Hist. Sci.

, l (2012)

THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA: HOW FRENCH

APPROACHES TO SCIENCE INSTRUCTION INFLUENCED MID-
NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION

A. J. Angulo
Winthrop University

When it comes to foreign influences on American higher education, the historiogra-

phies of science and education have largely focused on two dominant models: British
and German. British patterns of collegiate instruction dominated how and what early
Americans learned in college. The earliest colonial institutions, such as Harvard, Yale,
and William and Mary, reflected the values and traditions that colonists brought with
them — centred on discipline, morals, character, and a great deal of Latin and Greek
— and set the standard for institutions that followed. The historiography suggests
that this British, classics-centred monopoly began to erode in the nineteenth century.
Germanic traditions of research and Wissenschaft started to make inroads by way of
individual scientists who studied in Berlin, Leipzig, Gottingen, and Heidelberg and
who returned to the United States ready to reform educational practices at home.
The crowning achievement for this line of reformers appeared with the founding of a
graduate-level, research-oriented institution — Johns Hopkins University — in 1876.
With the opening of Johns Hopkins, the story of European influences on American
higher education often comes to a close. According to historians, reformers, from that
point forward, took up the task of grafting graduate-level studies (German) upon the
established undergraduate college (British). This gave rise to the American university.1
Missing from this story as it is often told, is the French influence on Ameri-
can institutions. This is an oversight largely born out of a scholarly blind spot.
The size, number, and significance of liberal arts colleges and research universi-
ties has cast a long shadow in the literature over the formation of specialized
institutes of science and technology. In other words, attention to British and
German patterns of education has in effect crowded out interest in the French.2
Despite the oversight, French approaches to higher education had a profound
impact on nineteenth century American higher education. This paper will explore
this understudied influence by first examining the science-centred reform fervour
that gripped antebellum colleges. The reform fervour and the strong backlash that
followed allowed for the rise of alternative, French-styled technical institutions. This
study will then consider four case studies — West Point, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Clemson University —
that offer a starting point for assessing how elements of the Parisian Grande Ecole
system, especially the Polytechnique, came to America. They either came into being
as a result of a direct French influence or took on French patterns of science instruc-
tion that significantly characterized the nature of the institution’s work. They did

0073-2753/12/5003-0315/$10.00 © 2012 Science History Publications Ltd

316 · A. J. Angulo

so within a context marked by dramatic change in terms of the classical college as

well as public attitudes toward science instruction. The case studies presented in this
paper are significant in that these institutions (which still exist) offered organizational
forms that contributed to the rise of the modern university. They also allow historians
to consider developments throughout the nineteenth century (antebellum, Civil War,
post-bellum) and the country (northern versus southern regions in the USA). Fur-
thermore, they are sufficiently varied so as to suggest that the French Ecole system
was multi-faceted rather than homogenous. Thus, while illuminating the making of
American science education, and its cross-national character, this study is also able
to provide some insights on other national contexts such as the French.

SCIENCE AND THE ANTEBELLUM COLLEGE

At the start of the nineteenth century science instruction in America was marginal
to the work of traditional classical colleges. If college students of the era wanted
science instruction they looked not to the college but to medical schools. Yale made
a rare exception with the hiring of Benjamin Silliman in 1804. Silliman, who had
studied medicine in Pennsylvania, taught a legion of students at Yale who went on
to become scientists or science instructors at other institutions. He also founded the
widely-read American journal of arts and sciences that subscribers dubbed “Silliman’s
Journal”. It was not until the 1820s that public interest in science instruction began
to influence college offerings. Harvard instituted its first regular chemistry courses
for undergraduate students in 1825. A year later, the faculty at Amherst called atten-
tion to the “inadequacy of the prevailing systems of classical education” because
it ignored science. Shortly thereafter, Amherst established courses on “Chemistry
and other kindred branches of Physical sciences by showing their application to the
more useful arts and trades”. Throughout the 1820s, additional calls for changes to
the curriculum could be heard across the nation from the University of Vermont, the
University of Virginia, Columbia, Williams, Middlebury, Dartmouth, Dickinson,
and others.3
The early history of the American polytechnic — including West Point, RPI,
MIT, and Clemson — is nested within this clamour for change and the backlash
that followed. Some reform efforts came from scientists themselves demanding that
traditional colleges move beyond the classical curriculum. Many of them had studied
abroad to receive training in the sciences and wanted to develop a native culture of
science education. Over one thousand Americans studied in Gottingen alone during
the nineteenth century, approximately 200 of whom specialized in chemistry. On their
return, they commonly faulted American classical colleges for the lack of systematic
scientific instruction for scientists, engineers, and technicians. As colleges adopted
changes to satisfy these demands in the 1820s, the classics community fought back
against what was called the “crowding of the curriculum”. The Yale Report of 1828,
in particular, fell like an intellectual bombshell on the major science-oriented reforms
underway at the time. The report offered an important argument for privileging the
classics over science. As one of the most influential institutions of the period, Yale in
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 317

effect dampened enthusiasm for practical and scientific education. The report’s argu-
ment inspired many college leaders to either slow or stop the expansion of scientific
instruction at their institutions.4
Other pressures came directly from citizens of specific communities, and institu-
tions attempted to meet this pressure by offering public science lectures. In 1840s
Boston, scientists like Louis Agassiz filled large auditoriums of laypersons wanting
to know more about the wonders of Brazilian fish or the origins of glaciers. During
that decade, the Lowell Institute hosted 878 lectures of this kind on topics ranging
from religion, history, literature, art and science. By far the most popular (over 74%)
consisted of scientific topics as delivered by such scientists as Agassiz, Benjamin
Silliman, Asa Gray, Charles Lyell, and others. Citizens also demanded more scientific
and practical studies through legislation that significantly altered the higher education
landscape. In the 1850s and 1860s, Justin Morrill pushed for what’s now called the
Land Grant Act that provided federal funding for institutions that explicitly taught
agricultural, mechanical, scientific, and engineering related studies. Those that didn’t
could not apply for the funds. Those that did would receive revenues from the sale of
land in the western regions of North America. The Act served two purposes: expediting
westward expansion and financing studies that would prepare future generations to
cultivate and extract natural resources present in those newly-expropriated frontiers.5
Despite pressures from the scientific community and the general public, American
colleges offered scientific studies in an uncoordinated and unsystematic manner
throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. By the 1860s, Charles W. Eliot,
later president of Harvard, described scientific instruction as the “ugly duckling”
of American higher education. He implied that colleges showed little commitment
to the sciences and analyzed the three most common ways science had appeared at
most institutions: individual courses, separate schools, and technological institutes.
At the start of the century, colleges rarely offered more than a classical curriculum
that required students to take Latin, Greek, and moral philosophy. As topics in chem-
istry, geology, and astronomy generated interest, faculty began to provide occasional
lectures or formal classes to students as electives. In addition to scattered offerings,
the founding of separate schools provided another avenue for science in traditional
higher education. Harvard and Yale established a popular model, continued at sev-
eral other institutions, that separated classical from scientific studies. For students
disenchanted with scattered courses or separate (Eliot would say, “marginalized”)
schools, technological institutes provided a structured alternative. According to Eliot,
the most successful of them all was the independent technological institute. They
were free from the social, cultural, and political traditions of the classical colleges;
they could develop their curriculum at a rate that reflected the expansion of scientific
knowledge; they were, as he saw it, the future.6
The single most effective science institution that Eliot celebrated in the 1860s — the
new, independent institute — was, in essence, an outgrowth of the French influence
on American higher education. West Point, RPI, MIT, and Clemson offer illustrative
examples of the American reception of French educational ideals.
318 · A. J. Angulo

WEST POINT

Founded in 1802, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point offered the first engi-
neering program in America. By the 1830s, the academy had become well-known
for preparing engineers and scientists for practical field work. Francis Wayland,
during his reform years as president of Brown College, declared that “the single
academy at West Point has done more toward the construction of railroads than all
our ... colleges united”. Robert Empie Rogers, a chemistry professor and brother of
William Barton Rogers, conceptual founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology, had a similar impression when he stated that “engineering holds but very
few inducements, for only those who have been educated at West Point stand in the
way of promotion.... They alone are sure of constant occupation.” This reputation
was largely the result of the efforts of West Point’s superintendent Sylvanus Thayer,
whose curriculum borrowed heavily from the French military educational program
at the Ecole Polytechnique (see Appendix).7
Before Thayer served as “superintendent” of West Point from 1817–33, the institu-
tion suffered from a poor reputation. The War of 1812 demonstrated a need for military
and engineering education, neither of which West Point successfully offered. Thayer,
a graduate of Dartmouth and former lieutenant with the U.S. Corps of Engineers,
was sent to France by the War Department to study engineering, collect major works
for West Point’s library, and prepare a wholesale revision of the institution’s policy,
practices, and curriculum. While in Paris, he studied at the Ecole Polytechnique. At
the time, the technical school required a high degree of preparation and admission by
concours.8 The admissions process required students to pass a rigorous, competitive
examination in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and physics. Thayer’s undergraduate
preparation at Dartmouth and post-graduate studies at West Point (for one year), as
well as training and experience with the Corps of Engineers, allowed him freedom
to study the process of engineering education, in addition to the coursework itself.
What Thayer discovered in Paris had a profound impact on his educational thought.
The Ecole Polytechnique offered courses in geometry, trigonometry, physics, and
chemistry through large lecture-hall classes followed by small group discussion held
by repetiteurs. Advanced students conducted the small group discussions, clarify-
ing any misunderstandings from the lectures and assisting or tutoring students who
struggled with the material. The lectures and discussions occupied the first half of
twelve hour days (with the exception of a few hours for lunch, recreation, and private
study) starting at eight in the morning. In the evening, Thayer would have joined
small groups of approximately twenty students for laboratory exercises, practical
work, drawing, and shop classes. The practical evening sessions helped students
learn how to apply the principles of mathematics and physics to the construction of
roads, waterways, military structures, and military weaponry.9
While in Paris, Thayer not only studied the Ecole Polytechnique’s pedagogical
methods, but also began to gather works that would be necessary to replicating French
approaches to instruction in the United States. With a $5000 credit provided by the
U.S. government, he purchased texts, materials, and equipment that he believed would
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 319

serve well the purposes of the institution. Thayer sent back to West Point approxi-
mately one thousand works in the mathematical, physical, chemical engineering,
and military sciences.10
When Thayer returned to West Point, he came with the goal of bringing the
polytechnic to America and, in doing so, providing an alternative to the traditional,
classical college. His first move was to address the admissions process. He was
impressed with the competitive, nation-wide entrance examination required by the
Ecole Polytechnique and wanted something similar in the U.S. He therefore called
for a more demanding entrance examination for West Point cadets. Although not as
exacting as the examination in France, Thayer’s version served the local purpose
of screening for the most promising students. He also transformed the curriculum,
placing emphasis on the kind of mathematics and sciences he saw in Paris — algebra,
trigonometry, physics, chemistry — that were taught by way of lectures and small
group discussion. During Thayer’s tenure, West Point professors began giving lectures
and allowing advanced students to teach small group classes in much the same way as
the repetiteurs. The advanced students selected for the purpose generally distinguished
themselves as those with a strong command of the material from the previous year.
Students at Thayer’s West Point had the opportunity to apply what they had learned in
lectures and discussion through practice sessions, with special emphasis on military
and civil engineering. He kept students occupied in drawing, field work, surveying,
calculations — all essential for military and civilian purposes — throughout the day,
partly in an attempt to repeat the pattern followed at the Ecole Polytechnique and
partly to maintain discipline at West Point. Discipline problems were such that, as
one observer put it, students behaved as if they were “fugitives from justice and the
refuse of society”. Thus, keeping the students occupied, in the manner found at the
Ecole Polytechnique, satisfied both educational and organizational needs.11
The Parisian influence on Thayer extended beyond admissions, curriculum, and
pedagogy to the texts required and even faculty hired. Students learned French in
order to give them the skills necessary to work through the library collection sent
back from France. These texts included works such as Guy de Vernon’s Traite de la
science de la guerre et de la fortification des places, Hachette’s Traite des Machines,
Lacroix’s Traite du calcul, differentiel et integral and Elements d’algebre, Biot’s
Essai de geometrie analytique, and Francoeur’s Traite de mecanique. As if to make
the French influence on West Point unmistakable Thayer hired Claude Crozet, an
Ecole Polytechnique graduate, for the critical professorship of engineering. One of
Crozet’s West Point students, Edward Mansfield, noted how the engineering profess­
or’s teaching of descriptive geometry was infused with examples from the training
he had received in France. “Fortunately, Professor Crozet had brought with him”,
Mansfield explained, “complete drawings of the French Polytechnique” to supple-
ment his own works on the blackboard. Crozet also translated two of his own works
to make them accessible to West Point students, despite their studies in the language:
Perspective, Shadows, and shades and descriptive geometry and conic sections. His
courses centred on military fortification, artillery, tactics, and architecture. Crozet
320 · A. J. Angulo

could describe these matters from professional and personal experience, having
served as an artillery officer under Napoleon until Waterloo.12
In this way, Thayer’s West Point offers a poignant example of cross-cultural educa-
tional borrowing. He imported to America French approaches to admissions, curr­icula,
and pedagogical practices, reconstructed the institution’s library with French texts,
and hired a recent graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique to offer foundational courses
in engineering. Through its own alumni, West Point’s influence extended broadly
across America. In 1830, nine West Point graduates held influential professorships
among the nation’s fifty-eight colleges; by 1860, seventy-eight occupied the same
within the 203 colleges then operating. Of these, West Point’s Henry L. Eustis filled
Harvard’s professorship of engineering. Yale took William A. Norton for its Shef-
field School of Engineering. The University of Michigan, Columbia College, Trinity
College, New York University, and the Virginia Military Institute all followed this
lead and hired West Point graduates for their own science and mathematics profess­
orships. These graduates became influential in American higher education from
the many faculty positions they filled, sharing elements of Thayer’s French-styled
educational ideals with institutions across the country. But West Point was not alone
in mid-nineteenth century New York. From the same state came another early effort
in providing scientific and technical education to not only its citizens but also the
emerging American scientific community.13

RENSSELAER

New York state political leader Stephen Van Rensselaer founded the Rensselaer
School, later a Polytechnic Institute, in 1824 in order “to qualify teachers for instruct-
ing the sons and daughters of farmers and mechanics, by lectures and otherwise”. As
a teacher training institute in Troy, the school placed a strong emphasis on applied
topics, leaving preparation for research or fieldwork at the margins. Laboratory
instruction, however, was central to the program of study, making Rensselaer one
of the first institutions in the country to employ the method.14 It would take a few
more decades before established colleges incorporated laboratory sessions into their
regular routines. The curriculum, meanwhile, lagged behind the school’s pedagogy.
As late as 1848, beginning students could complete the course of study in one year
and advanced students finished in a mere twenty-four weeks. By the 1850s, a reor-
ganization of the curriculum shifted attention from teacher training to architecture
and engineering and also increased graduation requirements to three years of study.15
The person responsible for transforming Rensselaer into a polytechnic was Ben-
jamin Greene. He served as the institution’s director and “professor of mathematics
and physics” between 1847 and 1859. Greene, a graduate of Rensselaer, studied at
the institution in the early 1840s and received a Bachelor of Natural Science and Civil
Engineering. He took short-term teaching positions in the South until his appointment
to a professorship of mathematics at Washington College in Maryland. When he
returned to Troy and became Rensselaer’s director, his first move was to change the
name of the institution to “a Polytechnic School for the application of Mathematics,
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 321

Physics, Chemistry, and Natural History, to Civil Engineering, Arts, Manfactures,

and Agriculture”. This signalled the beginning of the school’s transformation marked
by the adoption of traditions imported from across the Atlantic.16
Over the course of his tenure at Rensselaer, Greene made clear his intentions of
following specific French ideas about the organization of instruction for his reform
efforts. “In the essential features of its design and intentions”, Greene stated, “the
Institute may be said to occupy a position between L’Ecole Polytechnique and L’Ecole
Centrale des Arts et Manufactures of Paris. It claims no other resemblance to these
celebrated and richly endowed institutes.”17 His enthusiasm for these French institu-
tions did not cloud his view of the realities on the ground in Troy. The Rensselaer
school had humble origins and means by comparison. Greene struggled to win public
support and funding and was lucky to receive a few thousand dollars on occasion
from sources like New York’s Regents Literary Fund. So in “design and intentions”,
Rensselaer aimed to be a Polytechnic. To that end the school followed the Ecole
Polytechnique by hiring a “Repeater of Chemistry and Geology” along the lines of the
repetiteur system and listing on the faculty an “Instructor of Linear and Perspective
Drawing”. Students received lectures in three main departments — (a) mathematics
and physics, (b) mineralogy, botany, and zoology, and (c) chemistry and geology
— and attended morning recitations in these areas. Greene established a regimen of
recitations similar to the subdivided, small class system at the Ecole Polytechnique.
Through the regimen, Rensselaer students gave “extemporaneous demonstrative or
illustrative lectures”. In the afternoons, students participated in field and laboratory
work. This included surveying, topography, and hydrographical work, as well as the
study of geological, mineralogical, and botanical collections. The goal, according
to Greene, centred on training the next generation of architects, civil engineers, and
what he called “superintending” engineers of machinery — in particular, hydraulic,
gas, and iron works — as well as superintendents of “higher manufacturing opera-
tions” that required rigorous study in “scientific principles”. Absent from either the
curriculum or extracurriculum was any mention of military or combat training or
application of “scientific principles” toward military ends. The topographical and
land surveying lessons highlighted commercial purposes, such as railroad construc-
tion, rather than mapmaking for planning combat manoeuvres. The application of
chemical and physical principles directed student attention toward manufacturing and
civil needs rather than armaments and artillery. For these reasons, Greene pictured
the educational ideals of his institute situated along a continuum between the Ecole
Polytechnique and the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures (see Appendix).18
In 1855, Greene published a work that helped define exactly how these influences
should take root at the school. It appeared in the ambitiously titled The True idea of
a polytechnic institute. In this work, he began by reviewing the major elements of
polytechnic institutes in France and Germany with the goal of establishing a plan
for a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He started with the Ecole Polytechnique and
explained that the institution provided a two year foundation course of study. On its
own, it was “incomplete”, but students were expected to couple their first two years
322 · A. J. Angulo

with training in one of the applied institutes. It stood as a “School of General Sci-
ences” with courses in the following: “Higher Analysis, Rational Mechanics, Theory
of Machines, Descriptive Geometry, Analytical Geometry, Astronomy, Geodesy,
Social Arithmetic, Physics, Chemistry, Architecture, French Composition, German
Language, Topographical Drawing, Free-hand, [and] Geometrical Drawing” (see
Appendix). This “Ecole Imperiale Polytechnique”, as he called it, provided students
a foundation in basic scientific principles for later application in such specialized
schools as the National School of Mines (at Paris and Saint-Etienne), The Conserva-
tory of Arts and Trades and the three National Schools of Arts and Trades (Chalons-
sur-Marne, Angers, and Aix), and the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures.19
Greene took special interest in these applied schools in his True idea because they
helped describe the kind of reform he envisioned at Rensselaer. The French School
of Mines taught future mining engineers the kind of technical chemistry, mineralogy,
and geology necessary for production work in “smelting, refining, working and assay-
ing of metals” as well as “surveying, drawing and working of mines”. These studies
prepared students to work as superintendents of mines and furnaces. The courses
were also geared toward those aspiring to become mining engineers or who were
already “master-miners” who wanted further training and expertise. He contrasted the
School of Mines with the Conservatory and the National Schools of Arts and Trades
that attracted artisans. The preparation given in the Conservatory and the Schools of
Arts and Trades lasted three years and prepared students for careers in public works,
factories, and workshops as both “master-workmen” or “foremen”. The Ecole Centrale
de Arts et Manufactures, Greene believed, was “one of the most conspicuous as it is
one of the most important of Polytechnic Institutions”. He described the Ecole Cen-
trale’s main objective as the training of directors, superintendents, and professors of
civil engineering in four sub-specialties: “Mechanicians, Constructors, Metallurgists,
and Chemists”. Greene favoured this institution because of its emphasis on educating
the managerial classes through the broad studies offered and the special attention to
drawing and design. He also preferred the Centrale because of the careers chosen by
its graduates as described in an 1852 survey: 118, railroad construction; 79, mining
and metallurgy; 57, chemical arts; and 56, general civil engineering. Greene was
of the view that America needed graduates of this sort and he proposed transform-
ing the Rensselaer School to get closer to that goal.20 Although the Ecole Centrale
was then integrated in the French system of engineering education governed by the
Ecole Polytechnique, in fact, its origins and early development were uncommon in
the French educational context. It was established in 1829 by the initiative of several
industrial entrepreneurs and professors involved in industrial science, and in contrast
with the other engineering schools, it was at first privately funded. Its founders sought
to create a training program — hitherto nonexistent in France — able to produce
engineers for the high end of industry management.21 Decades later, Greene’s visions
for the American educational context had certainly points in common, which guided
his interest in this engineering educational experience.
With French-styled admissions and curricula in mind, Greene’s True idea outlined
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 323

a new program for the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. To simulate what the French
had, he proposed a three-part program: preparatory, general, and technical. Since most
institutions in America could not afford to conduct their admissions process by way of
rigorous, national, competitive examination, Green suggested that a preparatory school
could provide a satisfactory alternative. He borrowed from the published preparation
requirements listed for the Ecole Polytechnique and created a “Preparatory School” at
RPI around these requirements. The Ecole Polytechnique required for admission basic
mathematics (through trigonometry), experimental science (physics and chemistry),
descriptive science (geography, political history, natural history), literature (grammar
and composition), and graphic arts (writing and drawing). RPI’s new “Preparatory
School” would be based on these same prerequisites. He wanted students entering
the Institute to have completed the entrance program to “secure effective disciplinary
training preparatory to matriculation”. Once students were fully admitted to RPI, they
would then take the three year general and technical courses of study. The general
course, to Greene’s mind, should replicate the Ecole Polytechnique’s curriculum (see
Appendix). He intended students to have the kind of foundational, general scientific
studies believed to be necessary for later applied work. When students finished the
general course, they then entered RPI’s technical course that aligned with the Ecole
Centrale’s emphasis on practice or application of the general scientific studies. He
arranged the technical courses around such areas as general, special, and architectural
construction; machine design, drawing, and operation; general and higher geodesy;
industrial chemistry and physics; metallurgy; mining; and graphic and plastic arts.
With this three-part system — preparatory, general, and technical — Greene believed
that he could plant the best of the French approaches to technical education within
the limitations of the American context.22
The degrees RPI offered under Greene’s direction included Civil Engineering
(C.E.), Topographical Engineering (T.E.) and General Science (B.S.). Each lasted
three years, including a year of land surveying. For those lacking the basic entrance
requirements, students added a full preparatory year for a total of four years of course
work at RPI.23

MIT

While Thayer attempted to remake West Point in the image of the Ecole Polytechnique
and Greene’s RPI fused elements of the Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Centrale, Wil-
liam Barton Rogers also looked to France for educational ideas. Rogers, best known
as the conceptual founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, drew from
many different institutional forms that blended both practical and basic or theoretical
sciences. He was eclectic in his approach when examining the “greatly received ...
Polytechnic and Scientific schools of Carlsruhe [sic] and Zurich, the Ecole Centrale,
School of Mines, and the Polytechnic school of Paris”. Of all of these schools, Rogers
took a special interest in just two — the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers and the
Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures. The Conservatoire, founded during the
French Revolution, established a well-received approach to organizing the modern
324 · A. J. Angulo

industrial museum. Its exhibits featured products of applied science, in addition to

lectures from distinguished scientists, a technical library, and laboratories for research.
The museum collected “machines, models, tools, drawings, descriptions, and books
in all the ... arts and sciences.” The collections benefited from a government mandate
requiring that “the originals of instruments and machines invented and perfected
shall be deposited at the Conservatoire”. Rogers wanted a similar museum to display
American industrial and agricultural innovations for the purpose of higher learning,
advancement of science and technology, and the general diffusion of knowledge.24
Like Greene, Rogers also believed America needed an institute similar to the Ecole
Centrale. This is “what is wanted for American students”, for “the students at the
Central School of Arts and Science in Paris”, he observed, received a “broad foun-
dation of scientific study, and building upon it practical education”. Unlike Greene,
however, Rogers had less interest in how the Ecole Centrale trained a segment of the
managerial class and more interest in two specific elements of the school: its origin
and role in relation to the other institutions in France. As we have seen, the Ecole
Centrale had the goal of offering a private (as opposed to state-run) civilian alternative
to the country’s prestigious military engineering program, the Ecole Polytechnique.
The civilian program, unlike the military school, provided students with an elective
system that allowed for specialization in diverse areas of civil and industrial engineer-
ing. By the time Rogers was assembling ideas for an institute of technology, graduates
from the Ecole Centrale worked in such fields as agriculture, architecture, railroad
engineering, textile manufacturing, public works, industrial chemistry, general civil
engineering, machine manufacturing, metallurgy and mining, and commerce. Rogers
also understood that, in response to the largely mathematical and theoretical training
of the Ecole Polytechnique, the civilian Ecole Centrale balanced theoretical train-
ing in geology, physics, and chemistry with practical laboratory exercises and the
workshop. A majority of students in these laboratories and workshops came from the
business, industrial, and labouring classes. As the first private engineering institution in
France, the Centrale’s founders effectively ended the association of engineering with
the functions of the state and military, attracting students interested in preparations
perceived as necessary for French industrialization. Rogers drew directly from these
two elements — the Ecole Centrale’s origin and role — because he wanted something
similar for the U.S. He wanted an institution that would break with tradition, a new
institution without ties to entrenched interests, and he wanted to see greater balance
between the extremes of scientific utilitarianism and theoretical abstraction. This is
what Rogers found in France and sought to import to America.25
Rogers’s interest in the Ecole Centrale highlights on the one hand, the diversity of
French institutional forms, and, on the other, their influence in the thinking of Ameri-
can higher education reformers. As we shall see, it is also relevant to understanding
the founding of MIT, in particular, in that Rogers wanted the Institute to serve the
interests of industry and commerce as much as basic research and the advancement
of science. The blending of institutional forms in Rogers’s proposals is suggestive
of a creative appropriation and adaption of the French system.
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 325

Rogers brought together his ideas for an American version of the Conservatoire
des Arts et Métiers and the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures through the
founding documents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To outline his
goals, he prepared the Objects and plan of an institute of technology, including a
society of arts, a museum of arts, and a school of industrial science, proposed to
be established in Boston. At a meeting of Boston’s social and economic elite in the
Fall of 1860, Rogers presented his document outlining a three-part plan for MIT.26
The first part, a Society of Arts, proposed a research arm for the Institute. Rogers
defined the Society as a “department of investigation and publication, intended to
promote research in connection with industrial science”. He used the term “industrial
science” interchangeably with the useful arts, meaning an interaction between theory
and practice in the sciences. Thus, when he referred to the duties of the Society,
he referred to its theoretical and practical aims. The Society itself would consist
of regular meetings held by members of the Boston area community interested in
discussions, presentations, and the preparation of reports on the useful arts. Through
oral and written communication, this department would be responsible for keeping
abreast of recent science-related “inventions, products, and processes”, both domestic
and foreign. Rogers described the need for establishing a new journal, the Journal
of industrial science and art, collect the communications. The periodical would
record the proceedings of the Society, the progress of MIT’s museum and school,
and provide “a faithful record of the advance of the Arts and Practical Sciences at
home and abroad”. Additional duties of the research branch of MIT included propos-
ing and sponsoring research studies. Members would recommend experiments with
products, processes, and machinery worthy of further investigation. If any innovation
they tested had notable qualities, the Society would present the maker with a special
honour or award.27
To fulfill its mandates, Rogers suggested organizing twelve standing committees
within the Society of Arts. Some — such as the Mineral Materials, the Organic Mate-
rials, and Engineering and Architecture committees — dealt with products used in
the useful arts. Others — such as the Tools and Implements, Machinery and Motive
Powers committees — focused on practical machinery for agriculture and industry
as well as “mathematical, chemical, and philosophical implements”. Still others
spanned the gamut of manufacturing processes related to textiles, wood, leather,
and other products or spanned the range of issues related to household economy
(i.e., ventilation, the preparation and preservation of food, and the “protection of the
public health”). While most of the committees specialized in products, machinery,
or processes, the remainder — committees on Commerce and on the Graphic and
Fine Arts — incorporated all three.28
The second part of Objects and plan involved the creation of a Museum of
Industrial Art and Science. Like most museums, this one aimed at the collection of
objects of “prominent importance”, objects, in this case, of importance to the useful
arts. Rogers highlighted the need to arrange the specimens in a way that illustrated
relationships between science and industry. The scientific relationships of mineral
326 · A. J. Angulo

materials, for example, involved geological theories regarding the placement “on or
beneath the earth’s surface” of mineral formations. At the same time, illustrations
of the composition and the means of extraction of such formations would provide
valuable information to the “architect, engineer, and practical geologist, as well as
those engaged in iron-making and other branches of metallurgy, and in the glass and
ceramic manufactures”. Organic materials, Rogers explained, would also be presented
according to aspects of both science and industry. Such exhibits would illustrate
“the whole history of each leading object, from its origin to its appropriation by the
more advanced industrial processes”. Information of this nature, he argued, aimed at
improving the work of scientists as much as artisans, manufacturers, and merchants.29
In addition to functioning as a repository, the Museum would offer a global
perspective. The exhibits would not only present home-grown innovations, but also
forge comparisons between ideas domestic and foreign. By comparing technologies
of production and the production of technologies from around the world, Rogers
hoped to “apprehend our relations to other producers”. He had his sights set on a
Museum of Industrial Art and Science that would save the artisan and manufacturer
from blind experimentation.30
The School of Industrial Science and Art, the third part of Rogers’s Objects and
plan, would become the most important of the three. His School, following the useful
arts ideal, would encompass “systematic training in the applied sciences, which alone
give to the industrial classes a sure mastery over the materials and processes with
which they are concerned”. By “systematic training”, Rogers referred to the organi-
zation of a technological institute for advanced science instruction. The institute, by
his description, would offer many of the characteristics common to American higher
education — recitations, lecture-room teaching, examinations — with one special
exception. Rogers placed “laboratory exercises” at the centre of all work performed
by faculty and students. Faculty would not only demonstrate experiments as part of
lecture presentations, but also would supervise student experiments with laboratory
apparatus. In those supervised exercises, students were to acquire “fundamental
principles, together with adequate practice in observation and experiment, and in the
delineation of objects, processes, and machinery”. The kind of students Rogers hoped
to attract with these exercises included those from the industrial classes. He praised
the quality of public education in the Boston area, claiming that many graduates
of the public system would benefit from further study at the proposed MIT. Rather
than enter commerce, agriculture, or the mechanic and manufacturing arts without
preparation, Rogers argued that the industrial classes could begin to enjoy profes-
sional status through the Institute’s scientific training. As the Institute’s resources
increased, he hoped to bring “the entire systematic training of the School ... within
reach of aspiring students of humble means”. More than mere popular lectures, Rogers
aimed at the “highest grade” of scientific instruction in America for the useful arts.31
To Rogers’s ambitious ends, the School would support five main departments:
Design, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Geology (see Appendix). The Depart-
ment of Design would teach drawing concepts and skills necessary to the work of
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 327

engineers, architects, and machinists. Instruction in design, according to Rogers,

brought together “geometrical, architectural, and free drawing, and the delineation
of the apparatus and machinery of the arts”. He imagined students working with
fabrics and metals, producing a variety of figures, patterns, and models, and learn-
ing about “the principles of regulating the arrangement and combination of colors”.
These principles provided a “scientific basis and leading operations of the arts of
engraving and photography”. The Mathematics Department would also, for the most
part, use alternative means of instruction. Introductory courses, from geometry to
calculus, might start with traditional textbook and recitation methods; but students
would then apply mathematical concepts in laboratory exercises involving surveying,
navigation, and map-making, among other “constructive and manufacturing arts”. In
the same way, Rogers organized the departments of Physics, Chemistry, and Geol-
ogy to incorporate theoretical as well as practical instruction. His Objects and plan
described a technological institute infused with the useful arts ideal.32
Student experiences with apparatus figured as the most important part of Rogers’s
School. His scheme “could not be prosecuted in a manner to be practically available
without personal training in analysis and experiment, and would therefore demand
the facilities of an ample and well appointed Laboratory”. More so than other reforms
in American higher education of the period, Rogers made explicit his emphasis on
the laboratory for every student and every branch of science, for practice and theory.
“The most truly practical education”, he contended, “even in an industrial point of
view, is one founded on a thorough knowledge of scientific laws and principles, and
which unites with habits of close observation and exact reasoning ... the highest
grade of scientific culture would not be too high as a preparation for the labors of
the mechanic and manufacturer”.33
Members of the 1860 meeting, in which Rogers presented the Objects and plan,
immediately voted to support the MIT idea. They adopted the proposal and approved
its publication for distribution. Rogers had persuaded his colleagues that, since Paris
had its Conservatoire des Arts and Ecole Centrale, Boston needed the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. A year later, MIT received a charter from the state and began
to form its core faculty and curricula.34

CLEMSON

Clemson University’s early history follows a markedly different path than those taken
by West Point, RPI, and MIT, particularly in the way those institutions imported edu-
cational plans and ideas from the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole Centrale des Arts
et Manufactures, and Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. Thomas Green Clemson,
founder of the institution that bears his name, studied and derived his educational
ideas from select French chemists under whom he had studied and trained as well as
from the Royal School of Mines. Equally importantly, however, was his background
and what his experiences in Paris meant for the founding of his institution.35
Unlike Thayer, Greene, and Rogers, Clemson was not a professional scientist. He
lived a varied life, partly as a diplomat and partly as a dilettante farmer. In neither
328 · A. J. Angulo

politics nor agriculture did Clemson achieve lasting success or stability in terms of
career and livelihood. He received an appointment as chargé d’affaires in Belgium
that lasted from 1844–51. During this time he recorded a great appreciation and
admiration for European culture and education. But after this brief stint he failed to
win another steady political appointment. Clemson tried his hand at farming, first in
Maryland and later in South Carolina. In both instances he displayed weak interest
in farm life and management. His greatest distinction was marrying into the storied
and wealthy Calhoun family of American politics. Through the wealth he ultimately
inherited and willed for the founding of an agricultural college, he left an educational
legacy that was informed by his early educational experiences in France.
Clemson was born to a family of modest means and, through charitable assistance,
pursued studies at Norwich Academy which offered a range of literary, scientific, and
military studies. As a military academy, it had the character of a preparatory school
for West Point. In his young adult years, he travelled to Paris and lived there between
1826 and 1834, with a year-long interruption that brought him back to the United
States. During part of his time in Paris, he worked in the laboratory of Gaultier de
Clowbry as well as trained under André Laugier and Pierre-Jean Robiquet. Infor-
mal training of this kind was common during the antebellum period in the U.S.,
although increasingly less so in France and Germany. Eventually for Clemson, this
apprenticeship-style of training gave way to his enrollment as an irregular student
or “auditeur libre” at the Royal School of Mines in Paris.36
Depending on the courses Clemson enrolled in, his studies at the School of Mines
would have prepared him for analyzing mineralogical samples as well as managing
mining operations. The school offered a preparatory program that included applied
and theoretical mathematics, modern languages, mechanics, physics (with special
attention to gas, heat, and optics), chemistry, and drawing. In the regular course,
attention was given to the following: metallurgy; mineralogy; paleontology; indus-
trial construction; drainage; mining operations, laws, administration, and methods;
and modern languages. Summer sessions were almost exclusively spent in practical
fieldwork and exercises. During the academic year, students conducted much of their
practical work in laboratories and drawing rooms. Based on the kinds of manuscripts
produced by Clemson during his time in Paris, his educational experiences at the
School of Mines included analysis of iron ore samples, carbonate of iron, and Harlan
“bronzite”. Although he did not complete any specific course of studies, he did receive
certification as an assayer from the Royal Mint of France.37
Clemson’s educational experiences in France directly shaped his views on the
necessity of establishing practical and scientific studies in America. When he died,
he left almost his entire estate — approximately $80,000 and several hundred acres
— for the purpose of founding “The Clemson Agricultural College of South Caro-
lina”. His will of 1888 called for the establishment of an agricultural college to set
the field of farming on a scientific basis. The spirit with which the Royal School of
Mines treated the field of mining and the operation of mines was reformulated in
the area of farming through this college. He left his estate for this purpose because
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 329

he had “a great sympathy for the farmers of this State, and believ[ed] that there can
be no permanent improvement in agriculture without knowledge of those sciences
which pertain particularly thereto”. Clemson wanted to provide the farmers of South
Carolina and the agrarian southern region of the United States with a college that
would give “thorough instruction in agriculture and the natural sciences”. These two
branches of knowledge, applied and basic, should be joined “if practicable, [with]
physical and intellectual education and should be a high seminary of learning”. His
goal was the development of the material resources of the state by “affording its
youth the advantages of scientific culture”. Without a master plan or curriculum left
behind, it is unclear what exactly Clemson wanted students to learn in this “high
seminary”. But in the end, we see his intention of joining scientific and practical
studies that was central to the work of the French educational regimes he observed
during his formative years.38

CONCLUSION

Collectively, these case studies — West Point, RPI, MIT, and Clemson — suggest
that French approaches to science instruction worked their way into American higher
education to a greater extent than is commonly recognized in the literature. Contrary
to the traditional historiography of higher education, the story of external influences
on American colleges and universities does not end with the British (undergraduate)
and German (graduate) models. We also see plainly the way the Ecole Polytech-
nique, Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers,
and Ecole des Mines came to America by way of polytechnic, technological, and
agricultural institutions. Many other experiments in science education of the mid-
nineteenth century are likely to have sprung from the same root, such as the changes
or establishment of new programs at Union College (1845), Polytechnic College
of Pennsylvania (1851), Dartmouth’s Chandler Scientific School (1852), Brooklyn
Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (1855), University of Michigan’s “Scientific
Courses” (1856), NYU’s “Professional Department” (1856), Washington University’s
“Scientific Section” (1857), Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
(1859), Columbia’s School of Mines (1864), and many others.39
None of them, however, mindlessly borrowed, repeated, or mirrored the kind of
offerings provided in France. Reformers of the era engaged in a creative appropriation
and adaptation of ideas and approaches to instruction and organization. In the case
of Thayer, Greene, Rogers, and to some extent Clemson, there was an understanding
of the limitations of working within the traditions and expectations of the United
States. American institutions of higher education struggled to stay open, with limited
resources from either state funds or those raised by tuition and fees. Their students
often came under-prepared for the rigours of a challenging technical and scientific
education. The biogeographical landscape demanded attention to pressing matters,
such as the expansion of the western frontier, development of railway networks, and
the extraction and exploitation of natural (as well as human) resources. Their views
on engineering institutions abroad provide in addition a different ­perspective on
330 · A. J. Angulo

French education, a perspective certainly guided by their own interests and initia-
tives, but also showing an heterogeneous landscape of an educational context which
is too often portrayed as a monolithic system or a compact national model. What
both French and American technical training programs had in common, neverthe-
less, was the increasing extent to which practitioners, industrialists, and the public
understood that scientific principles had a role in rationalizing practical processes.
And if practical processes could become more rational and more certain, then they
could also become more economical. This was the hope that bridged scientists and
educational reformers on both sides of the Atlantic and informed the scope and
development of mid-nineteenth American higher education.

APPENDIX: COMPARATIVE TABLES OF CURRICULA OF FRENCH AND AMERICAN

INSTITUTIONS

West Point

Ecole Imperiale Polytechnique1 West Point2

Higher Analysis First Year

Rational Mechanics Mathematics (algebra, geometry, trigonometry, mensuration)
Theory of Machines French
Descriptive Geometry Rhetoric
Analytical Geometry Engineering (civil)
Astronomy
Geodesy Second Year
Social Arithmetic Mathematics (algebra, geometry, trigonometry, mensuration)
Physics French
Chemistry Drawing (topographical)
Architecture
French Composition Third Year
German Language Mathematics (analytic geometry, fluxions)
Topographical Drawing Drawing
Free-hand Chemistry
Geometrical Drawing Natural and Experimental Philosophy (Physics)

Fourth Year
Rhetoric, Moral and Political Science
Law, Moral Philosophy, and Logic
Mineralogy and Geology
Civil and Military Engineering
Science of War
Tactics
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 331
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Ecole Polytechnique3 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (General Studies)4

Higher Analysis Mechanics (rational mechanics of solids, liquids, gas)

Rational Mechanics Physics (magenetism and electricity; acoustics, optics)
Theory of Machines Chemistry (inorganic, organic, practical)
Descriptive Geometry Natural History (botany, zoology)
Analytical Geometry Geology (mineralogy, geology)
Astronmy Cosmography (general, physical)
Geodesy Literature (composition, elocution, criticism, French, German)
Social Arithmetic Philosophy (historical, ethics, aesthetics)
Physics Geodetic Arts (line, topographical, and hydrographical
Chemistry surveying)
Architecture Graphic Arts (descriptive geometry, geometrical, topographical
French Composition drawing, free drawing)
German Language
Topographical Drawing
Free-hand
Geometrical Drawing

Ecole Centrale des Arts et Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Advanced Studies and Civil
Manufactures5 Engineering)6
Analysis Advanced Studies Civil Engineering
Mechanics
Descriptive Geometry Practical Mechanics Special
Transformations of Motion Construction Drawing Constructions
General Physics Machine Drawing (hydralic works,
General Chemistry Topographical Drawing bridges, tunnels,
Chemical Manipulations Engineering Geodesy common roads and
Hygiene Metrical Arithmetic railways)
Natural History applied to Industry Practical Geology Road and Railway
Mineralogy and Geology Practical Mineralogy Traction (forces,
Physical Geography Graphics of Carpentry and Stone Cutting machines)
Working of Mines Industrial Physics Railway Economy
Steam Engines General Constructions Practical
Common Roads Theory of Machines Astronomy
Railways Transformation of Motion Higher Geodesy
Construction of Bridges Prime Movers Road and Railway
Theory of Stone Cutting Construction of Machines Surveying and
Architectural Drawing Mensuration
Industrial Physics Road and Railway
Appied Mechanics Plans and Sections
Machines Designs and
Machine Drawing Estimates for
Analytical Chemistry Engineering
Industrial Chemistry Constructions
Architecture
General Metallurgy
Metallurgy of Iron
Technology
Hydraulic Works
Design for Works
332 · A. J. Angulo

MIT

Ecole Imperiale Polytechnique7 MIT (first two years of study)8

Higher Analysis Algebra

Rational Mechanics Plane Trigonometry
Theory of Machines Solid Geometry
Descriptive Geometry Spherical Trigonometry
Analytical Geometry Mechanical Drawing
Astronomy Freehand Drawing
Geodesy Elementary Mechanics (motions, forces, solids, liquids, gases,
Social Arithmetic acoustics)
Physics Chemistry
Chemistry English Language and Literature
Architecture Modern Languages
French Composition Plain Co-ordinate Geometry
German Language Analytic Geometry
Topographical Drawing Differential Calculus
Free-hand Integral Calculus
Geometrical Drawing Navigation and Nautical Astronomy
Surveying
Descriptive Geometry and Its Applications
Experimental Physics (heat, light, magnetism, electricity)

Ecole Centrale des Arts et MIT (second two years of study)10

Manufactures9
Analysis
Mechanics Mechanical Engineering:
Descriptive Geometry Analytic Mechanics
Transformations of Motion Applied Mechanics
General Physics Construction of Machines
General Chemistry Descriptive Geometry applied to Masonry, Carpentry, Machinery
Chemical Manipulations General Studies
Hygiene
Natural History applied to Industry Civil and Topographical Engineering:
Mineralogy and Geology Analytic Mechanics; Applied Mechanics; Spherical Astronomy.
Physical Geography Higher Geodesy; Determination of Latitude and Longitude; Lev-
Working of Mines eling by Barometer.
Steam Engines Survey, Location, and Construction of Roads, Railways, and
Common Roads Canals.
Railways Measurement and Computation of Earth-work and Masonry.
Construction of Bridges Hydropgraphical Surveying; Tide Gauges; Soundings.
Theory of Stone Cutting River and Harbor Improvements.
Architectural Drawing Descriptive Geometry applied to Masonry and Carpentry.
Industrial Physics Sturctures of Wood; graming; Trusses, Gurders, and Arches; Roofs
Appied Mechanics and Bridges.
Machines Structures of Stone; Foundations; Retaining Walls; Arches;
Machine Drawing Bridges.
Analytical Chemistry Structures of Iron; Foundations; Beams, Girders, and Columns;
Industrial Chemistry Roofs and Bridges.
Architecture Geology and Chemistry of Materials used in Construction.
General Metallurgy Supply and Distribution of Water; Distribution of Gas; Drainage.
Metallurgy of Iron Field-practice.
Technology The Drawing of Plans, Profiles, Elevations, Sections, etc.
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 333
Hydraulic Works General Studies.
Design for Works
Practical Chemistry:
Industrial Chemistry
Metallurgy
General Studies

Practical Geology and Mining

Chemical Analysis
Descriptive and Determinative Mineralogy
Combustion
Historical Geology and Paleontology
Special Geology applied to North American Ores
Mining
Prospecting
Methods of working Mines
Mining Machinery and Motors
Dressing and Concentration of Minerals
Quarrying and Open Mining
History and Statistics of Mining in North America
Drawing (Topographical, Geological, Cartographical, Machin-
ery)
General Studies

Building and Architecture

Practical and Theoretical study of construction and materials
in connection with the courses of Engineering above described
Composition and design
History of art
Projects in construction and design by the student
General studies

Science and Literature

All the General Studies of the third and four years
Analytical Mechanics and Astronomy
Specialties of the professional courses
Physics (continued)
Analytical and higher chemistry
Geology
Zoology, botany and paleontology
Physiology and comparative anatomy

General Studies
Extended Study of French and of German, for the first of which
either Spanish or Italian may be substituted
History, Political Economy, and the Science of Government
Mental and Moral Philosophy
Logic, Rhetoric, and the History of English Literature
Zoology, Physiology, and Botany
334 · A. J. Angulo

REFERENCES

1.  See, for example, classic and contemporary works on American higher education history: Theodore
Hornberger, Scientific thought in the American colleges, 1639–1800 (Austin, 1945); Frederick
Rudolph, The American college and university: A history (New York, 1962); Lawrence Veysey,
The emergence of the American university (Chicago, 1965); Frederick Rudolph, Curriculum:
A history of the American undergraduate course of study since 1636 (San Francisco, 1977);
Christopher J. Lucas, American higher education: A history (New York, 1994); Julie Reuben,
The making of the modern university: Intellectual transformation and the marginalization of
morality (Chicago, 1996); Roger Geiger (ed.), The American college in the nineteenth century
(Nashville, 2000); John R. Thelin, 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), 339–52;
Natalie A. Taylor, “The Ante-Bellum College movement: A reappraisal of Tewksbury’s founding
of American colleges and universities”, History of education quarterly, xiii (1973), 261–74; James
McLachlan, “The American college in the nineteenth century: Toward a reappraisal”, Teacher’s
college record, lxxx (1978), 287–306; David Potts, “American college in the nineteenth century:
From localism to denominationalism”, History of education quarterly, xi (1971), 363–80; David
Potts, “Curriculum and enrollments: Some thoughts assessing the popularity of Antebellum
colleges”, History of higher education annual, i (1981), 88–109; Martin Finkelstein, “From
tutor to specialized scholar: Academic professionalization in eighteenth and nineteenth century
America”, History of higher education annual, iii (1983), 99–121; Jurgen Herbst, “American
higher education in the age of the college”, History of universities, vii (1988), 37–59; Colin
Bradley Burke, American collegiate populations: A test of the traditional view (New York, 1982);
J. Bruce Leslie, 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).
2. 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-simplified 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; Sheldon Rothblatt
and Bjorn Wittrock’s (eds), The European and American university since 1800: Historical and
sociological essays (New York, 1993); Walter Ruegg’s, 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 William E. Wickenden, A
comparative study of engineering education in the United States and in Europe (n.p., The Society
for the Promotion of Engineering Education, 1929).
3.  Stanley M. Guralnick, 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 Daniel H.
Calhoun, The American civil engineer: Origin and conflict (Cambridge, 1960); Edwin T. Layton,
“Mirror-image twins: The communities of science and technology in 19th century America”,
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 335
Technology and culture, xii (1971), 562–80; George S. Emmerson, Engineering education: A
social history (Newton Abbott, 1973); Terry S. Reynolds, “The education of engineers in America
before the Morrill Act of 1862”, History of education quarterly, xxxii (1992), 459–82.
4. H. S. Van Klooster, “Friedrich Wohler and his American pupils”, Journal of chemical education,
April 1944, 158; Stanley Guralnick, “The American scientist in higher education, 1820–1910”, in
Nathaniel Reingold (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), 197–351. 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), 325–38. George H. Daniels, “The
process of professionalization in American science: The emergent period, 1820–1860”, in Nathan
Reingold (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 Sally Kohlstedt, 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 Alexandra Oleson and Sanborn C. Brown (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.
5. Margaret W. Rossiter, “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 Harriette Knight Smith, 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.
6.  Charles W. Eliot, “The new education”, Atlantic monthly, xxiii (1869), 203–20; see also, Bruce Sinclair,
“The promise of the future: Technical education”, in George Daniels (ed.), Nineteenth century
American science: A reappraisal (Evanston, 1972), 249–72; Monte Calvert, 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; Scott L. Montgomery, Minds for the making:
The role of science in American education, 1750–1990 (New York, 1994).
7.  Wayland cited in Rudolph, op. cit. (ref. 1), 238; Robert Empie Rogers to William Barton Rogers, 7
January 1833, in Emma Rogers (ed.), Life and letters of William Barton Rogers (2 vols, Boston,
1898), i, 101; on West Point’s history, see James L. Morrison, Jr, “Educating the Civil War
generals: West Point, 1833–1861”, Military affairs, xxxviii (1974), 108–11; Stephen Ambrose,
Duty, honor, country: A history of West Point (Baltimore, 1999); Sidney Forman, West Point:
A history of the United States military academy (New York, 1950); R. Ernest Dupuy, Sylvanus
Thayer: Father of technology in the United States (New York, 1958).
8.  On the Polytechnique and the French government Écoles, see for instance Bruno Belhoste, “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), 101–30, and La
formation d’une technocratie: l’École polytechnique et ses élèves de la Révolution au Second
Empire (Paris, 2003).
9.  Dupuy, op. cit. (ref. 7), 2–3; Frederick B. Artz, The development of technical education in France,
1500–1850 (Cleveland, 1966), 153–4.
10. Ambrose, op. cit. (ref. 7), 66–67; Dupuy, op. cit. (ref. 7), 3.
11.  Thayer to Swift, June 28, 1818, extracted from Forman, op. cit. (ref. 7), 47; Dupuy, op. cit. (ref. 7), 4–10.
336 · A. J. Angulo

12. Ambrose, op. cit. (ref. 7), 97; Dupuy, op. cit. (ref. 7), 4–6; for Mansfield’s description of Crozet’s
teaching, see William Couper, 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.
13.  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).
14. A detailed account of the early Rensselaer laboratory sessions can be found in Palmer C. Ricketts,
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.
15. 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; Palmer C. Ricketts, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute: A short history (Troy, 1930); Palmer C. Ricketts, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy,
1933); Samuel Rezneck, Education for a technological society: A sesquicentennial history of
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, 1968). For a comparative view on laboratories, see Frank
A. J. L James (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 Linda Armstrong Chisholm, “The art of undergraduate teaching in the age of the emerging
university” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1982).
16. 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).
17.  On the École Centrale see James M. Edmondson, From mécanicien to ingénieur: Technical education
and the machine building industry in nineteenth-century France (New York, 1987).
18.  Greene cited in Ricketts, op. cit. (ref. 14), 97; Rezneck, op. cit. (ref. 15), 83–84; see also, Greene,
 THE POLYTECHNIC COMES TO AMERICA    · 337
op. cit. (ref. 16).
19. 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).
20.  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.
21.  See Edmonson, op. cit. (ref. 17).
22.  Greene, op. cit. (ref. 16), 34, 40–46.
23. Rezneck, op. cit. (ref. 15), 111–31; Greene, op. cit. (ref. 16), 40–46.
24. 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 Rolf Torstendahl, “The
transformation of professional education in the nineteenth century”, in Rothblatt and 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 Julius Adams Stratton and Loretta H. Mannix, Mind and
hand: The birth of MIT (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 435–6, 540–1.
25. 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; Robert Fox and George Weisz (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), 439–60.
26. Robert Empie Rogers, 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.
27. Rogers, Objects and plan (ref. 26), 6, 8.
28. Rogers, Objects and plan (ref. 26), 9, 10–11.
29. Rogers, Objects and plan (ref. 26), 13, 15.
30. Rogers, Objects and plan (ref. 26), 17.
31. Rogers, Objects and plan (ref. 26), 21–22, 27.
338 · A. J. Angulo

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

33. Rogers, Objects and plan (ref. 26), 25, 28.
34. Rogers, An account of the proceedings (ref. 26), 4.
35.  There is virtually no scholarship on Thomas Greene Clemson and Clemson University’s early history.
The uneven exception to this is Alma Bennett (ed.), Thomas Green Clemson (Greenville, 2009).
36.  Bennett, op. cit. (ref. 35), 15–26.
37.  Bennett, op. cit. (ref. 35), 20, 23; Artz, op. cit. (ref. 9), 245–6.
38.  Bennett, op. cit. (ref. 35), 302–3.
39.  S. Edward Warren, 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; Roger
Geiger, “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.
40.  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.)
41.  James L. Morrison, Jr, “Educating Civil War generals: West Point, 1833–1861”, Military affairs,
xxxviii (1974), 109.
42.  Greene, op. cit. (ref. 40), 9.
43.  Benjamin Franklin Greene, The true idea of a Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY, 1848 [reprinted
1949]), 42–43.
44.  Greene, op. cit (ref. 16), 12.
45.  Greene, op. cit. (ref. 43), 43.
46.  Greene, op. cit. (ref. 16), 9.
47.  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.
48.  Greene, op. cit. (ref. 16), 12.
49.  First annual catalogue (ref. 47), 20–25.
Copyright of History of Science is the property of Science History Publications Ltd. and its content may not be
copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.