The Polytechnic Comes to America: How French Approaches to Science Instruction Influenced Mid-Nineteenth Century American Higher Education

See, for example, classic and contemporary works on American higher education history: Hornberger Theodore , Scientific thought in the American colleges, 1639–1800 (Austin, 1945); Rudolph Frederick , The American college and university: A history (New York, 1962); Veysey Lawrence , The emergence of the American university (Chicago, 1965); Rudolph Frederick , Curriculum: A history of the American undergraduate course of study since 1636 (San Francisco, 1977); Lucas Christopher J. , American higher education: A history (New York, 1994); Reuben Julie , The making of the modern university: Intellectual transformation and the marginalization of morality (Chicago, 1996); Geiger Roger (ed.)., The American college in the nineteenth century (Nashville, 2000); Thelin John R. , A history of American higher education (Baltimore, 2004). Other more specialized literature within this historiography leans in the same direction: James Axtell, ” The death of the Liberal arts college”, History of education quarterly, ix (1971), 1971–52; Taylor Natalie A. , “The Ante-Bellum College movement: A reappraisal of Tewksbury's founding of American colleges and universities”, History of education quarterly, xiii (1973), 1973–74; McLachlan James , “The American college in the nineteenth century: Toward a reappraisal”, Teacher's college record, lxxx (1978), 1978–306; Potts David , “American college in the nineteenth century: From localism to denominationalism”, History of education quarterly, xi (1971), 1971–80; Potts David , “Curriculum and enrollments: Some thoughts assessing the popularity of Antebellum colleges”, History of higher education annual, i (1981), 1981–109; Finkelstein Martin , “From tutor to specialized scholar: Academic professionalization in eighteenth and nineteenth century America”, History of higher education annual, iii (1983), 1983–121; Herbst Jurgen , “American higher education in the age of the college”, History of universities, vii (1988), 1988–59; Burke Colin Bradley , American collegiate populations: A test of the traditional view (New York, 1982); Leslie J. Bruce , Gentlemen and community: The college in the “age of the university”, 1865–1917 (University Park, Penn, 1992); Caroline Winterer, in The culture of classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American intellectual life, 1780–1910 (Baltimore, 2002).

Far less attention has been given to comparative history of higher education beyond the commonly discussed approaches for many reasons, including the focus on prestige (e.g., ivy league institutions) over innovation (e.g., technical institutions) and the focus on “leading” nations or those countries perceived as having led (e.g., England, Germany) over others viewed as less consequential (e.g., France) to the sometimes over-simplifed periodization offered in the historiography. A few exceptions to this rule include such studies as Peter Lundgreen, “Engineering education in Europe and the U.S.A, 1750–1930: The rise to dominance of school culture and the engineering professions”, Annals of science, xlvii (1990), 33–75; Rothblatt Sheldon Wittrock's Bjorn (eds)., The European and American university since 1800: Historical and sociological essays (New York, 1993); Ruegg's Walte , Universities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 1800–1945 (New York, 2004). Some of the literature in this area of scholarship is dated and largely written by engineers, rather than historians; see Wickenden William E. , A comparative study of engineering education in the United States and in Europe (n.p., The Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, 1929).

Guralnick Stanley M. , Science and the Antebellum American college (Philadelphia, 1975), 26, 27, 41–42, 35–36. Lyceums and institutes of science and technology also developed before, during, and after the 1820s: West Point (1802), Norwich (1820), Gardiner Lyceum (1823), Rensselaer School (1824), Franklin Institute (1824), Virginia Military Institute (1839), the Citadel (1843), the U.S. Naval Academy (1845). A number of short-lived institutions also appeared, such as Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania (1853), Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1855), Cooper Union (1859), and schools in Cleveland, Ohio (1857) and Glenmore, New York (1859); see also Calhoun Daniel H. , The American civil engineer: Origin and confict (Cambridge, 1960); Layton Edwin T. , “Mirror-image twins: The communities of science and technology in 19th century America”, Technology and culture, xii (1971), 1971–80; Emmerson George S. , Engineering education: A social history (Newton Abbott, 1973); Reynolds Terry S. , “The education of engineers in America before the Morrill Act of 1862”, History of education quarterly, xxxii (1992), 1992–82.

Van Klooster H. S. , “Friedrich Wohler and his American pupils”, Journal of chemical education, April 1944, 158; Guralnick Stanley , “The American scientist in higher education, 1820–1910”, in Reingold Nathaniel (ed.), The sciences in American context: New perspectives (Washington, D.C, 1979), 99–141; “Original papers in relation to a course of Liberal education”, American journal of science and arts, xxv (1829), 1829–351. Various interpretations of the Yale Report of 1828 are discussed in Jack C. Lane, ” The Yale report of 1828 and liberal education: A neorepublican manifesto”, History of education quarterly, xxvii (1987), 1987–38. George H. Daniels, ” The process of professionalization in American science: The emergent period, 1820–1860”, in Reingold Nathan (ed.), Science in America since 1820 (New York, 1976) contains the oft-cited comment that summarizes the history of science view of the antebellum period: ” The emergence of a community of such [science] professionals was the most significant development in nineteenth century American science” (63). Statistics on the AAAS can be found in Kohlstedt Sally , The formation of the American scientific community: The American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1846–1860 (Urbana, Ill., 1976). General statistics for the scientific community are described in Nathan Reingold, “Definitions and speculations: The professionalization of science in America in the nineteenth century”, in Oleson Alexandra Brown Sanborn C. (eds), The pursuit of knowledge in the Early American Republic: American scientific and learned societies from colonial times to the Civil War (Baltimore, 1976), 33–69.

Rossiter Margaret W. , “Benjamin Silliman and the Lowell Institute”, New England quarterly, xliv (1971), 602–26, p. 610. I drew my statistics on the Lowell Institute lectures by compiling and analysing the list of lectures catalogued in Smith Harriette Knight , The history of the Lowell Institute (Boston, 1898), 49–53. At Lowell, there were 649 science lectures out of a total of 878 between 1840 and 1850. My analysis differs slightly in period and number from Rossiter's.

Eliot Charles W. , “The new education”, Atlantic monthly, xxiii (1869), 203–20; see also, Sinclair Bruce , “The promise of the future: Technical education”, in Daniels George (ed.), Nineteenth century American science: A reappraisal (Evanston, 1972), 249–72; Calvert Monte , The mechanical engineer in America, 1830–1910 (Baltimore, 1967); Guralnick , op. cit. (ref. 3); Rudolph , op. cit. (ref. 1), 55–98; Lucas , op. cit. (ref. 1), 104–37; Montgomery Scott L. , Minds for the making: The role of science in American education, 1750–1990 (New York, 1994).

Wayland cited in Rudolph , op. cit. (ref. 1), 238; Robert Empie Rogers to William Barton Rogers, 7 January 1833, in Rogers Emma (ed.), Life and letters of William Barton Rogers (2 vols, Boston, 1898), i, 101; on West Point's history, see Morrison James L. Jr , “Educating the Civil War generals: West Point, 1833–1861”, Military affairs, xxxviii (1974), 1974–11; Ambrose Stephen , Duty, honor, country: A history of West Point (Baltimore, 1999); Forman Sidney , West Point: A history of the United States military academy (New York, 1950); Dupuy R. Ernest , Sylvanus Thayer: Father of technology in the United States (New York, 1958).

On the Polytechnique and the French government Écoles, see for instance Belhoste Bruno , “Les origines de l'école Polytechnique: Des anciennes écoles d'ingénieurs à l'Ecole Centrale des Travaux Publics”, Histoire de l'éducation, xlii (1989), 13–53; “La préparation aux Grandes Écoles scientifiques au XIXème siècle”, Histoire de l'éducation, xc (2001), 2001–30, and La formation d'une technocratie: L'École polytechnique et ses élèves de la Révolution au Second Empire (Paris, 2003).

Dupuy , op. cit. (ref. 7), 2–3; Artz Frederick B. , The development of technical education in France, 1500–1850 (Cleveland, 1966), 153–4.

Ambrose , op. cit. (ref. 7), 66–67; Dupuy , op. cit. (ref. 7), 3.

Thayer to Swift, June 28, 1818, extracted from Forman, op. cit. (ref. 7), 47; Dupuy , op. cit. (ref. 7), 4–10.

Ambrose , op. cit. (ref. 7), 97; Dupuy , op. cit. (ref. 7), 4–6; for Mansfield's description of Crozet's teaching, see Couper William , Claudius Crozet: Soldier-scholar-educator-engineer, 1789–1864 (Charlottesville, 1936), 29. Crozet graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1807 and finished another two years at the school of application at Metz. According to Couper, Crozet intended to teach at West Point the way he was taught at the École Polytechnique. At the very least, he intended to teach its “authors” (22). He started as assistant professor of engineering in 1816 and was promoted to professor the same year. Later in his career, in the 1830s and 1840s, he aided in the establishment of the Virginia Military Institute as founding president of its Board of Trustees.

Dupuy , op. cit. (ref. 7), 10–14. Other works that discuss the early years at West Point include: Ambrose , op. cit. (ref. 7); Forman , op. cit. (ref. 7).

A detailed account of the early Rensselaer laboratory sessions can be found in Ricketts Palmer C. , History of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1824–1894 (New York, 1895), 44–56. The school divided the academic year into three terms with three week sub-terms each. In each sub-term, students gave fifteen extemporaneous lectures before peers and professors, and the class ended distributed into four sections assigned each to one “room”: Natural history room (e.g., with specimens, cabinets, instruments of natural history), common laboratory (e.g., with instruments for chemical experimentation), natural philosophy room (e.g., with equipment for mathematical, mechanical, astronomical, and other physical experiments), and the assay room (e.g., with industrial technologies for manipulation of natural resources). Each division rotated rooms until all had an opportunity to practise using the materials available in each room. The regular daily routine began with an examination of the previous day's exercises, followed by an hour-long lecture given by a professor. A “daily assistant” was a student selected through rotation who then gave a lecture before peers and professor and received criticism of the presentation. The four sections would then divide into two rooms, to hear lectures given by two “sub-assistants”, also chosen by way of rotation. Subsequently they went back to the four rooms where every student would give a demonstration or lecture in connection to the materials present in the room. All students would then return to a meeting room to criticize the day's lectures and demonstrations. In the afternoon, students would return to the four rooms to prepare for the experiments and demonstrations of the next day. By early evening, students would engage in the “afternoon amusements” as directed by professors and assistants in workshops, factors or in field work to gain experience using such tools such as sextants, compasses, blowpipes, telescopes, and so on. Examinations were held at the end of each term and annual examinations occurred in June for degree candidates in the form of formal presentations on the practical application of the sciences.

Ricketts , op. cit. (ref. 14), 6–7; Rudolph , op. cit. (ref. 1), 63. Other works on RPI include: Ray Palmer Baker, “Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the beginnings of science in the United States”, The scientific monthly, xix (October 1924), 337–56; Ricketts Palmer C. , Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: A short history (Troy, 1930); Ricketts Palmer C. , Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, 1933); Rezneck Samuel , Education for a technological society: A sesquicentennial history of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, 1968). For a comparative view on laboratories, see James Frank A. J. L. (ed.), The development of the laboratory: Essays on the place of experiment in industrial civilization (New York, 1989); on pedagogy more broadly in American higher education, see Chisholm Linda Armstrong , “The art of undergraduate teaching in the age of the emerging university” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1982).

Ricketts , op. cit. (ref. 14), 92–110; Rezneck , op. cit. (ref. 15), 78. Benjamin Franklin Greene's ideas on the “True Polytechnic” was published as The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Its reorganization in 1849–50: Its condition at the present time: Its plans and hopes for the future (Troy, 1855).

On the École Centrale see Edmondson James M. , From mécanicien to ingénieur: Technical education and the machine building industry in nineteenth-century France (New York, 1987).

Greene cited in Ricketts , op. cit. (ref. 14), 97; Rezneck , op. cit. (ref. 15), 83–84; see also, Greene , op. cit. (ref. 16).

He referred to the École Nationale des Mines, the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, the Écoles des Arts et Manufactures, and the École Centrale, respectively. See Greene , op. cit. (ref. 16), 2, 8–10, and Belhoste , op. cit. (ref. 8).

Greene , op. cit. (ref. 16), 11–14; the courses Greene mentioned as part of the Ecole Centrale's three year program included the following: Analysis; Mechanics; Descriptive Geometry; Transformations of Motion; General Physics; General Chemistry; Chemical Manipulations; Hygiene; Natural History applied to Industry; Mineralogy and Geology; Physical Geography; Working of Mines; Steam Engines; Common Roads; Railways; Construction of Bridges; Theory of Stone Cutting; Architectural Drawing; Industrial Physics; Applied Mechanics; Machines; Machine Drawing; Analytical Chemistry; Industrial Chemistry; Architecture; General Metallurgy; Metallurgy of Iron; Technology; Hydraulic Works; Design for Works.

See Edmonson , op. cit. (ref. 17).

Greene , op. cit. (ref. 16), 34, 40–46.

Rezneck , op. cit. (ref. 15), 111–31; Greene , op. cit. (ref. 16), 40–46.

Artz , op. cit. (ref. 9), 145; several institutes of the kind that interested Rogers had appeared in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland during the early to mid-nineteenth century. For a brief survey of the practical and theoretical values of these European institutions, see Torstendahl Rolf , “The transformation of professional education in the nineteenth century”, in Rothblatt Wittrock (eds), op. cit. (ref. 2), 109–41. Torstendahl argues that European technical education emerged for two basic reasons: “demand from the State for a labour force” and the “industrial economy and … capitalist agriculture” (125). The French polytechnic schools, more so than others in Europe, deeply influence the documents Rogers would later prepare for the founding of MIT; see, Objects and plan of an institute of technology (Boston, 1861). For an alternative interpretation of Rogers's European influences, see Stratton Julius Adams Mannix Loretta H. , Mind and hand: The birth of MIT (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 435–6, 540–1.

Report of the Society of Arts, 1 December 1864, in Rogers (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 7), 216–27; Artz , op. cit. (ref. 9), 247–53; Fox Robert Weisz George (eds)., The organization of science and technology in France, 1808–1914 (Cambridge, 1980). Jean-Baptiste Dumas, one of the original faculty members at the École centrale, described his approach to teaching theory as it applied to practical studies. “My intention”, he declared, “has not been to describe the practice of the arts, but to clarify the theory of them”. Dumas cited in George Weisz , The making of technological man: The social origins of French engineering education (Cambridge, MA, 1982), 116. See also the following works by Charles R. Day: “Technical and professional education in France: The rise and fall of L'enseignement secondaire spécial, 1865–1902”, Journal of social history, ii (1972–73), 177–201; ” The making of mechanical engineers in France: The Ecoles d'Arts et Metiers, 1803–1914”, French historical studies, vi (1978), 1978–60.

Rogers Robert Empie , Objects and plan of an institute of technology (Boston, 1861); An account of the proceedings preliminary to the organizations of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, 1861). Each of the three parts, whether he intended them to or not, paralleled the scientific, professional, and educational values he had sustained across his career. The Society of Arts satisfied his research and professional interests, while the museum and science programs followed from his educational reform ambitions.

Rogers , Objects and plan (ref. 26), 6, 8.

Rogers , Objects and plan (ref. 26), 9, 10–11.

Rogers , Objects and plan (ref. 26), 13, 15.

Rogers , Objects and plan (ref. 26), 17.

Rogers , Objects and plan (ref. 26), 21–22, 27.

Rogers , Objects and plan (ref. 26), 22–23.

Rogers , Objects and plan (ref. 26), 25, 28.

Rogers , An account of the proceedings (ref. 26), 4.

There is virtually no scholarship on Thomas Greene Clemson and Clemson University's early history. The uneven exception to this is Bennett Alma (ed.), Thomas Green Clemson (Greenville, 2009).

Bennett , op. cit. (ref. 35), 15–26.

Bennett , op. cit. (ref. 35), 20, 23; Artz , op. cit. (ref. 9), 245–6.

Bennett , op. cit. (ref. 35), 302–3.

Warren S. Edward , Notes on polytechnic or scientific schools in the United States: Their nature, position, aims and wants (New York, 1866), 6–8; Wickenden , op. cit. (ref. 2), 58–74; Geiger Roger , “The rise and fall of useful knowledge: Higher education for science, agriculture, and the mechanic arts, 1850–1875”, in Geiger (ed.), The American College in the nineteenth century (Nashville, 2000), 153–68.

Greene , The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (ref. 16), 9 (This source can be found in Collection SCIT-T171.R41, Box R46x-1885 in the Archives and Special Collections, Folsom Library, RPI, Troy, NY, 12180.).

Morrison James L. Jr , “Educating Civil War generals: West Point, 1833–1861”, Military affairs, xxxviii (1974), 109.

Greene , op. cit. (ref. 40), 9.

Greene Benjamin Franklin , The true idea of a Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY, 1848 [reprinted 1949]), 42–43.

Greene , op. cit (ref. 16), 12.

Greene , op. cit. (ref. 43), 43.

Greene , op. cit. (ref. 16), 9.

First annual catalogue of the officers and students, and the programme of the course of instruction, of the school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1865–6 (Boston, 1865), 11–19.

Greene , op. cit. (ref. 16), 12.

First annual catalogue (ref. 47), 20–25.