, heavy doses of the basic sciences and mathematics, and senior-year courses in military and civil engineering. The U.S. Naval Academy,

8 The best account of the origins and early history of West Point is Molloy, "Technical Education and the Young Republic." See also, however, James L. Morrison, Jr., "The Best School in the World": West Point, the Pre-Civil War Years, 1833-1866 (Kent, Ohio, 1986); Calhoun, American Civil Engineer, 37-43; and "U.S. Military Academy," American Railroad Journal 4 (11 July 1835): 427-28.

9William Arba Ellis, comp. and ed., Norwich University, 1819-1911, Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll of Honor (Montpelier, Vt., 1911), esp. 1: 1-150; George Gary Bush, History of Education in Vermont (Washington, D.C., 1900), 186-98.

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founded in 1845 and located at Annapolis, Maryland, was not as heavily scientific and mathematically oriented as West Point, Norwich, VMI, and the Citadel. But it also provided instruction in engineering-a course in steam engineering offered as early as 1846."'

Two lesser known antebellum military schools in the South likewise provided engineering instruction-a Wilmington, Delaware, school or- ganized in 1856 by Theodore Hyatt and the short-lived National Scientific and Military Academy in Brandywine Springs, Delaware. Alden Par- tridge, founder of Norwich University, opened the latter school in 1853. In fact, Partridge and his former students founded nearly twenty similar institutions, many located in the South, in the decades preceding the War Between the States. While the focus of most was on military training, and most were no more than high schools, it is likely that some, besides the National Scientific and Military Academy, offered training in civil engineering. One certainly did. The Scientific and Military Collegiate Institute in Reading, Pennsylvania, which opened in 1850, offered a "very complete course in Civil Engineering and Military Science" with instruc- tion provided by Norwich graduates. It prospered for a few years and then disappeared around 1860."

While French precedents influenced the introduction of engineering into early American military colleges, more "democratic," or popularly oriented, English models also attracted attention. The roots of the poly- technic school pattern of engineering education lay in British attempts at disseminating useful knowledge to artisans and manufacturers. Be- tween 1800 and 1820 British industrialists, in the belief that a better educated work force would lead to increased profits and reduced worker discontent, encouraged self-improvement organizations (called mechan- ics' institutes and lyceums) to disseminate useful knowledge to craftsmen and industrial workers. These organizations offered such services as vo- cationally oriented evening classes, lecture series, and free libraries. By

") For VMI, see William Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I. (Richmond, Va., 1939), 1: 31-35, 42, 46, 149, and elsewhere; and Henry A. Wise, Drawing Out the Man: The VMI Story (Charlottesville, Va., 1978), 3, 9-30. For the Citadel, see 0. J. Bond, The Story of the Citadel (Richmond, Va., 1936), 19, 22, 25; and Colyer Meriwether, History of Higher Education in South Carolina, with a Sketch of the Free School System (Washington, D.C., 1889), 69-71. For the Naval Academy, see Henry Barnard, Military Schools and Courses of Instruction in the Science and Art of War (New York, 1872), 897-98, 900; and Monte A. Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910: Professional Cultures in Conflict (Baltimore, 1967), 20.

" Saul Sack, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa., 1963), 2: 501; Ellis, Norwich University, 1: 395-401.

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the 1820s these popular education movements had spread to the United States. 12

One offspring of these movements was what could be considered the earliest American polytechnic school-the Gardiner Lyceum, founded at Gardiner, Maine, in 1823. Unlike most lyceums, which attempted to fill the gap between grammar school and college that then existed in the American educational system, the Gardiner Lyceum aimed higher. Gar- diner offered some of the short courses typical of mechanics' institutes and lyceums, but it also offered a three-year course of advanced instruc- tion focusing on the practical applications of science. In the second year of this course students were introduced to college-level material, such as trigonometry, surveying, calculus, mechanics, and civil engineering (of- fered as an option to agricultural chemistry). Civil engineering was also offered to those not wishing to pursue the regular course of instruction. The Gardiner Lyceum operated for a decade before financial difficulties forced its closing in 1832. '

Another early American institution following the polytechnic pat- tern, and one more enduring, was the Rensselaer Institute. When founded in 1824, the school was known simply as the Rensselaer School. Its original purpose was to train students to teach science and its applications to the New York farming community via experimental demonstrations- a goal in keeping with the mechanics' institute and lyceum movements' emphasis on diffusing useful knowledge. Engineering education did not form part of its venue.

By 1828, however, the Rensselaer School was offering occasional engineering lectures, and in 1835 the institution began to shift emphasis, changing its name to the Rensselaer Institute and initiating a one-year program which awarded a civil engineering degree. Rensselaer's civil engineering program was originally intended as a graduate program of- fered to students who had already completed a B.A. degree. But that conception did not work. Almost from the start the majority of students did not possess an undergraduate degree.

By 1850 Rensselaer had again changed its name to Rensselaer Poly- technic Institute. That year it abandoned the idea of offering engineering

12 The mechanics' institute and lyceum movements are discussed in Charles A. Bennett, History of Manual and Industrial Education, Vol. 1: Up to 1870 (Peoria, IlL., 1926), 301- 44; Carl Bode, The American Lyceum: Town Meeting of the Mind (New York, 1956); and Bruce Sinclair, Philadelphia's Philosopher Mechanics: A History of the Franklin In- stitute, 1824-1865 (Baltimore, 1974), 1-19.

"3John H. Cooper, "An Account of the Gardiner Lyceum, the First Trade School Established in the United States," Journal of the Franklin Institute 140 (1895): 275-87; George Emmerson, Engineering Education: A Social History (Newton Abbot, Eng., 1973), 143-44.

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education as a one-year extension to a traditional "liberal arts" education and had expanded its one-year engineering program to three years. More- over, by 1850 Rensselaer was focusing almost entirely on scientific and engineering training, totally abandoning its early role as an agricultural and teaching-training school.'4

Rensselaer is the only polytechnic school mentioned in most accounts of early American engineering education. Indeed, the polytechnic pattern was not at first widely imitated, but in the 1850s a half dozen other polytechnics were founded, mostly in the more industrialized Northeast. Early on the most significant was the Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania. Founded in 1853, this school offered two-year programs leading to bach- elor's degrees in civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and mining engineering. It was perhaps the first school to offer degrees in mechanical and mining engineering. Although the institution died in the late 1880s, for almost four decades it graduated significant numbers of engineers. Engineering was taught as well at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, which opened its doors in 1855, and at Cooper Union in New York City, which opened a free night school in 1859. There were, in addition, two short-lived polytechnics. In 1857, Walter Nugent, a civil engineer, an- nounced the opening of a college in Cleveland to instruct "young gen- tlemen in the profession of Civil Engineering." And in 1859 B. F. Greene resigned as head of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to found a polytechnic school for engineers and practical scientists at Glenmore, New York. Both Nugent's and Greene's polytechnics were apparently aborted by the onset of the War Between the States.'5

The military school and the polytechnic school were attempts to break away from the mainstream of the American collegiate tradition with its broadly based, liberal arts curriculum. But engineering instruction in antebellum America was not confined to such schools. A very large number of mainline colleges also experimented with engineering instruc- tion. The most widely used early pattern for grafting engineering instruc-

14 Samuel Rezneck, Education for a Technological Society: A Sesquicentennial History of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y., 1968); Ray Palmer Baker, A Chapter in American Education: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1824-1924 (New York, 1924); "School of Civil Engineers," American Railroad Journal 4 (30 May 1835): 321.

I For Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania, see McGivern, First Hundred Years, 82- 87; Sack, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania, 2: 478-82; and S. Edward Warren, Notes on Polytechnic or Scientific Schools in the United States: Their Nature, Position, Aims, and Wants (New York, 1866), 6. For Brooklyn Polytechnic, see Warren, Notes on Polytechnic Schools, 7-8; and George Bugliarello, Towards the Technological University: The Story of Polytechnic Institute of New York (New York, 1975), 12. For Nugent's school, see Walter Nugent, "Engineers and Mechanics College," American Railroad Journal 27 (1854): 217. For Greene's school, see Rezneck, Education for a Technological Society, 128-29.

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tion to the traditional college was the "partial" or "select" course-a course or courses in engineering offered to students who wished engi- neering training but had no desire to pursue the traditional B.A. degree. The "partial" or "select" pattern of engineering instruction enjoyed con- siderable popularity in mainline American colleges before 1840. It was a cheap and simple pattern to follow. And it offered the possibility of mollifying critics by providing courses with some practical relevance without sullying the traditional bachelor of arts curriculum.

At least four northeastern institutions began offering engineering instruction as a "partial" course prior to 1840, with additional schools following this route by 1860. The earliest institution to offer a "partial" course in engineering was apparently the University of Vermont, which initiated a "partial" course in civil engineering around 1828. Other in- stitutions soon followed. Beginning in 1830, Columbia provided a regular annual series of lectures on mechanics, machines, architecture, and civil engineering for those wishing to pursue practical careers but not inter- ested in securing a B.A. degree. Between 1832 and 1838 Joseph Henry at Princeton offered a regular series of lectures in civil engineering outside the regular curriculum. And at New York University in 1837, Charles Hackley, professor of mathematics, announced that he would provide a two-month lecture course in civil engineering for $20 per student.16

Between 1840 and 1860 at least four more northeastern institutions initiated engineering "partial" courses: Rutgers (1841), Brown (1845), the University of Rochester (1856, if not earlier), and the University of Pennsylvania (1856). The University of Pennsylvania was typical. In 1852 Penn's trustees voted to establish a School of Mines, Arts, and Manu- factures. Because they provided no financial support, instruction did not begin until 1856, when the school's faculty finally began teaching courses in several scientific and technical fields, including engineering, but not as part of a formal degree. Students completing any course and passing an examination received only a diploma or certificate in that subject.'7

Ih For the University of Vermont, see Julian Ira Lindsay, Tradition Looks Forward: The University of Vermont-A History, 1791-1904 (Burlington, 1954), 274. For Colum- bia, see Herbert E. Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education in the First Nine Colleges Founded in the United States, 1636-1862" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1940), 227. For Princeton, see John Maclean, History of the College of New Jersey, 1746- 1854 (New York, 1969), 2: 300; and Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Edu- cation," 215-16, 270. For Hackney's course, see "A Course of Instruction in Civil Engi- neering," American Railroad Journal 6 (29 Apr. 1837): 257.

17 For Pennsylvania, see Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 221-25; Edwards Potts Cheyney, History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740-1940 (Philadelphia, 1940), 239-42; and Francis N. Thorpe, ed., Benjamin Franklin and the University of Pennsylvania (Washington, D.C., 1893), 290-96. For Rutgers, see Smith,

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The "partial" course was also a popular means for accommodating the demand for practical education among many western colleges before 1840. In May 1835, T. F. Johnson, professor of mathematics and civil engineering, opened a school for civil engineers affiliated with George- town College in Georgetown, Kentucky. Johnson's program initially ran for six months and expanded to a year in 1836. Although the course of instruction did not lead to a formal degree, it did include some practical survey experience and a tour of area engineering works. In February 1836 Elijah Slack, a former president of Cincinnati College, offered a similar course of lectures designed to qualify "gentlemen" to become engineers. Shortly after, Cincinnati College's trustees passed rules per- mitting its faculty to teach students as "irregulars," that is, outside of regular degree programs. Professor Ormsby Mitchell, an 1829 graduate of West Point, quickly organized a "Theoretical and Practical School for Civil Engineering," open to both noncollege ("irregular") and Cincinnati College students. This school's twelve-month course involved eight months of classroom study and four months in the field. Finally, Wash- ington College in western Pennsylvania added a West Point graduate to its faculty in 1832 to teach civil engineering and other subjects. He taught civil engineering "when required," without additional expense, appar- ently as a "partial" course outside the regular college curriculum.'8

A few early southern institutions also used the partial course pattern before 1840. The University of Virginia's engineering instruction between 1836 and 1841 could be considered an example, although Virginia's atypical organizational structure makes classification difficult. After in- itiating engineering instruction in its traditional arts degree in the late 1820s, Virginia established a "School of Civil Engineering" in 1836. Students passing the school's course requirements were awarded a cer- tificate of completion instead of a degree. Nineteen of the fifty-six stu-

"Historical Development of Technical Education," 254-56. For Brown, see Walter C. Bronson, The History of Brown University, 1764-1914 (Providence, R.I., 1914), 286-87, 323; and Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 247-51. For the Uni- versity of Rochester, see Jesse Leonard Rosenberger, Rochester: The Making of a University (Rochester, N.Y., 1927), 130-31. Some of these schools simultaneously introduced engi- neering as an option in a traditional B.A. program, discussed later.

is For Georgetown College and Cincinnati College, see H. G. Good, "New Data on Early Engineering Education," Journal of Educational Research 29 (Sep. 1935): 41-44, citing Commonwealth (Frankfort, Ky.), 2 May and 26 Sep. 1835 and 20 Apr. 1836, citing Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 9 Feb. 1836, and citing Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 19 and 21 Oct. 1836; see also Reginald C. McGrane, The University of Cincinnati: A Success Story in Urban Higher Education (New York, 1963), 29, 31. For Washington College, see Sack, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania, 2: 458-59; and Helen T. W. Coleman, Banners in the Wilderness: Early Years of Washington and Jefferson College (Pittsburgh, 1956), 128.

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dents who enrolled in the program between 1836 and 1841 eventually received such certificates.'9

After 1850 the partial course pattern declined and was replaced by other patterns for incorporating engineering into academia. Two factors influenced the decline. First, it is likely that an isolated course or two was unable to provide sufficient training for would-be engineers, espe- cially in competition with the on-the-job training systems developed on American transportation projects.20 Second, the certificates of completion awarded by schools with "partial" or "select" courses to their "irregular" students did not carry the prestige of a regular college degree.

Recognizing that formal degrees carried more status than the cer- tificates awarded by "partial" courses, many antebellum colleges pushed engineering instruction into their standard bachelor of arts curricula. This caused some problems, for by the 1820s the traditional classical curric- ulum was not only already crowded, but it was also under pressure to incorporate courses in a variety of other areas, including the pure sciences, modern foreign languages, and English literature. Despite these problems and pressures, a surprising number of institutions added engineering courses to their bachelor of arts curricula either as requirements or as options.

Adding engineering instruction to B.A. degree requirements seems to have been the most frequent pattern taken in the South. The University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary were among the earliest to follow this route. At Virginia, Charles Bonnycastle, professor of natural philosophy and mathematics, apparently included engineering topics in his science and mathematics courses in the late 1820s and offered his first full class in civil engineering in 1833. William and Mary in 1835 hired John Millington to teach mathematics (and the associated subject of surveying) and in 1836 asked him to initiate a class in civil engineering "as a branch of collegiate instruction." Millington remained at William and Mary until 1848, writing Elements of Civil Engineering (1839), one of the earliest American engineering textbooks.2'

09 O. Allan Gianniny, Jr., "The Overlooked Southern Approach to Engineering Edu- cation: One and a Half Centuries at the University of Virginia, 1836-1866," in Proceedings of the 150th Anniversary Symposium on Technology and Society: Southern Technology: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Howard L. Hartman (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1988), 153-54.

21 Calhoun, American Civil Engineer, 24-30, describes the system developed on the Erie Canal and widely used elsewhere.

21 For the University of Virginia, see Philip A. Bruce, History of the University of Virginia, 1819-1919: The Lengthened Shadow of One Man (New York, 1920), 2: 126, and (New York, 1921), 3: 48-49; and Gianniny, "Overlooked Southern Approach," 151- 54. The University of Virginia in this period granted only the master of arts degree for completion of work in a number of the university's different "schools." For William and Mary, see George F. Holmes, "ProfessorJohn Millington, M.D.," William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine ser. 2, v. 3 (1923): 23-35; and Smith, "Historical Devel- opment of Technical Education," 193-95.

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Farther south, the trustees of the nascent University of Alabama, believing trained technical personnel would be needed to build the large number of railroads projected for the state, redefined the duties of its professor of mathematics and natural history in 1837 to include instruc- tion in civil engineering. Alabama B.A. students were required to take mensuration and surveying in their second year, mechanics in their third year, and civil engineering in their fourth year.22

Other southern schools that added engineering instruction to their B.A. degree programs included the University of Georgia in 1834 (a course in the junior or senior year), the University of Maryland between 1840 and 1854 (taught by a part-time instructor), East Tennessee College in 1840 (as an option in the senior year), the University of Mississippi in 1848, the University of Missouri between 1850 and 1856, and the University of North Carolina in 1853 or 1854 (as an option pursued during the senior year of a three-year B.A. degree).23 In addition, for at least a short period in the late 1840s, the emigre French engineer Claudius Crozet offered engineering instruction in the curriculum of the Richmond Academy.24

Adding engineering to the already cramped bachelor of arts program was not as popular in the northern states, but several northern institutions did follow this course. Columbia, as noted previously, had offered a "select" course to nondegree students as early as 1830. But Columbia's Statutes of 1836 indicated that regular undergraduate students were also expected to take classes in descriptive geometry, surveying, and civil engineering. Columbia abandoned its "select" course in 1843, but con- tinued to offer engineering instruction as a senior year option in its regular liberal arts curriculum. Columbia's sister institution, New York Univer-

22 Robert J. Norrell, A Promising Field: Engineering at Alabama, 1837-1987 (Tus- caloosa, Ala., 1990), 4-19, 27-32.

21 For the University of Georgia, see Thomas G. Dyer, The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History, 1785-1985 (Athens, Ga., 1985), 76, 77, 84, 86, 96, 105. For the University of Maryland, see George H. Callcott, A History of the University of Maryland (Baltimore, 1966), 96-97. For East Tennessee College, see Stanley J. Folmsbee, "Blount College and East Tennessee College, 1794-1840: The First Predecessors of the University of Tennessee," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 17 (1945): 50, n. 69. For the University of Mississippi, see Allen Cabaniss, The University of Mississippi: Its First Hundred Years, 2d ed. (Hattiesburg, Miss., 1971), 16-17; and William J. Chute, Damn Yankee!: The First Career of Frederick A. P. Barnard (Port Washington, N.Y., 1978), 142, 146. For the University of Missouri, see Jonas Viles, The University of Missouri: A Cen- tennial History (Columbia, Mo., 1939), 35, 66, 80. For North Carolina, see Charles L. Smith, The History of Education in North Carolina (Washington, D.C., 1888), 80-81; and William S. Powell, The First State University: A Pictorial History of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1972), 64.

24 Robert F. Hunter and Edwin L. Dooley, Jr., Claudius Crozet: French Engineer in America, 1790-1864 (Charlottesville, Va., 1989), 154-55.

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sity, offered only the traditional B.A. degree before the 1850s. Its annual course of instruction for 1836 indicates that the series of eighty lectures in architecture and civil engineering taught by the prominent engineer D. B. Douglas were required of all New York University students.25

Rutgers and Rochester followed similar paths. Rutgers began offer- ing an engineering course as early as 1841 and continued to offer it for the next two decades, apparently both as part of its traditional B.A. degree and, as noted previously, as a "partial" course. In 1856 the Uni- versity of Rochester offered a series of lectures and recitations in civil engineering as an "extra study" available to its regular undergraduate students. Rochester's B.A. students probably enrolled in some numbers in this series since "extra studies" were a central part of Rochester's awards system.26

At least four western institutions also incorporated engineering study in bachelor of arts curricula. "Woodward College and High School" of Cincinnati in 1836 announced that its mathematics department gave "particular attention . . . to Civil Engineering, Surveying and other prac- tical branches." Miami University in Ohio in 1837 indicated that "While the Elements of Civil Engineering have always been pretty well taught in the Mathematical Course, the practical application of these elements will in the future be more minutely attended to." Western University (now the University of Pittsburgh) may have begun teaching engineering as part of a traditional B.A. program as early as 1835, but it did not last. In 1844, however, Western initiated classes in civil engineering and mechanical drawing as part of a special technical option to its traditional classical curriculum leading to the B.A. degree. Western discontinued the program from 1849 to 1855, but reintroduced it in 1856. Finally, Indiana University also incorporated engineering instruction as an option in its traditional B.A. degree beginning in 1850.27

's For Columbia, see Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 230- 39; and James Kip Finch, A History of the School of Engineering: Columbia University (New York, 1954), 21-22. For New York University, see Joshua L. Chamberlain, ed., New York University: Its History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Founders, Benefactors, Officers and Alumni (Boston, 1901), 1: 64, 69, 71, 73, and 2: 26-27; and Theodore Francis Jones, ed., New York University, 1832-1932 (New York, 1933), 305-7.

26 For Rutgers, see Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 254-56. For Rochester, see Rosenberger, Rochester, 130-31.

27 For Woodward College, see Good, "New Data on Engineering Education," 44-45, citing Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 1 Nov. 1836 and 15 Aug. 1837. For Miami University, see Good, "New Data on Engineering Education," 45, citing Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 1 Sep. 1837; and Walter Havighurst, The Miami Years, 1809-1959 (New York, 1958), 54. For Western University, see Agnes L. Starrett, Through One Hundred and Fifty Years: The University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1937), 95, 124-25, 308-9. For Indiana University, see Thomas D. Clark, Indiana University, Midwestern Pioneer (Bloomington, Ind., 1970), 1: 73, 82, 84, 88.

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While conceding the need for college-level engineering instruction, some academic officials were unwilling to follow the pattern of Indiana University, Western University, and the numerous other institutions men- tioned above. They regarded adding engineering to the already crowded bachelor of arts curriculum as either too difficult or philosophically of- fensive. Hence they developed yet another pattern for offering college- level engineering instruction. This involved placing engineering in an alternate or parallel "scientific" curriculum leading to the bachelor of science or another nontraditional degree, instead of the traditional bach- elor of arts degree. Introduced in the early nineteenth century, the B.S. degree differed from the B.A. degree by not requiring Greek and Latin for admission and by substituting courses in English, other modern lan- guages, the sciences, and, sometimes, engineering for courses in the an- cient classical languages and philosophy. Creation of a "scientific course" enabled college authorities to preserve the sanctity of the bachelor of arts degree and to avoid the difficult dilemma of determining what to drop if additional science, modern languages, or engineering were added to the already packed B.A. curriculum.

Engineering instruction appeared in a number of antebellum colleges through such nontraditional degrees. Two subpatterns are clearly visible within this main pattern. In some institutions engineering appeared sim- ply as one of a number of subjects of study in a nonspecialized, general "scientific" course leading to, for example, a bachelor of science degree, with no major or focus specified. In other institutions, however, engi- neering became the focus of a scientific curriculum. Some of these offered bachelor of science degrees in civil engineering; others offered the C.E. (civil engineer) degree. In some institutions both subpatterns appeared- engineering appeared first as part of a nonspecialized scientific curricu- lum, but evolved into a more specialized course of instruction.

One of the earliest institutions to create a new degree and use it to introduce engineering training was Columbia. In 1830 Columbia pro- fessor James Renwick began offering a course of public lectures in me- chanics, machines, and civil engineering as part of a special "Scientific and Literary Course" created by Columbia for students not desiring a traditional classical education with its heavy emphasis on Latin and Greek. The new course of study also included classes in descriptive ge- ometry and surveying, civil and military architecture, the sciences, and modern languages. Students pursuing Columbia's "Scientific and Literary Course" received a testimonial on completion, a forerunner of the B.S. degree, not the traditional B.A. degree awarded to regular Columbia graduates.23

28 Smith, "The Historical Development of Technical Education," 226-31; Fitch, His- tory of the School of Engineering, 20; and "Instruction in Civil Engineering-Literary and Scientific Course of Columbia College," American Railroad Journal 7 (1 Oct. 1838): 206.

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Other institutions soon pursued similar routes. Brown University introduced instruction in civil engineering in 1850 at the same time it created a "scientific course" culminating in a bachelor of philosophy degree. The "scientific course" included such engineering subjects as descriptive geometry, practical mechanics, and surveying field work, along with engineering proper. While civil engineering was intended as an elective for students enrolled in Brown's unspecialized bachelor of philosophy course, it was also open as a "partial course" to students who did not desire to pursue a degree.29

Other institutions that incorporated engineering in an unspecialized "scientific" curricula included Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1839 (in its new "Literary and Scientific Course"); Allegheny College in 1838 and, after temporarily dropping it, again in 1846 (in the senior year of an unspecialized scientific course); Denison College in Ohio in 1853 (in a three-year scientific course); the University of Missouri in 1856 (in a three-year scientific and agricultural course, replacing engi- neering instruction offered in its B.A. course); Washington University of St. Louis in 1857 (in an unspecialized three-year B.S. curriculum); Del- aware College between 1851 and 1859 (in an unspecialized scientific course); Maryland Agricultural College in 1859 (in a scientific course focused on agriculture); and Michigan Agricultural College in 1855 (in a bachelor of science curriculum focused on agriculture).30

At a number of institutions, as noted, engineering instruction was first offered as a course or series of courses within an unspecialized B.A. or B.S. degree, but expanded until it became the focus of a specialized degree. Three institutions illustrate this: Union College, New York Uni- versity, and the University of Michigan.

29 Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 247-52; and Bronson, History of Brown University, 286-88.

' For Wesleyan, see Carl F. Price, Wesleyan's First Century, with an Account of the Centennial Celebration (Middletown, Conn., 1932), 64. For Allegheny College, see Sack, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania, 2: 457-58. For Denison College, see G. Wallace Chessman, Denison: The Story of an Ohio College (Granville, Ohio, 1957), 116- 17. For the University of Missouri, see Viles, The University of Missouri, 66, 80, 91, 97; and Marshall S. Snow, Higher Education in Missouri (Washington, D.C., 1901), 21-22. For Washington University, see Snow, Higher Education in Missouri, 132; Warren, Notes on Polytechnic Schools, 7; and Ethan A. H. Shepley, What Does Washington University Stand For? A Historical Interpretation of the Goals and Achievements of Washington University, 1853-1958 (New York, 1958), 26. For Delaware College, see Lyman P. Powell, The History of Education in Delaware (Washington, D.C., 1893), 113-16; and John A. Munroe, The University of Delaware: A History (Newark, Del., 1986), 106, 140. For Maryland Agricultural College, see Callcott, History of the University of Maryland, 145- 46, 148-49. For Michigan Agricultural College, see W. J. Beal, History of the Michigan Agricultural College and Biographical Sketches of Trustees and Professors (East Lansing, Mich., 1915), 52-54; and Madison Kuhn, Michigan State: The First Hundred Years, 1855- 1955 (East Lansing, Mich., 1955), 55-58.

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In 1845 Eliphalet Nott resigned as president of Rensselaer Institute and announced the creation of an engineering course at Union College, where he had been serving, simultaneously, as president. At Union, stu- dents could pursue engineering studies in either of two ways, as part of a four-year scientific curriculum leading to the unspecialized A.B. degree or as a focused two-year engineering curriculum leading to the diploma "Graduate in Civil Engineering" (C.E.).3'

New York University first offered civil engineering as part of its B.A. curriculum in the 1830s. In the 1840s NYU dropped engineering, but revived it in 1853 in its new scientific course as one of the options, or majors, leading, after a three-year course of study, to the school's B.S. degree. In 1859 New York University also began awarding the degree C.E. to students who preferred it to the specialized bachelor of science. NYU simultaneously tried to serve students desiring engineering training along earlier patterns. For example, students who successfully completed a course of engineering studies independently of degree programs or in conjunction with the regular bachelor of arts course received a diploma of proficiency.32

The University of Michigan had made plans for engineering instruc- tion as early as 1837 that were never implemented. In 1852 the university revived these plans by offering some engineering courses in the third and fourth years of an unspecialized B.S. program that paralleled the tradi- tional B.A. degree. In 1855, however, the University of Michigan began offering a more specialized degree program leading to the C.E. (civil engineering) degree. Students in this program took classes identical to students pursuing the general B.S. degree for the first three years, and only in their senior year pursued specialized engineering classes.33

The last of the basic patterns of antebellum engineering education to emerge was the autonomous scientific school attached to a traditional university. Before 1860 institutions following this pattern were entirely confined to New England, where the more industrialized economy en- couraged wealthy patrons to endow practically oriented scientific schools loosely linked to the region's major classical universities.

4' Andrew V. V. Raymond, Union University: Its History, Influence, Characteristics, and Equipment (New York, 1907), 1: 216-20; "Civil Engineering," American Railroad Journal 25 (1852): 392; Rezneck, Education for a Technological Society, 71-72; and Warren, Notes on Polytechnic Schools, 6.

-3 Jones, New York University, 309-12, 315; Sidney Sherwood, The University of the State of New York: History of Higher Education in the State of New York (Washington, D.C., 1900), 266.

+3 Walter A. Donnelly, ed., The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1953), 3: 1161-65; and Warren, Notes on Polytechnic Schools, 6.

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The first of these emerged at Harvard, where in 1847 Amos Law- rence, a wealthy industrialist, promised $50,000 to support creation of a school to teach the applications of science to the useful arts. This gift prompted the formation of the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. The Lawrence Scientific School began operation in 1848 and in 1849 hired a West Point graduate to provide instruction in civil en- gineering. The school initially accepted students who had not passed Harvard University's regular entrance tests and gave them a certificate after a year or two of special study, a form of "partial" course. In 1851, however, Harvard authorized award of the B.S. degree to those com- pleting a course of studies in the Lawrence Scientific School and passing the appropriate examinations after at least one year's residence.34

Yale founded its scientific school in 1846. Engineering had its be- ginnings, however, only in 1852 when the Yale Corporation appointed another West Point graduate, William Norton, as professor of civil en- gineering. Yale awarded the degree of bachelor of philosophy to students completing a two-year general scientific course. In 1855 Yale added a professor of metallurgy, in 1856 a professor of mining, and in 1859 a professor of industrial mechanics. Despite these additions, the new school struggled, since payment of the school's instructors was entirely depen- dent on tuition. The school secured a firm foundation only in 1859 when endowed by Connecticut industrialist Joseph Sheffield, after whom the school was eventually named.35

Dartmouth in 1852 organized the Chandler Scientific School, en- dowed by New England manufacturer Abiel Chandler. Chandler's will required creation of a permanent school "in the practical and useful arts of life, comprised chiefly in the branches of mechanics and civil engi- neering." Opened in 1852, Dartmouth's Chandler School had a three- year course of engineering study, with seventeen enrolled in its first year.36 At Harvard and Yale, and to a lesser extent at Dartmouth, the scientific schools were kept at arm's length from the main (that is, traditional liberal arts) college. They operated autonomously, and their faculty and students did not mix in classes or otherwise with regular college students.

While at institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth the pattern by which engineering instruction emerged is clear, this is not the case at

4 Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 181-91; Warren, Notes on Polytechnic Schools, 6; and "Lawrence Scientific School," American Railroad Journal 20 (1847): 678-79.

^ Russell H. Chittenden, History of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, 1846-1922 (New Haven, Conn., 1928), 41-77, 329-32; and Smith, "Historical Devel- opment of Technical Education," 204-14.

*h George G. Bush, History of Education in New Hampshire (Washington, D.C., 1898), 163-64.

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some antebellum colleges, particularly those at which such instruction was short lived. This characterization applies to Geneva (now Hobart) College in New York, which appointed a professor of engineering and statistics in 1831; Pennsylvania (now Gettysburg) College, which hired a professor of civil engineering and architecture in 1837; and the City Academy of Washington, D.C., which offered engineering instruction from 1833 to at least 1839.37

The introduction of engineering into the antebellum college was not, therefore, always smooth. Many early attempts faltered, and some per- manently died. The long depression of 1837-43, when the hitherto bludg- eoning demand for engineers temporarily disappeared, ended many colleges' initial experimentation with engineering. For example, in 1838 Princeton abandoned its lecture offerings in civil engineering; engineering did not reappear there until after the Civil War. When the engineer appointed as professor of engineering and architecture at Pennsylvania College resigned in 1839, that institution ceased to offer instruction in engineering. The College of William and Mary, which had established a "school of engineering" in 1836, discontinued it in 1839. In 1843 Co- lumbia abandoned its scientific course, which included instruction in civil engineering. During the early 1840s, engineering offerings at New York University and the University of Alabama disappeared, and the University of Virginia's program went into decline. The Rensselaer Institute saw its engineering enrollment fall to six students in 1843-44. Although a de- tailed study of archives would be necessary to determine matters, it is likely that the nascent engineering programs at such institutions as Cin- cinnati College, Georgetown College, Woodward College, and Geneva College, mentioned above, died during this era, for no more is heard from them. The depression probably also doomed the planned, but not yet implemented, engineering instruction at Hanover College in Indiana (1836) and the University of Michigan (1837).38

r On Hobart, see Alan W. Brown, Hobart College: Oldest Episcopal College in U.S.A. (New York, 1956), 15; and Good, "New Data on Engineering Education," 39. On Penn- sylvania College, see Sack, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania, 2: 459. On the City Academy, see Good, "New Data on Engineering Education," 45, citing National Intelligencer, 2 Jan. 1839.

BK See Calhoun, American Civil Engineer, 141-42, for a brief account of the negative impact of the depression on American engineering employment. For Princeton, see Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 216. For Pennsylvania College, see Sack, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania, 2: 459. For William and Mary, see Gianniny, "Overlooked Southern Approach," 156; and Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 195-98. For Columbia, see Fitch, History of the School of Engineering, 20; and Smith, "Historical Development of Technical Education," 229. For New York Uni- versity, see Jones, New York University, 309. For Alabama, see Norrell, A Promising Field, 17-27. For Virginia, see Gianniny, "Overlooked Southern Approach," 154-55. For Rens-

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Engineering instruction continued to appear and disappear even after the depression of 1837-3. Plans to institute engineering instruction at Northwestern (c. 1855), Illinois College (1852-53), and the University of the South (1859-60) did not mature in the antebellum era. At other institutions engineering instruction emerged only briefly before the War Between the States. Examples are Jefferson College in western Pennsyl- vania (1844-45), the University of Wisconsin (1858-60), the short-lived University of Albany (1854-?), and the University of Nashville (1855-

Even the large number of failed attempts to incorporate engineering instruction into antebellum colleges, however, reinforces the view that the antebellum college was not as hostile to practical instruction as tra- ditionally pictured and suggests that engineering instruction in academia was far more widely spread than even the most revisionist historians of education have hitherto imagined.

s- %* - x- x

The antebellum American college traditionally has been depicted as in- flexible and overtly hostile to practically oriented subjects such as en- gineering. Thus it is not surprising that most accounts of early engineering education focus only on one or two institutions outside of the collegiate mainstream which seem to be exceptions to this rule. For example, Ri- chard Hofstadter and C. DeWitt Hardy's history of higher education in the United States asserted that "up to about 1850 the country's entire

selaer Institute, see Rezneck, Education for a Technological Society, 73. For Hanover College, see Calhoun, American Civil Engineer, 46, citing Report of the Board of Trustees of Hanover College (Indiana General Assembly, Documentary Journal, 1836/37), 2; and William A. Millis, The History of Hanover College from 1827 to 1927 (Hanover, Ind., 1927), 46. For the University of Michigan, see Regents' Proceedings with Appendixes and Index, 1837-1864 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1915), 13; and Donnelly, The University of Mich- igan, 3: 1161.

'9 For Northwestern, see Estelle Frances Ward, The Story of Northwestern University (New York, 1924), 21, 35. For Illinois College, see Charles H. Rammelkamp, Illinois College: A Centennial History, 1829-1929 (New Haven, Conn., 1928), 169. For the University of the South, see Arthur B. Chitty, Jr., Reconstruction at Sewanee: The Founding of the University of the South and Its First Administration, 1857-1872 (Sewanee, Tenn., 1954), 69; and Warren, Notes on Polytechnic Schools, 7. For Jefferson College, see Cole- man, Banners in the Wilderness, 86, 237. For Wisconsin, see Stephen H. Carpenter, An Historical Sketch of the University of Wisconsin from 1849 to 1876 (Madison, Wis., 1876), 28-29, 31; University of Wisconsin, Catalog for the Year ending December, 1858, 50, 72, 65; and Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The University of Wisconsin: Its History and Its Alumni, with Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Madison (Madison, Wis., 1900), 69, 72, 72n. For the University of Albany, see "Engineers and Mechanics College," American Railroad Journal 27 (1854): 217; and Rezneck, Education for a Technological Society, 88-89. For the University of Nashville, see Lucius S. Merriam, Higher Education in Ten- nessee (Washington, D.C., 1893), 47-48.

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supply of engineers came from two technical institutions, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the United States Military Academy at West Point."'40

Such accounts are clearly wrong. This initial review indicates that well over fifty antebellum institutions of higher learning taught engi- neering at one time or another. Approximately thirty still offered instruc- tion at the outbreak of the Civil War. Additional studies of college and university records undoubtedly will raise both of these estimates. Why, then, did earlier scholars overlook so many schools offering engineering instruction in so many different patterns? Most scholars looked for pat- terns of engineering education in antebellum institutions similar to those prevalent today. Hence they identified engineering programs only at those few institutions offering degrees labeled "civil engineering," at the au- tonomous scientific schools affiliated with highly visible northeastern schools, and at the occasional, highly visible deviation from the main- stream of American higher education such as Rensselaer Institute and West Point.

Another surprise emerging from this study is the very wide diffusion of antebellum engineering instruction in the agrarian South and West. Two factors probably account for the failure of most earlier studies to notice such instruction. First, earlier students of higher education prob- ably did not look for engineering programs in these regions because of the modern tendency to associate engineering with industry. But early American engineering was dominated by civil engineering, and the static structures-bridges, roads, canals, railroads-that formed the focus of the early civil engineer's work were as important to a flourishing agrarian economy as to a manufacturing one. Second, engineering instruction in the South and West tended to be placed in nonspecialized degree pro- grams, both B.A. and B.S., and hence were less visible than programs in the polytechnic and scientific schools of the Northeast.

Another factor that may have obscured the involvement of ante- bellum schools in engineering education is the basic fact that the typical college devoted only one faculty position or a portion thereof to engi- neering. By contemporary standards this may not seem like much, but this level of commitment to engineering was, in fact, significant. Most antebellum colleges were not large, and between 1820 and 1850 the number of faculty at the average college ran only between four and six.

40 Hofstadter and Hardy, Higher Education in the United States, 21. Other examples are: "The Engineering Schools of the United States, I," Engineering News 27 (19 Mar. 1892): 277; Mann, Study of Engineering Education, 4, 5; and James Kip Finch, Trends in Engineering Education: The Columbia Experience (New York, 1948), 12.

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Devoting even part of one of these positions to engineering represented a substantial concession to the importance of "practical" education. Moreover, with its minimum requirement of surveying and leveling in- struments, engineering instruction was much more expensive than in- struction in traditional classical subjects.41

How many practicing engineers did the lesser known programs and patterns of instruction produce? This is difficult to determine, but their contributions were significant, at least in the aggregate. Bailey Burritt's 1912 survey of the occupations of graduates of selected American colleges indicated, for example, that twenty-eight Columbia University graduates, nine Wesleyan University graduates, twelve University of Vermont grad- uates, fifteen Jefferson College graduates, and nine Washington College graduates had followed engineering careers before 1865. The actual con- tributions of these institutions' engineering programs to the supply of engineers may have been even larger. Engineers who attended only "par- tial" courses at these institutions but did not graduate were probably not included, and Colin Burke's study of antebellum college graduates sug- gests that Burritt's survey considerably underestimated even the number of graduates who practiced engineering at one time or another in their careers.42

Other alumni surveys provide additional evidence that lesser known antebellum institutions contributed significant numbers of engineers. Be- tween 1825 and 1874, eighty graduates of the University of Virginia became engineers, and between 1839 and 1859 fifty-two graduates of the Virginia Military Institute followed the same career path. T. F. John- son claimed to have qualified ten to twelve engineers in the first year of operation of his school of civil engineering, a partial course affiliated with Georgetown College. And, in 1839 the City Academy near Wash- ington, D.C., claimed that since 1833 it had prepared more than fifty men "for practical engineering and the navy." These figures compare favorably with the number of graduates produced prior to 1866 by the more widely touted northeastern institutions. The Sheffield School at Yale produced only 30 graduates prior to 1866, Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School, 41; Union College, 46; and Rensselaer, 124.43

41 Burke, American Collegiate Populations, 47-48. 42 Bailey B. Burritt, Professional Distribution of College and University Graduates,

United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, no. 19 (Washington, D.C., 1912), 91, 97, 109, 139, 140; Burke, American Collegiate Populations, 154, 190-91.

4 For Virginia, see Herbert B. Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia (Washington, D.C., 1888), 166. For VMI, see Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., 1: 353; Good, "New Data on Engineering Education," 44-45, citing Commonwealth (Frank- fort, Ky.), 20 Apr. 1836, and citing National Intelligencer, 2 Jan. 1839. The large number

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In one sense, the antebellum college was ahead of its time. Through most of the early and mid-nineteenth century, employers remained skep- tical of engineers trained in science and mathematics at colleges and preferred those who had acquired their training in the traditional on-the- job manner.44 Only in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century did academically trained engineers come to the forefront. To some extent, then, the antebellum engineering program was offering a product, the scientifically and mathematically trained engineer, that would not really be in demand for another half-century. If many antebellum engineering programs failed or faltered, they did so not because of inflexibility or because they were laggard in responding to public pressures for a more practically oriented education. They "failed" because they were a half- century ahead of demand.

One should be very hesitant, however, even to apply the term "failed" to antebellum engineering education. The wide diffusion of en- gineering instruction in the American collegiate system by 1860 prepared solid foundations for its rapid expansion in the late nineteenth century, particularly in the land-grant schools established under the provisions of the Morrill Act of 1862. In these schools engineering programs and enrollments quickly overshadowed agricultural programs and enroll- ments, even though agriculture was the intended focus of most land-grant schools.45 This comparative success rested on engineering's academic ac- complishments during the antebellum period. By 1862 engineers had developed a variety of patterns for adapting their subject to universities and colleges. They had gained for their discipline at least a modicum of academic respectability by basing its curriculum on science and on math-

of antebellum colleges offering engineering and surveying instruction in B.A., unspecialized B.S., and "partial" or "select" courses makes it conceivable that many of the so-called self- trained or apprentice-trained engineers of the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century may have, in fact, received some formal introduction to engineering skills at the collegiate level.

McGivern, First Hundred Years, 73. McGivern does not give the source for his data, and it may be low for Rensselaer. Rezneck, Education for a Technological Society, 109, gives data indicating that Rensselaer had graduated 142 students in civil engineering by 1854. Some RPI engineering graduates may never have practiced the profession, and this may account for the discrepancy.

44 See, for example, Calhoun, The American Civil Engineer, 47-50; and Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, 59, 72-73.

4S Winthrop E. Stone, "The Development of Engineering Education in the Land-Grant Colleges," in Semi-Centennial Celebration of Michigan State Agricultural College, ed. Thomas C. Blaisdell (East Lansing, Mich., 1908), 115, noted that "in nearly every instance" the demand for instruction in "mechanic arts" (that is, engineering) "greatly exceeded" the demand for instruction in agriculture in the Morrill land-grant schools. Chittenden, History of the Sheffield Scientific School, 228-30, noted the same trend. See also Roger L. Williams, The Origins of Federal Support for Higher Education: George W. Atherton and the Land-Grant College Movement (University Park, Pa., 1991), 179.

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482 History of Education Quarterly

ematics. They had already generated textbooks for college-level courses. And the antebellum colleges, universities, and polytechnics had generated sufficient numbers of engineers with academic experience-as teachers or as students-to staff the new schools. With engineering the Morrill Act could build on foundations already established. Agricultural edu- cation had not secured a comparable position in academia in the ante- bellum period and required, therefore, several decades before it could reach the level at which engineering began.