PREFACE

      The Technological Institute (Tech) was established in 1939 with the help of a major gift from Walter P. Murphy. Prior to that there was a small School of Engineering at Northwestern which had been denied accreditation. Initially the emphasis of Tech was on cooperative undergraduate education, the cooperation being with industry. Later a strong graduate program was developed. This was done without sacrificing undergraduate education. The purpose of this compendium is to capture the history of The Technological Institute during the period, 1939 to 1969. The Technological Institute remained the name of Northwestern's engineering school until 1989 when the name was changed to Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. In what follows it is clear that applied science has been an important part of the school from the beginning.
      This anthology is a collection of writings of many people. When taken as a whole the intent is to give an accurate picture of the history of "Tech" during the 1939 to 1969 period. The individual parts are arranged in order of the first year mentioned. Brief biographies of the authors giving their relationships with Northwestern University are given in an Appendix.

Morris E. Fine    
1995    

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

1873 - 1939
Morris E. Fine and Robert C. Michaelson

Opportunity Lost and Gained: A Sidelight on the Walter P. Murphy Gift
Robert C. Michaelson

The History of Cooperative Engineering Education at Northwestern University
Geraldine O. Garner

Recollections and Reflections on the Early Years of Tech
John R. Eshbach

Construction of Tech
Charles H. Dowding

The School in Retrospect
John A. Kennedy

Some Recollections
George H. Bodeen

Technological Institute The War Years, A Student View
William T. Brazelton

The Early Years
Burgess H. Jennings

Remembrances of the Mechanical Engineering Department
David Mintzer

Computer Science at Northwestern
Gilbert K. Krulee

Reflections on my Experiences at Northwestern University
William T. Brazelton

Some Recollections
George Bankoff

The Departments of Engineering Drawing, Engineering Graphics and Engineering Sciences
Raymond Kliphardt

History of Civil Engineering at Northwestern
Ray Krizek

Civil Engineering at Northwestern
Donald S. Berry

Transportation Engineering at Northwestern
Donald S. Berry

The First Thirty Years
Gordon J. Murphy

Some Thoughts and Recollections
Nick Polydoris

Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University
Christina Enroth-Cugell

The First Thirty Years
Morris E. Fine

My Years at Northwestern
Lyle H. Schwartz

History of Materials Science and Engineering Department
Tom Mason

Industrial Engineering at Northwestern
Gilbert K. Krulee

History of Department of Industrial Engineering
Arthur P. Hurter

Recollections
Joel D. Meyer

A Brief History of The Technological Institute Library
Robert C. Michaelson

Part of the Past
Raymond Kliphardt

Epilogue
Jerome B. Cohen and Morris E. Fine

Some Pictures

About the Authors

1873 - 1939
by
Morris E. Fine and Robert C. Michaelson

     The trustees of Northwestern University ambitiously founded a College of Technology in June 1873 (It is interesting that the name "Technology" goes back to this early period of the University.) for training in applied science and engineering but in his report for 1876-77 President Oliver Marcy announced failure of the College due to lack of financial resources to develop the faculty and facilities (1). The report does mention a professor of civil engineering. While Northwestern founded a College of Technology in June 1873, it already had an engineering professor by 1872: Henry Smith Carhart was hired as a professor of civil engineering for 1872-1873. Carhart was actually a physicist, with his undergraduate training from Wesleyan University, and in 1873 the Trustees appointed him Alan Sisson Memorial Professor of Physics and Secretary of the Faculty of the University. He remained a physics professor at Northwestern until 1886, when he resigned to teach at the University of Michigan. During 1881 he had been on leave to study in Europe, including work in Helmholtz's laboratory in Berlin. Carhart also taught chemistry at Northwestern from 1876-1881 in addition to his duties as professor of physics.
      The University Catalog for 1873-1874 (2) describes the objects of the College of Technology as follows:
      "In this age of railroads, and mining, and surveying, and navigation, the demand for trained, practical and reliable engineers is far beyond the supply. In the laboratories and in the great manufactories of the country, the few skilled chemists that all the high schools have provided have never lacked employment...The Northwestern University, in the College of Technology, recognizes and tries to meet this demand."
      A new professor of civil engineering, William A. Metcalf, A,M.,C.E., was appointed for 1873-75. He was succeeded by Lyman E. Cooley, CE, for 1876-77. Cooley was a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and after leaving Northwestern was a successful civil engineer who, among other things, was a consulting engineer to the Chicago Sanitary District. However Northwestern's College of Technology fell victim, to the economic hard times that began with the "Panic of 1873", and far from having a "demand far beyond supply" as expressed in the catalog quoted above, the College's graduates of later years were unable to find work and the College closed.
      Engineering is again mentioned in the inaugural address in 1891 of the University's incoming president, Henry Wade Rogers (1). Rogers stated that many believed universities in general were " not performing the work necessary to prepare men for the various activities of modern life, so different from the life their fathers lived half a century ago". He recommended establishment of a school of civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering. This vision was made real during the administration of Abram Winegardner Harris. The Gustav Swift family provided $150,000 for construction of The Swift Hall of Engineering and the new College of Engineering was opened in 1909. A four year curriculum led to a B.S. degree with courses in civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering. More technical degrees, Civil Engineer, Electrical Engineer and Mechanical Engineer, were obtained by a 5th year of study. The first Dean was John F. Hayford who was Professor of Civil Engineering.
      Dean Hayford was a distinguished engineer and scientist, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The memorial plaque which now resides in the entrance foyer of The Technological Institute Building states, "IN MEMORY OF JOHN FILLMORE HAYFORD DIRECTOR OF THE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 1909 -1925 ESTABLISHER OF THE THEORY OF ISOSTASY AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONALLY ACCEPTED HAYFORD SPHEROID OF REFERENCE DEDUCER OF THE CONDITIONS WHICH GOVERN THE LEVELS OF THE GREAT LAKES".
      Hans Weertman has contributed the following paragraph on John Hayford. Dean Hayford's career is described in a long memoir (3) written by William H. Burger, a Professor of Civil Engineering (who was much beloved and respected by alums of Northwestern University) in the School of Engineering. Prior to coming to Northwestern he served in the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, a relationship "which was to bring him such renown, and in a reciprocal way add prestige to this bureau of the government" (3). In his years with the US Coast and Geodetic Survey he helped establish the position of part of the boundary between Mexico and the US He made a notable contribution to the classic report on the Great San Francisco Earthquake (4). His paper in that report concerned the shift of benchmarks from their positions prior to this earthquake. This work established quantitatively the nature of the earth movements produced by this earthquake. The data of this paper have been used in scientific papers up to the present time. Hayford is best known for his theory of isostasy, which was worked out mainly in his years at Northwestern. Isostasy is concerned with the fact that mountains and continents rise above ocean basins because they are made of rock of density smaller than the rock beneath the ocean. Hayford's theory calculated the position of the surface (Hayford spheroid) where conditions of static equilibrium prevail under mountains, continents and oceans. One recognition of his reputation is Mount Hayford, a mountain in Alaska named after him. (Mount Evans one of the highest mountains in Colorado is named after John Evans, the founder of Northwestern University). After Hayford came to Northwestern he became interested in the Great Lakes and made studies of them, a consequence of walking along Lake Michigan shore between his home and the University. He studied the seiches of Lake Michigan and factors, such as rates of evaporation, that determine lake level. In his day the motto of the College of Engineering was "Culture for Usefulness". Two curricula were offered; Civil Engineering and a combined Mechanical-Electrical Engineering. The aim, then as now, was to train future engineers for the greatest average effectiveness in a lifetime rather than for the greatest effectiveness in the first years after graduation" (3).
      Operationally the Engineering School until the middle 1920's was a department of the College of Liberal Arts (1). The major emphasis was on a broad general education with particular emphasis on mathematics and science. President Walter Dill Scott appointed a committee to suggest strengthening engineering. The report made in 1926 suggested making the Engineering School autonomous, reorganizing the curriculum to include more technical education, and securing a faculty predominantly oriented toward engineering. After the passing away of Dean Hayford, William C. Bauer, who was Professor of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, became Dean. He implemented these changes. The College of Engineering was renamed School of Engineering and made autonomous. A new 4 year program of courses leading to a BS Degree in Engineering was adopted. The many joint appointments with CAS which existed at the time were terminated .
      In spite of these changes in 1937 the Engineering School ran into difficulties with the engineering accrediting organization, the recently organized Engineering Council for Professional Development, which denied accreditation. In ECPD's opinion the four year curriculum was too heavily weighted in non engineering courses. The 5th year rectified this, but the 4 year program was considered to be insufficiently professionally oriented. The 5th year was taken by very few students. This program may be contrasted to that at the University of Minnesota where one of the authors attended at that time. Freshman English was required but it was taught in the College of Engineering and included technical writing. There were no required non-science courses. The author had three free electives and took two quarters of physical chemistry and one quarter of economics. To the author's knowledge there was no problem with accreditation.
      In response to the denial of accreditation a four year curriculum satisfying the ECPD requirements was put in place and the trustees authorized funding to hire the necessary faculty and provide the necessary laboratories. The Murphy gift was of enormous help in achieving these objectives. President Scott was contacted by letter in Feb. 1936 about the possibility of an anonymous donor who was considering endowing an engineering school in one of several universities (1). The University enlisted the help of Charles F. Kettering who had become a friend of the University, having received an honorary Doctor of Science in 1935. Kettering's proposal was for an educational program in cooperation with industry and this won a grant of $6,735,000 from the Walter P. Murphy Foundation in March 1939. Negotiations between the donor and the University were hung up over the University's attempt to obtain additional funding for maintenance. The University gave on this point after the denial of accreditation. Construction of the Tech Building began soon after that and it was completed in June 1942. On his death shortly after the Tech Building was dedicated, Murphy willed close to $28,000,000 to endow engineering and the principal sciences.

References

1. H. F. Williamson and P. W. Wild, "Northwestern University A History 1850-1875" Northwestern University , 1976 pp. 23, 44, 45,72, 107, 111, 167, 192, 193, 197-199, 217, 222, 223, 230-234.

2. Northwestern University Catalog for 1873-1874.

3. W. H. Burger, "Biographical Memoir of John Fillmore Hayford 1868-1925" Biographical Memoirs, v. 16, pp. 152-292, (1935) National Academy of Sciences.

4. J. F. Hayford and A. L. Baldwin, " Geodetic Measurements of Earth Movements, California State Earthquake of April 18, 1906", Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission, Vol. I, (1908) (Reprinted 1969) pp. 114-159, Carnegie Institution of Washington.

OPPORTUNITY LOST AND GAINED:
A SIDELIGHT ON THE WALTER P. MURPHY GIFT
by
Robert C. Michaelson

     Walter P. Murphy's gift of $6,735,000 for the creation of Northwestern's Technological Institute caused a great deal of public attention when it was announced in March, 1939. Even more public interest was aroused by the announcement after Murphy's death on December 16, 1942, that the bulk of his estate, almost $28,000,000, was also to go to the Technological Institute. Many rumors circulated about how Northwestern had come to receive this enormous benefaction; one story had it that the University of Chicago was originally to have received Murphy's funding, but mishandled the opportunity, while Northwestern "picked up the ball." Since there is no accurate published account of this matter (1), it may be of interest to recount the information that is available in archival records.
      In late February, 1936, President Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern received a letter from R. E. Cabell, a member of a law firm in Richmond, Virginia, indicating that an unnamed client was interested in making a substantial gift or bequest "toward establishing or endowing a school of engineering in one of several outstanding educational institutions"; also included was a list of questions about Northwestern's engineering program and needs. Northwestern responded on April 27, 1936 with a seventeen-page prospectus outlining plans for a new school of engineering, of a fairly standard sort. But by this time they had guessed the name of Cabell's principal, and they knew something of Murphy's background and wealth. Thus they began working out a new proposal for this donor, and to help them they engaged Charles Kettering of General Motors and Dean Herman Schneider of the University of Cincinnati, who had both been involved in setting up Cincinnati's cooperative system of engineering education, which alternated study in the classroom with periods of work in industry. Not surprisingly, this was the approach outlined in Northwestern's new prospectus (2).
      At very nearly the same time, Cabell was in contact with the University of Chicago. On March 12, 1936 Cabell called Chicago's President Robert M. Hutchins from the Palmer House requesting a conference. Hutchins was unable to see him at that time but a meeting was arranged with the Dean of Faculties, E. T. Filbey. At this meeting Cabell indicated that a client was considering a rather large grant for engineering education; Chicago had been thought of as a possible location -- were they interested? Filbey replied that Chicago would be interested if there would be support of research and training in engineering that was as distinctive as work done there in other fields, not just another engineering school. When Cabell asked what size fund would be required, Filbey replied that $10,000,000 would be a minimum, and Cabell indicated that this amount was not out of line with the prospective donor's views or capacity. On April 6, Cabell wrote that his principal was much interested in his report of the interview, and wished for Cabell to secure additional information; on April 9, at a meeting in the Palmer House, Cabell asked a series of detailed questions on matters such as how an engineering school at Chicago would be administered, what kind of working relations would there be with industry, and could an effective engineering education and research program be set up in a large university, as opposed to a separate institution. Filbey says in a memo on April 11 that the answers were such as to show that Chicago would do all that was needed with enthusiasm. He also notes that Cabell indicated that no documents were desired unless on request. (A much later memo, on January 11, 1944, recalls that at this Palmer House meeting Cabell mentioned for the first time the "part-time training", or Cincinnati plan). In a brief exchange of letters in early July, Filbey mentions Chicago's interest in Cabell's proposal because of the close relationship to activities there in physics, mathematics, chemistry, and geology, while Cabell's reply discusses the advantages of the Cincinnati plan (3).
      However, by August 10, 1936 Murphy seems to have made his decision, since on that day Cabell notified Northwestern that his principal had retained Dean Schneider as educational counselor and desired that Charles Kettering be induced to help plan the project; moreover, Cabell indicated that Northwestern was his principal's first choice for carrying out the program. Later that month, Murphy allowed his name to be revealed, although still in confidence, to Northwestern, and by September 3 he offered to sign a contract agreeing to provide $6,310,000 for the first stages of the program. At this point though, Northwestern balked, fearing to commit to tenured faculty and the upkeep of an expensive building without an endowment. Murphy broke off negotiations for two years.
      All of this was unknown at Chicago, although Filbey noticed that in an address to a meeting of the Association of Deans and Directors of Summer Sessions, held at Northwestern, Walter Dill Scott remarked that he had been studying the cooperative system in engineering education. Filbey suspected that Scott had used this study as a basis for advancing Northwestern's prospects. Chicago continued to try to remain in the running with Cabell's unnamed donor, and in October 1936 Filbey called on Cabell in Richmond. His memo of this visit indicates that the donor favored the Chicago area for the project. Moreover, the memo notes that when the donor first discussed engineering education with Cabell he was interested in establishing another M.I.T. for graduate training and research; however, as the program of study undertaken by Cabell went forward his enthusiasm for that type of project was much reduced, particularly through the recommendation of men such as Kettering, and he now definitely favored a program of work based on the Cincinnati scheme. As a result of this memo, Chicago's President Hutchins arranged for the physicist Arthur Compton, a professor at Chicago and friend of Kettering, to meet with Kettering to discuss the importance of engineering at Chicago and how it would fit into Chicago's organization. Another memo by Filbey reports that in the meeting Kettering referred to his general skepticism of university education in engineering and indicated the advantages of practical experience.
      Finally, in August 1938 new negotiations began between Northwestern and Cabell, and a contract was signed with the Walter P. Murphy Foundation on March 20, 1939, providing $6,735,000 for the first stage of the project. The following day's newspapers announced Murphy's gift, which was quite sensational since Murphy had kept himself out of the public eye and was unknown to the general public. He was not totally unknown at the University of Chicago, however, since he had given $250,000 to Chicago's medical center in 1928 (although, typically for Murphy, the money established a fund in the name of his friend Charles H. Markham rather than in his own name). Chicago quickly determined that Murphy still had a substantial fortune even after his gift to Northwestern, and began to seek funding from Murphy for their program in medicine: they suggested the creation of the Walter P. Murphy Medical Center. This may have been a tactical error, since Murphy had insisted that Northwestern's Technological Institute not be named for him, and had similarly chosen not to have his name associated with his earlier gift to Chicago. However, it is most likely that Murphy had simply decided to devote his charitable contributions chiefly to the Technological Institute. For whatever reason, Murphy did not give any further major gifts to the University of Chicago, although he did give $25,000 to Chicago's 50th anniversary campaign in 1941 (4). He also invited President and Mrs. Hutchins to a very small and apparently cordial private dinner at his Lake Bluff home in 1940. Hutchins' file memo on this dinner concludes with the statement that Mr. Cabell said that Mr. Murphy had told him that the University of Chicago was his first choice for the Engineering School, and that if they had been interested in it it would have come to Chicago. Hutchins noted that his response was to say he was glad the School promised to be successful at Northwestern and he took the opportunity of reminding Mr. Cabell that Chicago's most pressing problem was in medicine.
      There are some puzzling points in this story. It seems clear that Chicago was indeed Murphy's first choice for his gift -- it is unlikely that his attorney would have made this statement in his presence if it were untrue. This leaves the problem of determining what Cabell meant by saying that the school would have gone to Chicago if they had been interested in it, since there could have been no doubt that Chicago was very interested in using Murphy's funds for an engineering program. The most reasonable conclusion seems to be that Cabell meant that if Chicago had been interested in a Cincinnati-type engineering program, the money would have gone there. The sequence of events seems to be that, on Murphy's instructions, Cabell began investigating engineering education in the United States, making inquiries of engineering schools and of industrial representatives. At the same time, he wrote to Northwestern (and possibly to other leading institutions) to begin considering them as possible sites for the program Murphy wished to establish. Significantly, Chicago was visited by Cabell rather than contacted by letter -- Filbey's memo on the visit states that Cabell told him that Chicago was the only university so far visited in the area, although others had been mentioned as possible locations. Chicago, moreover, was not asked to submit written documents; Cabell asked neither for specific information or for commitment, he was interested in Chicago's point of view. At this time Murphy still seems to have been interested in a research and graduate education program (the "MIT model"). However, very soon after the first meeting, on April 9 Cabell met with Filbey at the Palmer House in Chicago and here began to mention the Cincinnati model for the first time. Filbey does not seem to have been very interested in this aspect of the conversation; he does not even mention it in his memo at the time, but only much later. In any case, Chicago seems to have been committed to the research and graduate education model, while Murphy or Cabell or both were by this time fairly well committed to the Cincinnati model in which Chicago never expressed interest. Not long thereafter, though, Northwestern's second proposal advancing just that model was received by Cabell. A letter from Filbey in 1944 expresses the opinion that Murphy's grant went to Northwestern on Kettering's recommendation; he further states that he doubts if Kettering is one bit interested in the kind of engineering school that Chicago would have developed. The second part of this statement was certainly true, and the first part seems largely true, although even apart from Kettering Murphy had already determined that the sort of engineering school he wanted was not consonant with Chicago's ideas. Although this seems to be the most plausible conclusion, for a final verdict one would need to examine Cabell's personal files (or Murphy's if they existed: Walter Dill Scott's biography of Murphy states that he kept no diary and no copies of his correspondence). Other factors may also have been involved -- for example there are suggestions in both the Chicago and Northwestern archives that Murphy may have been displeased that Hutchins did not personally meet with Cabell. But I believe that such an important decision would have been based primarily on the fact that Murphy found at Northwestern a congeniality not just to his representative but to his ideas on engineering education.
      There is a final question of possible interest to academic administrators, expressed in a 1944 letter from Harold H. Swift, who was Chairman of the University of Chicago's Board of Trustees (and a son of Gustav Swift, in whose honor the Swift family donated the Swift Hall of Engineering, home to Northwestern's small, pre-Murphy Engineering School). Swift writes that the chief question involved seems to be whether Chicago should have been a better trader, finding what the donor wanted and conforming to it rather than straightforwardly giving him their best judgment as requested. For Northwestern of course this question did not arise, since Northwestern's best judgment coincided with Murphy's ideas. Still, this sort of question arises frequently in negotiations with potential donors -- though rarely with such enormous consequences as those involved in Murphy's ultimate gift -- and institutions must ask themselves the difficult question of how much they are willing to have their identities made over to conform to a donor's wishes. In the end, though, Northwestern had determined a course of action for itself, which coincided with the interests of a wealthy and generous donor; Northwestern seized the opportunity.

Notes:

1. There is a brief paragraph discussing Murphy's proposal to Chicago in William H. McNeill's book Hutchins' University (University of Chicago Press, 1991; page 86). McNeill's preface states "much of what follows derives from personal experience, supplemented by some rather cursory investigation of university records deposited in the Special Collections of Regenstein Library and by conversations with others who still remembered the Hutchins era...." Unfortunately, his account of the Murphy affair is erroneous.

2. Most of the account given here of Murphy's negotiations with Northwestern is taken from Walter Dill Scott's biography of Murphy, Walter Patton Murphy, 1873-1942 (Northwestern University Press, 1952); some additional information was found in the Northwestern University Archives with the help of the Archivist, Patrick Quinn.

3. All of the information given here on Murphy's negotiations with the University of Chicago is taken from archival materials in the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago: the Harold H. Swift Papers, box 104, folder 5. The archivist Richard Popp provided invaluable guidance to these materials.

4. Walter Dill Scott interviewed Murphy in 1941 for the biography he planned to write. A memo from Scott in March 1941 states that Murphy told him he was going to revise his will, and added "It is assumed that the Technological Institute is sort of a first charge for the [Murphy] Foundation." Scott's notes of his meeting on September 17, 1941 state "George Ranney and Max Epstein called on Mr. Murphy and sought a donation for the University of Chicago. Mr. Murphy investigated the amounts other business men were donating, and sent a check to express his good will, but not enough to indicate special interest. The amount was $25,000."

THE HISTORY OF COOPERATIVE ENGINEERING EDUCATION AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
by
Geraldine O. Garner

     As a newcomer to the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science the invitation to write the history of cooperative engineering education (co-op) at Northwestern was an honor and a privilege. At the same time, it was an intimidating undertaking. After all, there are others in the School, and involved with the School, who have been active participants in the formation and development of the program. What if their recollections were not represented correctly? What if a fact was misinterpreted, particularly if it was misinterpreted by someone who was not here at the time?
      Very quickly, personal concerns of this nature gave way to excitement about the truly historic foundations of cooperative education at Northwestern. As a student, researcher, and administrator of cooperative education, a real appreciation for the roots of the program grew at each stage of the process. Learning about Walter P. Murphy. Finding the Murphy estate in Lake Bluff. Seeing the prospectus prepared for Mr. Murphy's review. Learning that Dean Herman Schneider, the "Father of Cooperative Education", was a central figure in the development of the Northwestern cooperative education program. These opportunities not only made the project rewarding, they made it an inspiring and humbling experience.
      Northwestern and McCormick have always been proud and protective of their cooperative education program. They have every right to be! It is hoped that this chapter accurately recaptures memories, correctly interprets facts, and provides some new information and insight about a truly outstanding program. Nonetheless, it is equally important that this chapter continues to instill pride and to reinforce the knowledge that cooperative engineering education, particularly at Northwestern University, is a superior form of engineering education. The Northwestern Co-op Program has certainly passed Mr. Murphy's "test" and remains an on going tribute to his vision.

INTRODUCTION

The Co-operative System - A Manifesto, published in the October, 1946, issue of the Journal of Engineering Education, the Cooperative Education Division of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education defined cooperative education as an pedagogical approach which "requires or permits all or some engineering students to alternate periods of attendance at school or college with periods of employment in industry during a portion or all of one or more curricula. Employment is constituted as a regular, continuing and essential element in the educational process...[and] is related to some phase of the branch or field of study in which the student is engaged. Employment is to be variegated in order to afford a spread of experience...with minimum hours of employment and a minimum standard of performance in such employment, among the requirements for a degree" (Freund, 1946, pp. 117-118).

     For more than 55 years, Northwestern University's Cooperative Engineering Education Program has adhered to this definition of cooperative education (co-op). Although many other engineering schools weakened the standards for their co-op programs to those of humanities internships, Northwestern continued to maintain the strength of the original concept.
      Since 1940, thousands of Northwestern engineering students have participated in the "cooperative system" on both a mandatory and a voluntary basis. Today, many leaders of business, industry, government, and academia are Northwestern alumni who participated in a co-op program conceived by some of the best engineering minds of the 20th Century. However, few outside of the close knit family of "NU Co-ops" know, or appreciate, the rich historical roots of the Northwestern Co-op Program.
      Unlike most cooperative engineering education programs, Northwestern did not add co-op to the engineering curriculum. Instead, Northwestern incorporated co-op into the original pedagogical design for the Technological Institute (Tech). The process by which such a curriculum was designed is replete with mystery and intrigue. Today, fact and rumor continue to surround the development of the Technological Institute and contribute to the richness of its history.

THE BEGINNING
     In the winter of 1936, Northwestern University President Walter Dill Scott received a letter from a lawyer in Richmond, Virginia. The lawyer, Mr. Royal E. Cabell, wrote that an unnamed client was interested in making a substantial bequest "toward establishing a school of engineering".
      Mr. Cabell had been directed by his client to investigate the needs of engineering education in the United States. Mr. Cabell surveyed the top universities in the country, as well as US industry. His research led to the discovery of a widespread belief that there was not a need for more engineering schools. If fact, the prevalent thought was that "graduates of liberal arts colleges succeeded in industry as well as graduates of colleges of engineering" (Scott, 1952, p. 79). Despite these findings, Mr. Cabell's client was committed to the "development in the United States of the science of engineering". His client was also dedicated to funding an engineering school which would be "second to none."
      The unnamed client concluded that there was a preponderance of engineering schools on both the east and west coasts but none of sufficient stature in the Midwest. Therefore, plans were made to establish an engineering school in the Chicago area.
     The discussions and negotiations of Cabell with the University of Chicago and Northwestern are given in the preceding chapter of this anthology by Michaelson. In March of 1936, Cabell met with E. T. Filbey, Dean of Faculties at the University of Chicago. Filbey told Cabell that "Chicago would be interested if there would be support of research and training in engineering that was as distinctive as work done there in other fields, not just another engineering school" (Michaelson, undated, pp 1-2). There was a follow-up meeting with Filbey in April. At this meeting, Cabell asked a series of questions including how the engineering school at the University of Chicago would be administered and what would be the nature of the school's working relations with industry. According to Michaelson (undated), memoranda were found which indicated that by the summer of 1936, Cabell was mentioning the "cooperative system" in his correspondence with Filbey. Correspondence could not be found which demonstrated that Filbey addressed the issue. However, it is known that he did express the University's interest in working with Mr. Cabell to design a school acceptable to his "principal".
      Meanwhile, upon receiving Mr. Cabell's letter, Northwestern University President Scott began the process of responding to the inquiry. During the process of drafting Northwestern's response, Scott reported that "Northwestern guessed the name of Mr. Cabell's principal". When this occurred, the University realized that its original response needed to be drastically revised. Scott consulted with some of the most influential engineers of the time to recast the original prospectus. Those consulted included: Dr. Charles Kettering, the premier technologist and inventor of the time and chief research engineer at General Motors, who had been the recipient of an honorary degree from Northwestern University; and Dr. Herman Schneider, one of the most innovative engineering educators of the time and dean of engineering at the University of Cincinnati. According to President Scott,

     ...Mr. Kettering enthusiastically agreed to cooperate and to ask several of the outstanding engineers in his organization to contribute their suggestions. He also took steps to secure the cooperation of Dean Herman Schneider, of the University of Cincinnati.
      Dean Schneider had been experimenting for many years with a new type of engineering education known as the cooperative system, which alternated study in the classroom and laboratory with periods of work in industry. Up to that time, the plan had been considered unimportant by the leading universities and technological schools in this country; in no institution had it received adequate financial support. Its merits, however, appealed strongly to Mr. Kettering, a practical businessman and engineer (Scott, 1952, p. 80).

      By the spring of 1936, Northwestern presented a 17 page prospectus to Mr. Cabell (Scott, 1936). Shortly thereafter, the University was notified that the donor had engaged Dean Schneider as his educational consultant and Dr. Kettering as an active participant in planning the "project".
      Apparently unknown to President Scott, Schneider's influence went well beyond the paradigm for the "cooperative system". Mr. Murphy had assigned him the task of identifying candidates to be the dean of the new school of engineering. The dean would have to have "...wide experience in industry and education and...look favorably on the idea of co-op. In addition, a new school had to be set up. The dean [had to] be an effective speaker with a dynamic personality" (Jacobs, 1958, p. 14).
      No one knew the extent of Schneider's involvement in the design of the new school. However, in 1938, a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati learned of it "quite by accident". Professor Clyde Park wrote to the vacationing Schneider about a speech he had heard delivered at the Convention of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, held at the Texas A. and M. College. The speech addressed current issues in engineering education and was presented by a representative of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
      Upon receiving a hand written letter from Schneider requesting more information about the presenter, Park became aware that Schneider had a very special assignment. Schneider was interested in Park's impressions of the speaker's "ability in speaking, his use of English and his personality before audiences and in private conversation" (Park, 1943, p. 306).

605 Bay Street
Petoskey, MI
August 16, 1938

Dear Park:
      Many thanks for your good letter of August 12. This gives me just what I wanted. Of course, the reason for my initial search is very confidential, hence I do not want to ramify its lines too much. However if in an incidental off-hand way, you can get anything more..., I'd be glad to hear it. But beyond that we should not go; nor is it necessary for my immediate purpose.
      We have had a good vacation and all of us have gained a lot from it. I haven't done as much writing as I had planned. When I landed here I was mentally very tired. My literary attempts were flat. So I accepted my mind's protest and loafed a bit. Later some other things came along to occupy my thoughts,- result, no manuscript.
      Again my appreciation and my good wishes to you all for a fine vacation.

Sincerely

Herman Schneider

     The man identified to Herman Schneider was Ovid W. Eshbach. Dr. Eshbach was active in the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education (SPEE). In addition, he was well known in engineering schools throughout the country because of his book the Handbook of Engineering Fundamentals.
      Eshbach was involved in recruiting engineering graduates for AT&T. In that capacity, he was assigned to organize and implement a graduate co-op program between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and AT&T.
      In 1925, a new communications option was launched by Bell Systems and M.I.T.'s electrical engineering department. Ovid Eshbach was a relatively new AT&T employee at the time, having previously been an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Lehigh University.1 Eshbach had been hired to aid in student recruitment and placement. Therefore, he was the logical choice to put in charge of the new initiative with MIT
      Eshbach's diligence in organizing and administering the program was most evident during the Depression years of 1932 to 1937. When no work was available for the students participating in the MIT co-op program, he began the "Eshbach Handbook" project. He employed some of the young men, who had been laid off, to work on the project. The result was the Handbook of Engineering Fundamentals published in 1936 as one of the Wiley series of handbooks. By the time that Eshbach came to the attention of Dean Schneider, he had selected and followed the development of 11 classes in this graduate co-op program. Overall, Eshbach's background and experiences were an excellent fit with Murphy, Kettering, and Schneider and their plans for the school of engineering at Northwestern University.
      From 1936 to 1939; Murphy, Kettering, and Schneider further developed the Northwestern prospectus. President Scott had brought together three kindred spirits. Charles Kettering had worked on a farm and taught school before entering college. While in college, Kettering dug post-holes as part of a construction crew to earn money for his college education.
      Herman Schneider worked in a local architect's office while a student of engineering. After graduation he worked in the area of structural iron. Recognizing that his architectural experiences were important to his own engineering education, he used this awareness as the foundation for his pedagogical research and approach to engineering education.
      Walter Murphy worked as a rancher and as a fireman and mechanic on the railroads of the Midwest to support his family. While he did not have a college degree, Murphy completed two years at St. Louis University. However, he felt that he "owed a debt of gratitude to industry...." This sense of debt contributed to Murphy's commitment to furnish "industry with better trained and better prepared graduates in technical and engineering lines."
      According to Scott, "any one of these three might have been the first to recognize that industry furnishes a training laboratory for engineers which no college can equal. Actually, Herman Schneider was the first to make this idea the basis of engineering education. Charles Kettering was the first to make it respected by the industrial leaders in America. Walter P. Murphy was the first, and only, individual to be willing and able to subsidize a conclusive experiment in cooperative education." (Scott, 1952, p. 82)
      On March 20, 1939, it was announced that the Walter P. Murphy Foundation had given Northwestern University $6,735,000 to "erect the first unit of the Technological Institute and carry out, until six classes had graduated, the experiment in cooperative education in civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering" (Scott, 1952, p. 84). Three years later, upon his death, Mr. Murphy bequeathed almost $28,000,000 for the founding and support of the Technological Institute. The Murphy gift was "the largest contribution ever made by any one person in America to a single institution in support of training and research in one field of learning" (Scott, 1952, p. 92).
      When the Murphy gift was announced, the press found very little information about Mr. Murphy. His passion for anonymity, therefore, fostered speculation about his background and his accumulation of wealth. The speculation became as interesting as the bequest!
      Writing in the July 25, 1950, issue of the Michigan Society of Architects Weekly Bulletin, W.S. Woodfill recounted the story of Mr. Murphy sitting in the famous barber chair located in the Grand Hotel in Michigan when he made the decision to give money to Northwestern to erect a school of engineering. Mr. Woodfill's account of Mr. Murphy's background was equally interesting:

     Mr. Murphy came to this country as an Irish immigrant, or of modest Irish parentage, and settled in New York City. There he became the private secretary of the late 'Diamond Jim' Brady....
      Mr. Brady was of course the greatest of all railroad supply salesmen. As time went on, Mr. Murphy served Mr. Brady in executive capacities, and upon the death of Mr. Brady succeeded to much of his business, as he had developed those contacts in his association with Mr. Brady.
      Like Mr. Brady, he was always an especially well-groomed gentleman, but unlike Mr. Brady was never a conspicuous person with his habit of "diamonds".

     It is known that James Buchanan "Diamond Jim" Brady was a railroad tycoon and philanthropist. It is also know that he acquired his fortune as a railroad equipment salesman and started two steel railroad car manufacturing firms. While he also vacationed at the Grand Hotel, it is unknown how or when Walter Murphy may have worked for him. In fact, there is little support for Woodfill's description of Murphy's working relationship with Brady in Walter Dill Scott's biography of Murphy.
      Scott reported that Walter Murphy (1873 - 1942) was born in Pittsburgh and that his first job was as a fireman with the Cairo Shortline Railroad in 1889. Payroll records secured by Scott showed that Murphy made no more than $398.25 per year in his three years working for the Cairo Shortline. In 1894, he went to work for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Murphy joined the salesforce of his father's company, Standard Railroad Equipment, in 1900. However, Scott never mentioned Diamond Jim Brady in any connection with Murphy.
     (Editor's note: The date of the alleged barber chair happening was August 1939. The gift was announced in March 1939 so the barber shop affair is evidently a hoax.)
      Like his father and Kettering, Walter Murphy was an inventor. At the time of his death, he held 150 patents for equipment which became the standard for railroad cars. It is thought that he was instrumental in more than 1,500 other patents related to railroad equipment.
      Walter Dill Scott was the president of Northwestern throughout the negotiations and implementation of the gift. He described Walter Murphy as follows:

     No one can fully appreciate the qualities of Walter P. Murphy who has not seen him in action. His enthusiasm, his ingratiating personality, his fluent speech, his high idealism-all combined to make him stand out...as one of the greatest Americans he [Scott] has had the pleasure of meeting (Scott, 1952, p. x - xi).
      This is the legacy of the Co-op Program at Northwestern University.

THE COOPERATIVE SYSTEM EXPERIMENT
      When Mr. Murphy gave the gift of over $6,000,000, it was with the understanding that the "cooperative system", or Co-op Program, would be given a trial. The first six, entering classes of Tech were to have participated in the "experiment". Students in civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering were to take five years to complete their undergraduate degrees by combining classroom instruction with work experience in industry. The experiment was to have gone on over a ten year period. Leadership of the program was critical.
      It was widely speculated that Herman Schneider would come to Northwestern as dean of cooperative education. In fact, in the design of the Technological Institute, two identical offices were planned. One was for the dean of academics and the other was for the dean of the co-op program. However, within days of the Walter P. Murphy Foundation signing the contract to build the Technological Institute, Dean Schneider died in March of 1939.

In April of 1939, Walter Murphy was quoted in School and Society:
...I have long been interested in the problems of thorough training of engineers and business executives and have given considerable study and thought to this subject. Aided by contacts with Dean Schneider, the pioneer of the cooperative system, Dr. Charles F. Kettering, the distinguished research engineer and scientist, and others, I reached the conclusion that the cooperative system offered the very best solution to this problem. (p. 424)

     It was felt by many that Murphy's endorsement of Dean Schneider's "cooperative system" had firmly established co-op as a pedagogical approach in American higher education and validated the strength of Schneider's ideas. In deed, the "cooperative system" had succeeded in surviving the Great Depression.
      Upon the death of Schneider, President Scott, Dr. Kettering, and Mr. Murphy turned to Dean R. C. Disque at Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University) for guidance in conducting the "experiment". Drexel Institute had been among the first schools of engineering to implement the cooperative system on a mandatory basis.
      In 1940, F. George Seulberger, who had been a coordinator of cooperative education at Drexel, was hired to initiate the cooperative education system at Northwestern University. While the first students in the Cooperative Education Program at Tech began their cooperative work assignments in the fall of 1940, the experiment could not take place as originally planned.
      The Technological Institute was dedicated in 1942, within months of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was scheduled to attend the two-day scientific and industrial conference marking the dedication but obviously was unable to do so. Almost immediately the federal government elected to use Tech as one of its most advanced research and training facilities for the armed forces. The state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment made possibly by the Murphy gift were necessary to the war effort. The postponement of the "experiment" was not a disappointment to Mr. Murphy. He took great pride in the fact that Tech had become a center for governmental research and training.
      At the same time, the national pressure for manpower to fight the war on two fronts meant students had to accelerate their programs. This caused the abandonment of the cooperative system for all students, except those classified as "F-4" under the Selective Service. Since there were always a few such students, Tech never completely abandoned the cooperative system. Therefore, today it is among the oldest, continuous cooperative engineering education programs in the country.
      However, during the war, Professor Seulberger served as the University's dean of students while Clarence Watson, assistant professor of Cooperative Education, placed the few students still available to participate in Co-op. After the war, the mandatory Co-op Program was reinstated. Every Tech student, unless a veteran of World War II, was required to participate.
      Watson became associate professor of Cooperative Education and Chairman of the Department of Industrial Relations and Seulberger returned to Tech in 1950. Seulberger was named assistant dean of the Technological Institute in 1952. In the mid 1950's, Watson had left Tech to join the staff of the Ford Foundation. Throughout the 1950's the Co-op Program flourished.
      In the early 1950's, Tech hosted the mid-winter meeting of the Cooperative Education Division of the SPEE. The meeting was part of Northwestern's centennial program. It became a celebration of the contributions of Walter Murphy, Charles Kettering, and Herman Schneider in establishing cooperative education as a significant pedagogical approach.

EVALUATING THE "EXPERIMENT"
      Because the war had interrupted the "experiment", it was not until the 1950's that an evaluation of the "cooperative system" could take place. Before his retirement in 1953, Dean Eshbach began this evaluation process. He asked the department chairmen to formulate questions about the co-op program. They were instructed not to come up with the answers, only the questions.
      In 1954, Dean Donald H. Loughridge, who succeeded Eshbach as dean, appointed a faculty committee to evaluate the "cooperative system" experiment. The committee was chaired by Professor Jenness and had such members as Professors James Van Ness and William Brazelton (a graduate of the first Co-op class in 1943).
      It is important to keep in mind that the evaluation of co-op took place in a time of great turmoil in engineering education. Engineering faculties everywhere were debating the applied versus science-based engineering education. During this time, cooperative education was seen by some faculty as representative of the purely applied side of engineering and, therefore, of limited value in the engineering education revolution of the late 1950's.
      In his writings on the subject, Seulberger pointed out that some faculty may not have realized that the work that co-ops were performing on the job was changing also. Their work was becoming increasingly more sophisticated and reflective of the trend toward a more scientific approach to engineering.
      Nonetheless, the Jenness Committee found that the five year, undergraduate program for co-op students was negatively impacting admissions. In the 1950's, engineering jobs were abundant for engineering graduates at the BS level. In addition, more students planned to continue their engineering education at the graduate level. Consequently, the five year Co-op program was viewed by some prospective students as a disincentive. As a result enrollment in the Technological Institute was suffering.
      The Jenness Committee proposed to change the Co-op Program from mandatory to voluntary. The proposal was driven by the changing needs of faculty and students. John Van Ness and Ronald Sardiga (1959) reported that "by making co-op optional the faculty did not mean to imply that they [felt] co-op [had] outlived its usefulness. Instead, the move was intended to add more flexibility to the program by allowing students to choose for themselves whether or not to elect co-op. The...feeling [was]...that co-op is a superior form of engineering education" (p.20).
      The motion to make co-op optional in the Technological Institute was first made at a faculty meeting in the Fall of 1955. After motions to amend the recommendation, the issue was tabled and not brought up again until 1957. In the intervening time Dean Loughridge stepped down and Dr. Eshbach returned as Acting Dean until Harold B. Gotaas was selected as Dean of Engineering in 1957.
      In May of 1957, Jenness presented the co-op findings at a faculty meeting. He again made the motion to move co-op to an optional basis. This time the faculty of the Technological Institute voted to make cooperative education a voluntary. After a year of preparation for the change, the first entering class to have co-op as an "option" rather than a "requirement" was the freshmen class of 1959-60.
      Unfortunately, the implementation of a voluntary program was made without changing the alternating schedule of school and work. Tech maintained a system of alternation which was viable for mandatory schools but not practical for optional programs. It was quite predictable that under a voluntary system of co-op the entering classes, assigned to work exclusively during the fall and spring quarters and attend school only during the winter and summer, would show a significant decrease in selecting the co-op option. This was certainly true for Tech. Co-op enrollment declined significantly for those entering Tech classes assigned to be "on co-op" exclusively on the fall/spring schedule.
      It is important to keep in mind that the decision to make co-op voluntary was made against the backdrop of a significant event in the history of science and engineering. "The launching of the Russian Sputnik [satellite] in 1957 gave new impetus to the revolution already underway in American engineering education. Out of the national embarrassment at not being first into space came the common agreement that we must improve our education institutions to regain...world power" (Northwestern Engineer, 1963, p. 10). The federal government began committing vast resources in order to "catch up" with the Russian space initiative. The general theme, at the time, was that "the technical fields were not science oriented enough." Therefore, schools of engineering placed increased emphasis on obtaining government funding to conduct research and adding scientific and engineering scholars to their faculties.
      Once again, the national agenda impacted the role of cooperative education in the Technological Institute. The agenda was to produce scientific and engineering manpower quickly. A five year co-op program did not fit the needs of every student nor did it fit the needs of the increasing numbers of faculty members who were trying to foster the development of Ph.D. level engineers. Two years after the Northwestern Co-op Program became voluntary, Dean Seulberger reported that 81 percent of Tech's sophomore class elected to participate in the five-year cooperative work program.
      Throughout the 1960's, the Technological Institute maintained the pedagogical soundness of Schneider's "cooperative system" and George Seulberger continued to oversee the Tech Co-op Program. During this period, students were placed and counseled by co-op faculty which included James Woodbury, Merle Dowd, Tom Brinkmann, Ray Lindenmeyer, and Richard Cole.
      Upon his retirement from Tech, and from co-op, Dean Seulberger was recognized by the Cooperative Education Association for his work in founding Tech's program and for his 40 years of service to the field. Fittingly, he was presented with the "Herman Schneider Award", the highest honor bestowed on a co-op professional.

EPILOGUE
      Herman Schneider's concept, which was supported by Charles Kettering and financed by Walter Murphy, has not only withstood the test of the Great Depression, World War II, and the "Space Race"; it has also withstood the test of the economic turbulence of the last 25 years. In recognition of this achievement, Dean Jerome B. Cohen, the sixth dean of the Technological Institute, reaffirmed Tech's commitment to the prominence cooperative education on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of co-op at Northwestern. In 1989, he renamed the program, the Walter P. Murphy Cooperative Engineering Education Program.
      The golden anniversary of the founding of the program was a fitting time to validate Mr. Murphy's rationale for financing the most significant test of Dean Schneider's "cooperative system" in the United States. Mr. Murphy's description of the program's appeal was clearly stated in his June 15, 1940, letter to the President and Board of Trustees of Northwestern on the dedication of the Technological Institute:

This cooperative system appealed strongly to me as truly American, combining in itself the highest type of classroom instruction in theory with synchronized and coordinated training in the actual workshops of highest type cooperative industries in the practical application of theory so taught in the classroom. It offers an opportunity to any young man having brains, aptitude, and backbone to secure an education of the highest type both in the theory and practice of his chosen technical or engineering profession, even though he may have little financial support with which to begin; and the young man upon completion of his course in engineering under this system has received such training in theory alone with such actual practice in operation that he is ready upon graduation to proceed at once in his chosen field...

Walter P. Murphy
Scott, p.87)

      A new mission statement for the Walter P. Murphy Cooperative Engineering Education Program was drafted in 1993. The new mission statement reflected the values and philosophy of Schneider's concept and Walter Murphy's commitment to it.

To be an acknowledged leader in preparing, placing, and supporting diverse and talented Cooperative Education students in business, industry, and government as an essential part of the engineering education process.

     During the 1990's, enrollment in the Walter P. Murphy Co-op Program has doubled, growing from 140 to over 285 students. The growth has led to administrative changes which once again, gives Co-op a direct report to the dean of the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.
      With the director of the Co-op Program holding the position of associate dean and associate professor of cooperative engineering education the Walter P. Murphy Cooperative Engineering Education Program moves into the 21st Century poised to continue the legacy of Walter Murphy, Herman Schneider, and Charles Kettering. The commitment to assure that all students in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science are able "to secure an education of the highest type both in theory and practice of...engineering" remains strong and vital.
      Whether mandatory or voluntary, the Walter P. Murphy experiment has been an unprecedented success! The impressive numbers of corporate executives, academic leaders, and high government officials who can say they are graduates of the Northwestern Co-op Program continue to be the best and most sustaining testimony to the strength and wisdom of the Walter P. Murphy Cooperative Engineering Education Program.

REFERENCES

Anonymous, "The Cooperative System of Engineering Education", School and Society, XLIX, April 1, 1939

Anonymous, "Post World War II", Journal of Engineering Education, April, 1971.

Anonymous, "The Conflict and Tech", Northwestern Engineer, May 1963.

Brazelton, W. T., Interview, Technological Institute, November, 1994.

Carlson, R. E., "An Anonymous Friend - Walter P. Murphy", Northwestern Engineer, Vol 26, No. 2, March, 1967.

Co-op Comments, Northwestern University Technological Institute, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Vol 21, No. 1, Fall, 1989.

Freund, "The Cooperative System - A Manifesto", Journal of Engineering Education, October, 1946.

Jacobs, S. J., "Ovid W. Eshbach: Tech's First Dean - Not To Be Forgotten", Northwestern Engineer, Vol 17, No. 2, May 1958.

Michaelson, R., "Opportunity Lost and Gained: A Sidelight on the Walter P. Murphy Gift", This Anthology

Mintzer, D. Interview, Technological Institute, August 1995.

Neyens A. W. and Kirkpatrick, R. K., "Tech Deans", Northwestern Engineer, Vol 26, No. 2, March, 1967.

Park, C. W., Ambassador to Industry: The Idea and Life of Herman Schneider, Bobbs-Merrill Company, NY, 1943.

Scott, W. D., "A Proposed School of Engineering for Northwestern University", 1936.

Scott, W. D., Walter Patton Murphy 1873-1942: A Biography, C.O. Owening and Co., 1952.

Seulberger, F. G., Cooperative Education", Northwestern Engineer, Northwestern Engineer, Vol 26, No. 2, March, 1967.

Staff of The College Blue Book, On the Survey of College-Level Cooperative Education, Christian E. Burchel Publisher, New York, August 30, 1958.

Van Ness, J.W. & Sardiga, R. E., "Seniors Survey Co-op", Northwestern Engineer, Vol 18, No. 1, February 1959.

Wagner, W.F., "Cooperative Engineering Education", Factory Management and Maintenance, November, 1952.

Wildes, K. L., "Ovid W. Eshbach: His First Experience with Co-Op", Northwestern Engineer, Vol 17, No. 2, May 1958.

RECOLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS ON THE
EARLY YEARS AT TECH
by
John R. Eshbach

     During my junior year in high school (l938-39) our parents informed my sister and me that our father had been approached to become dean of a new engineering school at Northwestern University. That simple announcement was the first indication of major changes in the lives of each member of our family. For my father, Ovid Wallace Eshbach, it was the beginning of a new phase of his career, a challenging and rewarding association with Northwestern that would continue for the rest of his life. My mother, Clara, as the dean's wife, would become the hostess of many faculty gatherings, a role she undertook with trepidation but fulfilled with uncommon graciousness. Her reward was the many close and lasting friendships she made among the Tech faculty and their family members. For my sister, Frances, and myself the immediate effect was a move to a new part of the country and a new school system, leaving behind childhood friends and making new ones. But, unforeseen at that time, both my sister and I would also tie our futures to Northwestern by later enrolling as students, graduating and maintaining a lifelong devotion to the University. From my own family's experiences it is clear to me that many people besides those on the faculty and staff of the school have shared, at least emotionally, in the building and further development of the Northwestern Technological Institute.
      Our home at the time of my father's appointment was in a suburb just north of Philadelphia and my dad commuted daily to his job at AT&T in lower Manhattan, New York City. I recall being surprised and a bit puzzled at first over why he would have been selected from his position as Special Assistant in the Personnel Relations Department of AT&T to lead this major undertaking at a prestigious midwest university. I was also surprised to learn that Northwestern was located no farther west than suburban Chicago. All I knew about Northwestern at that time was that it was a member of the Big Ten Athletic Conference. As I learned more about the University and its beautiful campus, located on the shore of Lake Michigan, I became very excited and was eager for our move and the prospect of an early and close association with college life. The question about my father's selection to be dean clearly had two aspects - the requirements of the job and his qualifications. As we shall see, I came to realize that he fit the job perfectly.
      In general, this memoir will follow a chronological sequence. I must ask the reader's indulgence, however, as I will inevitably intertwine three threads of storyline - elements of Northwestern's history, recollections of my father and my personal experiences. Following some comments about Walter Murphy's intent in making his gift to Northwestern I'll give a brief perspective on the history of engineering at the University prior to the founding of Tech. Then I'll continue the story of my father's background, his tenure at Tech and some of my own experiences.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

     The key event in the establishment of Tech was, of course, the gift in l939 of $6,735,000 to the University from the Chicago inventor and industrialist, Walter Patten Murphy ⁽¹⁾. It had been Murphy's ambition to spend his wealth wisely "in the creation of a great institution of human service." After considering various projects he decided that "support of education would be more appropriate and mostory of my father's background, his tenure at Tech and some of my own experiences. Also I felt that my chief responsibility was to promote industry through education." ⁽²⁾
      In a statement that he prepared for placement in the cornerstone of the new Tech building Mr. Murphy describes the thorough investigation that he undertook to determine which direction his efforts should take - support of an existing school, a new scientific and engineering research institute, or a new engineering school; whether a new school should be along traditional lines or take a new direction; and where a new school should be located. Apparently at first Murphy considered establishing an institute more along the lines of MIT, i.e., with emphasis on graduate studies and research. But in the end he was strongly influenced by Charles F. Kettering, chief research engineer for General Motors, who was emphatic in his belief in the cooperative system of engineering education as the best way to educate engineers to meet the needs of industry. Murphy's investigations also indicated that the Chicago area was the location in greatest need for an outstanding engineering school, a conclusion toward which he was no doubt predisposed.
      Further background on Murphy's gift and discussion of the intricate negotiations preceding it are related in other chapters of this anthology, in particular in the very interesting contribution by Robert Michaelson.⁽⁴⁾ Murphy's own writings, as well as notes made by University President Walter Dill Scott in personal meetings with Murphy, show that he also examined Northwestern in depth before committing his resources.^(3,5) He was intensely curious about the University's management, its finances, endowment, scholarship programs, and its dormitories and other facilities. These same references make it very clear that he wanted the new school to be based on the cooperative plan of undergraduate engineering education and that he wanted the students, the faculty and the curriculum to be of the highest order - "second to none" - a phrase that later would be much debated.
      It is also clear that Murphy wanted to maintain a very close personal relationship with "his" school. He was by nature a very private person. He did not want the school to be named after him nor would be appear in public or on the programs of ceremonies, such as at the cornerstone laying or the dedication of the new building. However, he followed very closely, personally and through his advisors, the progress of the design and construction of the building, the hiring of faculty, plans for the curriculum and the various financial matters. He stated that from time to time he would like to pass to the University applications for candidates for admission to the new school.⁽⁵⁾ He said that he looked forward to the day when he would be living regularly in Lake Forest and could devote most of his attention to the Institute. Unfortunately, his death in l942 precluded this from coming true.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

     The early history of engineering education at Northwestern has been discussed in the context of the overall history of the University in Northwestern University - A History l850-l975, by H. F. Williamson and P. S. Wild.⁽⁶⁾ I've found a reading of that history to be very interesting in light of the events leading to Murphy's gift. I come to the clear conclusion that from the time of the founding of the University until at least the mid-l920's the Trustees and Administration were quite ambivalent about the role of engineering in the educational mission of the University. They were also somewhat naive about the financial resources needed to provide viable facilities for technical education.
     From its founding the cornerstone of the University was the College of Literature and Science (later the College of Liberal Arts and now the College of Arts and Sciences) and its overall character was one of an institution of broad education. The early professional schools associated with the University, the Medical College and the College of Law, were graduate schools - schools to be entered after a liberal education had already been acquired. By contrast Northwestern's first College of Technology was founded in l873 to provide "quasi-professional training at an undergraduate level for students entering the fields of applied science and engineering".7 The course of study emphasized the basic sciences, physics and chemistry, and permitted electives during the last two undergraduate years to meet "the great variety of ends which the students may desire to attain".
      It seems evident that this College of Technology was founded more as a rounding out of the educational choices available at Northwestern than as a serious attempt to become a first-rate engineering school. The College of Technology was apparently a marginal undertaking. This viewpoint is supported by the fact that it was promptly discontinued only three years after its founding when a financial crisis hit the University.8 This decision was rationalized in the President's Report for l880-8l with a statement of principle that "To teach the trades, to make artisans, engineers, .....is not directly the purpose of this College". At the time of the demise of the College of Technology President Marcy "urged Northwestern to stay out of this field unless it could obtain a large endowment to support a curriculum in technical education". Note the ambivalence; did engineering not fit the purpose of the University, or was it just too expensive?
      While the soundness of President Marcy's advice may seem to presage the Murphy gift and endowment of l939 and l942, it was not fully heeded in the interim. Engineering education at Northwestern with continuity to the present began with the Trustees' discussions in April l907 and the gift of $l50,000 by the Gustavus Swift family (the noted Chicago meat packers, Swift and Co.)⁽⁹⁾ That gift was used for the construction of an engineering building, the Swift Hall of Engineering, completed in l909.⁽¹⁰⁾ No reference is made to funding for equipment or endowment for staffing, maintenance and the continual upgrading necessary to stay in the forefront of technical developments. Nevertheless, a small but viable College of Engineering under the able direction of Dean John F. Hayford was maintained from its beginning until his death in l925.
      Soon after Dean Hayford's death President Scott "was not satisfied that the College of Engineering was offering the kind of program that would make it a distinguished center for engineering that it could be and that Chicago needed....."11 . A study committee's recommendations imply that it found some of the same problems as with the curriculum of the earlier College of Technology, namely, that the emphasis was too much on broad education and the basic sciences and not enough on technical training.
      Debate as to proper balance between breadth of education versus depth of technical studies has been ongoing from the earliest days of the engineering profession even to the present. The preeminent engineering schools, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, which were founded primarily for technical and scientific training, generally have faced the problem from the opposite direction than have schools like Northwestern. Such schools have found it necessary to augment their technical curricula with courses in literature, languages, history, etc. in order to produce graduates who are fully prepared to function well in society.
      To address this problem of balance, the feasibility of a merger between Northwestern's College of Engineering and Armour Institute of Technology was seriously discussed in the late l920's.⁽¹²⁾ Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) was known for its strength in technical training and was in fact sometimes unfairly referred to as a "trade school". (It derives its name from its founder, Philip Armour, head of the other large Chicago meat packer, Armour and Co.). By l929, evidently for financial reasons, it was decided that this merger would not take place.
      The future of engineering education at Northwestern reached a critical junction in l937 when, after declining enrollments during the recent years, the school was denied accreditation during a national survey of engineering schools carried out by the Engineers' Council for Professional Development.⁽¹³⁾ Again, a major criticism was that the curriculum was too heavily weighted with non-professional courses. It was at this time that Mr. Murphy's desire to found a major engineering school and President Scott's concern for the quality of Northwestern's College of Engineering converged.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

     Prior to his appointment as Dean, my father was already well known in engineering education circles. He was particularly well known at schools which offered a cooperative plan option to their undergraduates.
      In my youth, I was rather oblivious to his position in the engineering community. I knew that he had graduated with honors in Electrical Engineering from Leigh University in l9l5 and that he had held various teaching and engineering jobs in the early part of his career. By the time I was old enough to be more inquisitive about his job he was commuting daily from our home near Philadelphia to AT&T headquarters in Manhattan. His work there in the Personnel Relations Department was largely a mystery to me. From time to time he went on trips to visit various universities, presumably to acquaint the engineering departments with employment opportunities at AT&T and in the Bell System more generally and to interview promising students.
      As I grew up I heard more and more about his involvement with the S.P.E.E. (Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education) and the A.I.E.E. (American Institute of Electrical Engineers). He served on various committees of these organizations and attended their annual conventions, always taking our family along to vacation in different parts of the country. He was a member of the Regional Accrediting Committee of the Engineers' Council for Professional Development. In that capacity he helped evaluate the curricula of many engineering schools and "knew a good one when he saw it". I don't know whether he was a member of the team that evaluated Northwestern in l937. He was also a member of the Special Advisory Committee to the President's Committee on Civil Service Improvement and in l932 he directed a survey of adult technical education for the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York.
      A major project that my dad carried out in l934-36 was the organizing and editing of the "Handbook of Engineering Fundamentals", volume one of the John Wiley & Sons Engineering Handbook Series.⁽¹⁴⁾ This work put his name in front of virtually every engineer and engineering student in the country for years to come. Even today, when I meet an engineer for the first time, I'm often asked, "Are you related to the handbook?".
      A key element in my father's resume was his association with the cooperative plan of engineering education. From l926 through l939 a very significant part of his work at AT&T was in coordinating the Bell System - MIT Cooperative Plan. This plan, an option in the Electrical Engineering Department at MIT, permitted selected students to alternate study terms at MIT with terms of work, either with the Bell System or with the General Electric Company. In addition to interviewing, hiring and placing the students within the Bell System, my father monitored their progress, counseled them and followed their careers even after graduation. Beyond that he was also an adjunct MIT professor and taught electrical engineering courses for the MIT students co-oping at Bell. In the late l930's, one of these students was Vernon Lippit, later, and for many years, an outstanding member of the EE faculty at Northwestern. Outside of his AT&T job, my dad also taught evening classes for four years for the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn during this period.
      Later, when he was Dean at Northwestern, my father always had himself assigned to teach an undergraduate quiz section, usually in physics. His official excuse was that, as Dean, he wanted to personally monitor the quality of the students attending his school. The fact was that he loved to teach and I'm sure it provided a welcome diversion from his administrative duties. Even more than teaching in classes, he made and took every opportunity for personal contact, one on one, with his students.
      Through his association with the MIT co-op program, my father became well acquainted with cooperative plans and their coordinators at other schools, including the University of Cincinnati under Dean Herman Schneider and Drexel Institute in Philadelphia under Dean Robert Disque. Dean Schneider was the acknowledged originator of the cooperative plan and was a close friend of Charles Kettering, the advisor who strongly influenced Walter Murphy concerning the co-op plan. Kettering was a noted inventor and founder of the Charles F. Kettering Laboratories near Dayton, Ohio. These laboratories had become a part of General Motors in l9l6 and Kettering was made Vice-President in charge of research for GM. It was through the Kettering connection that the agreement between the Murphy Foundation and Northwestern specified that Dean Schneider be appointed advisor to the University regarding policies affecting the new Tech school. Following Schneider's death in September l939 Dean Bisque was appointed to replace him. Thus it was through the reputation that my father had acquired, as an engineer, as an author, as a teacher and administrator, and through the associations he had developed in the community of engineering educators, especially those promoting the cooperative plan, that he came to be selected to lead the new venture at Northwestern.

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     My father very quickly engaged himself fully in the planning and organizing tasks associated with his new job. Even before moving to the Evanston area there were trips to Northwestern for discussions with the University Administration and to become acquainted with the existing engineering faculty. The full-time engineering faculty at that time was quite small, only about a dozen professors of all ranks, several of which were near retirement. So faculty recruitment was a top priority.
      Appointment of department heads for the new institute was particularly critical for several reasons. They would be key for the further hiring of faculty and staff for their departments. Their inputs would be required in the planning of the new building, the laboratories, classrooms and other facilities. They would have to plan the curricula for their departments and coordinate with the other departments and colleges of the University. Course descriptions would have to be written for inclusion in the Institute catalog for the use of prospective students.
      I recall that before moving to Evanston suddenly there were many more long distance phone calls than was usual in our home. I particularly remember my father's elation when he was assured that Dr. John Calvert would join the Institute as Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department. Calvert came from the University of Pittsburgh and also had association with the Westinghouse Company. I recall that he visited us in Philadelphia for discussions with my father about their new school. The Calverts and my parents became very close friends for the rest of their lives. Burgess Jennings was recruited to be head of Mechanical Engineering and later was Associate Dean. William E. Brinker, Jr., as Chairman of Chemical Engineering, was another acquisition that greatly pleased my father.
      My father was forty-six years old when he became Dean but in spite of his relative youth he quickly gained the respect and trust of the more senior members of the existing faculty. Professor George Maney, who had been acting Dean of the prior College of Engineering, became Chairman of the Civil Engineering Department and held that position for several years until his retirement. Professor Herbert Philbrick had been Chairman of Mechanical Engineering but had just reached retirement age. He became an Emeritus Professor and continued to live in Evanston. "Phil" also became a close friend and a particularly valued counselor to my dad. Augmenting their natural friendship was the fact that Professor Philbrick and my dad shared the same birthday, April l3th. This also happens to be Thomas Jefferson's birthday (exactly l50 years earlier than my dad's). Each year my dad and Phil would get together on their day for lunch at the Faculty Club and would have a third place set for Tom. He never showed up; he was always unavoidably detained.
      An important early addition to the faculty was F. George Seulberger, who, as a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and a former faculty member at Drexel Institute, had had wide experience with the cooperative plan. He was appointed Professor of Cooperative Education at Tech and quickly established relationships with over forty companies, mostly in the greater Chicago area, suitable for placement of engineering students for their co-op work assignments. Professor Seulberger had a long career with Northwestern, later serving as Assistant Dean of Tech and also as Chairman of the Faculty Athletic Committee of the University.
      There were several other departments in other colleges of the University that would be particularly critical to the Tech curricula. In the College of Liberal Arts these included Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. I recall that my father was especially concerned about whether the Physics faculty was adequate to take on the anticipated teaching load as the Tech enrollment built up. My recollection is that there were very few physics majors at Northwestern at that time and that the courses being taught were mainly supplemental to other curricula. But math and science courses would be basic for the engineering curricula and would be taken by all Tech students. Thus the founding of Tech required expansion of the faculty in these other departments as well as revision and additions to the courses offered.
      The Physics and Chemistry Departments were to be housed in the new Tech building even though they would remain in the College of Liberal Arts administratively. Thus those departments were intimately involved in the design of the building and laboratories as well as in coordinating curricula and schedules.

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      As the faculty positions began to be filled, my father's efforts turned more toward planning the new building. From late l939 through the next couple of years I well remember my dad spending even his evenings and weekends in his study at home pouring over the blueprints. No detail escaped his attention. I know that he tremendously enjoyed working with the first class architectural firm, Halberd and Root, and later with the contractor, E. C. Wieboldt. The fact that my father was starting his tenure at Northwestern with the construction of a major new building on campus put him in a close working relationship with several departments of the University administration. He developed a friendship and respect for Harry Wells, Vice-president and Business Manager, and Tom Gonser, of the Department of Development, as well as many others.
      The design of the building was significantly influenced by my father's approach to establishing a first class engineering school. His initial goal, coinciding exactly with Walter Murphy's , was to provide top quality undergraduate education. Both he and Murphy wanted a school where young students could receive the best foundation possible on which to build useful and rewarding careers. Advanced research and curricula for graduate degrees would logically come later. Thus the design of the original building placed emphasis on fine lecture halls, classrooms, library, staff offices and laboratories that were primarily "teaching" laboratories, in contrast to what might be considered "research" laboratories. The new building would be the largest on the Evanston campus at that time, having over ten acres of floor space.
      Before construction could begin a building site had to be prepared. The location chosen required the razing of the University's field house, "old Patten Gym", moving en masse the Dearborn Observatory, a stone structure, and relocating the Shakespeare Gardens. Each of these projects engendered its own controversy. With the demolition of the field house a new but smaller Patten Gym was designed and built at the north end of the fraternity quadrangles. The new gym would be adequate only for physical education classes, for intramural events and varsity team practices for basketball, wrestling and swimming. It also contained the Athletic Department offices. But there was no provision for spectators and therefore it was not suitable for varsity intercollegiate events. The Athletic Department was not happy. For several years Northwestern's varsity basketball games were played either in the Evanston High School gym or in the Chicago Stadium. Some swim meets were held in New Trier High School's elegant facility. It would be many years before a new and adequate field house and other athletic facilities would be provided at the Dyche Stadium and other sites.
      I recall that my father spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to pacify a constituency devoted to the maintenance of the Shakespeare Gardens. While he understood their unhappiness and had sympathy for their cause, he approached that problem with a good deal of amusement. I believe that the work required to reestablish the gardens was paid for out of the Tech school building budget.
      Ground was broken on April l, l940 and a cornerstone laying ceremony was held on June l5, l940. Construction was well underway and proceeded smoothly until a major setback occurred on December 2, l940. A fire on that date caused an estimated $700,000 damage and delayed completion by several months. I have a very clear recollection of that event. It was during the first term of my freshman year at Tech. I was living at home and commuted daily by car with my father. That morning, as we approached the campus, driving south on Sheridan Road, the scene ahead was one of fire trucks and hoses covering the street in front of the Tech construction site. Anticipating a disaster, my adrenaline rose and I became very excited. I'm not sure what I expected my father to do, perhaps part the car and rush to the scene. However, he told me to go get ready for my classes and said simply, "they'll take care of it". Characteristically, he calmly drove on, circumventing the scene, and went to his office in Swift Hall.
      The fire was believed to be caused by an overheated "salamander", one of those open drums in which a fire is burned to maintain the surrounding area above freezing while newly poured concrete is curing. The new concrete was covered with straw and tarpaulins were hung to partially enclose the areas and entrap the warm air. The materials that burned of course were the straw, the tarpaulins and the wooden forms. The value of these materials was of little consequence. The very significant loss came from the fact that the water in the still curing concrete turned to steam, causing the reinforced concrete floor slabs and pillars to crack and explode, bending and twisting the steel reinforcing rods in the process. Even areas that the fire had not reached were affected due to expansion of concrete slabs in adjacent regions. Significant portions of the partially completed structure had to be torn down and rebuilt.

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     Admission of students to the new Tech school did not wait for the building to be completed. Remarkably, the first class of freshmen entered in the fall of l939, just six months after the Murphy gift had been announced and two years before the building would be ready for occupancy. Forty-three students entered at that time, augmented later by transfers to become a graduating class of sixty-three. Since it was the first class in his new school, my father paid particularly close attention to it. It was always his objective to get to know each of the Tech students personally and he did so to an exceptional degree over many years. But this class was special. He felt a strong commitment to each member. His feeling of responsibility was no doubt enhanced because he knew that each one of them had put their futures in the hands of a school that was still under development. He followed them and maintained contact with many of them throughout their careers. As years went by few things gave him greater than to be paid a casual visit by one of these men from the "first" class.
      This class was unique, too, in the wonderful class spirit that developed, more than in any subsequent class that I am aware of. They organized themselves and elected class officers; they held class outings; they helped establish the Northwestern Chapter of Tau Beta Pi; and they promoted the idea of a Tech magazine, which became the very successful Northwestern Engineer. Upon graduation, they published a keepsake volume, "The First Graduating Class", containing photographs of each faculty and class member, a class history and other memorabilia. ⁽¹⁵⁾
      I entered Tech with the second entering class, in September l940, still one year before the building was to be occupied. The fact that the building was not ready for use did not particularly hamper the studies of these first two entering classes. Several of the prescribed courses, freshman english, math, economics, etc. met in other classroom buildings on campus, and the beginning engineering courses, such as drafting and machine shop, were accommodated in the old engineering building, Swift Hall. Chemistry and physics classes, later to be housed in the Tech building, met in their then existing quarters in Fayerweather Hall at the south end of the campus. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful feeling in the fall of l94l to start the year in brand new classrooms and laboratories. Also, since many classes were not held in the same building and that building was near the men's dormitories and fraternity houses, travel time and distance between classes and from class to living quarters was considerably reduced.
      During the early years of Tech, the University scheduled classes on the semester system and the freshman courses for Tech students were programmed accordingly. However, starting in the second year, Tech students began their co-op assignments and their school and co-op terms went over to the quarter system. It was anticipated that during the last four years of the five year program the Tech students would alternate between quarters in school and quarters in industry. Half of a given class would start their co-op assignments in the fall of their second year and the other half would start that year in school. I well remember that it seemed as if half of my Tech classmates and friends that I had made in my freshman year had vanished at the end of that year. After July l943, when wartime conditions required that the co-op program be put on hold for most Tech students, my entire class was in school again at the same time.
      When Tech was on the quarter system and the rest of the University was on the semester system, those departments that had courses for both Tech and other University students experienced severe scheduling problems. Within very few years the entire University went to the quarter system. While it was not required, I started my co-op experience during the summer after my freshman year, working for the Bell Telephone Co. of Pennsylvania. My job, in a telephone exchange central office, consisted mostly of making wiring changes in accordance with orders for changes in customer service. The pay was 40 cents an hour. So, for a forty hour week, I received $l6.00. I had only three more quarters of co-op, since after July l, l943 the Navy Vl2-NROTC program required full time in school. These last three co-op quarters were with the Allis-Chalmers Co. in West Allis, Wisconsin. There I worked in three different areas - power substation transformers, voltage regulators for diesel-electric railroad engines and control panels for aircraft carrier elevators. I still value very greatly the hands-on experience in the Allis-Chalmers plant at that time in my education and maturing and I still like to reflect on my last co-op quarter. The experience was valuable but, again, the pay barely covered carfare and lunch. My pay was then 65 cents per hour but it was wartime and we worked a lot of overtime. We worked ten hours a day Monday through Friday; we worked alternate weekends, eight hours on Saturday and eight hours on Sunday. Taking account of the overtime rates, we averaged 69 hours of pay per week, which in my case amounted to $44.85 per week. Luckily there was little time or energy left for spending money anyway, except for necessities. I relate my co-op experience as an example, fairly typical of the times and of the experiences of other Tech students.

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     In l941 World War II was upon us. Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, l94l, I don't recall that as students there was a great deal of concern that our university education would not go forward as planned. There was some uncertainty, of course, since the war in Europe had already been raging for over two years. However, until that time it seemed possible that United States participation might be limited to supplying material and non-combat support to our allies. There was, of course, considerable readiness activity on the national level and I'm sure there must have been much more discussion and planning within the University administration than I and most students were aware of. After Pearl Harbor, however, our outlook changed considerably.
      The immediate effect on university students of the declaration of war was the creation of greater uncertainty. It was fairly clear that most men would be drafted eventually or otherwise called to active duty. The uncertainty was the timing. Quite a few Tech students, myself included, were already members of the Naval ROTC at Northwestern and were committed to whatever orders we might receive from the Navy. Rumors were unavoidable. Some said we would shortly be called to active duty, perhaps as seamen, since our officer training was far from complete; some said we would be sent elsewhere for concentrated naval training before receiving a commission. But finally we were told that for the immediate future, until further notice, we would continue our university program as planned. Others, not in the NROTC, faced similar uncertainties but for the most part were allowed to continue their studies until various options for military service were presented. A few decided to discontinue their studies and enlist in the branch of the service of their choice.
      The Pearl Harbor attack caused immediate concern for the safety of Professor John Calvert, Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department. Prof. Calvert had been on temporary assignment with the Navy at Pearl Harbor since the spring of l94l assisting in the design and installation of equipment for the demagnetizing of ships, or "degaussing" as it was called, so that the ships would not set off magnetically actuated mines. Professor Calvert had indeed witnessed the attack and devastation. Fortunately he survived. However, it was several days before news of his safety got back to Northwestern. I recall how relieved my father was to receive that good news.
      The years l942 and l943 brought major wartime changes to the University and Tech.16 Various Navy and Army training programs made use of University facilities, both on the Evanston and Chicago campuses. Some of these programs did not directly involve the current undergraduate students but drew their trainees from across the country. The largest, in terms of the number trained, was the V7 Midshipmen's School in Chicago. It produced some 24,000 commissioned officers, so-called "90-day Wonders", by the end of l945. The largest program on the Evanston campus was the Navy Radio School with over 6,000 trainees. This school had a big impact on Tech, although again the regular student body of Tech was not involved. The entire fourth floor of the Tech building and several other classrooms were turned over to the Navy for this program. The responsibility for organizing the Radio School fell to Prof. Calvert on his return from Pearl Harbor and the teaching load of several electrical engineering professors was increased. The Radio School trainees were housed and fed on the campus in Lunt Hall and Swift Hall, both of which were remodeled for that purpose.
      The wartime program that most directly affected the undergraduate student body was the Vl2 Navy College Training Program that began on the Evanston campus on July l, l943. A large part of the undergraduate male student body was indoctrinated into this program, including those already in the NROTC. All those in the Vl2-NROTC Program were considered to be on active duty as Apprentice Seamen. All were in uniform, the NROTC in their cadet uniforms and the other Vl2 in seamen's garb. The Navy had taken over the fraternity houses and dormitories of the north quadrangle and we were assigned to those quarters according to the divisions we were in. I had been living previously in my fraternity house, Alpha Delta Phi, but now found myself assigned to nearby Goodrich House. My roommates were Jack Hayford and Dick Petritz, who were also NROTC cadets. Jack was a grandson of former Dean Hayford. Dick was one of those Tech students who had been in the "other" half of my class, on co-op assignment while I was in school, so I had previously known him only casually. We were now to become lifelong friends.
      All of us in the Vl2 Program were confined to campus during the week and had curfew at midnight on Saturday nights and l0 p.m. on Sunday nights. During the week our class schedules were no different than normally but our time when not in class was quite regimented. I don't recall the exact daily schedule but, roughly, we had early morning calisthenics at about 6:00 a.m., breakfast at 7:00 a.m. and first class at 8:00 a.m. I recall that there were many nodding heads in the eight o'clock classes, mine included. It was almost impossible to stay awake after the calisthenics and a big breakfast. Cutting classes was almost unheard of. Also, we were assigned on a rotating basis to stand watch in our dormitories throughout the night.
      School was continuous after the start of the Vl2 Program, no more quarters of co-op. At that time it appeared that my class might complete its undergraduate program of studies and receive Bachelor of Science degrees in the various majors in June l944, one year earlier than would have been the case for the originally planned five year co-op program. However, by the winter of l943-44 there were rumors that we might receive our Navy Ensign commissions sooner than June and before we had completed our degrees. Those rumors turned out to be true. My NROTC class received commissions on February 27, l944 along with orders to proceed to various naval assignments. However, the University, for its part, did not send us off empty-handed. Although we were lacking some credits necessary for degrees in our major fields of study, the University Senate awarded us Bachelor of Science degrees, without designation of a major. This was an important concession for many of my classmates, since at that time it was not known when or if they would be able to return to complete their final term.
      As we've seen, these necessary wartime activities had required considerable disruption and modification of the planned development of the Technological Institute in its early years. In a real sense Tech and the University answered a call to duty. It was fortunate that the school was founded when it was, in l939, with just enough time to complete the facilities and establish working relationships among the new faculty, staff and University Administration before they were put to the test of the war years. I might suggest that in its wartime experience Tech underwent an early maturing, much as many of its students did in their wartime service.
      The years immediately after World War II saw the return of many students whose studies had been interrupted, as well as many who had been in the service but had not been in college previously. Some of these were now married and had started families. In those post-war years there was, therefore, a noticeable maturity and increased purposefulness among the student body. Most of these veterans received substantial financial support for their education's through the G.I. Bill, passed by Congress at the close of the war.

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     Relationships between Tech and University administrations had their ups and down over those years. Some problems were financial, but others were more fundamental and concerned the direction and pace of development of the Technological Institute. From the beginning I was aware that there was considerable debate over the proper and equitable budgeting of costs involved in Tech's integration into the University. I'm not knowledgeable enough to be too specific, partly because my father, by his nature, did not discuss such matters at home. I'm sure that my dad felt that some other parts of the University regarded