The Two Towers: Main

over Professor Coombs's responsibilities--Charles "Pop" Adams in the English Department, Francis J. Adams as secretary of the faculty, and, of course, Dean Howe as Dean of Admissions. "But who will lead our parades?" it wailed, "or give all the speeches, or keep our scrapbooks?"

Faculty meetings would never be so lively without Harold B. Smith, the brilliant professor who had fostered the Electrical Engineering Department since its inception through the eras of illumination, power, high voltage transmission and electronics. The progression had never seemed more dramatic than when the trolley tracks had been taken up on Salisbury Street, preliminary to the dismantling of the old Tech trolley and Professor Richey's final report of its 3878 miles of testing. The final succession to high voltage came late one night when a young professor, Victor Siegfried, who was throwing sparks from his Tesla coil, saw fire blazing from the old trolley wire at the west end of the laboratory. With this final excitement came the reluctant admission that Tech's car-barn days were over.

In radio the Electrical Engineering Department had always had a pioneering interest, encouraged by the leadership of some of its own alumni such as A. Atwater Kent in manufacturing and Harry Davis as the first chairman of the Board of the National Broadcasting Company. Hobart Newell was one of the many Tech graduates who had worked directly or indirectly in research with Mr. Davis' development of the first radio station, KDKA. Later Professor Newell had come back to Tech to develop a pioneer course in electron mechanics--a forerunner of electronics--and incidentally, to be consultant in the designing and construction of Worcester's radio broadcast transmitting station WTAG.

Professor Smith, proud of his department, had been extremely aggressive in its promotion. He and Francis J. Adams were famous for their work in high voltage and the one million volt transformer; and Professor Smith had earned such respect in the newest and largest engineering society--the Electrical--that he represented it as president

After Professor Smith's sad departure from Tech in broken health, Theodore H. Morgan, a graduate of Stanford University, was appointed head of Electrical Engineering.

Among the many newly-promoted professors sitting in Room l9 that September day of 1937 were Donald G. Downing, B. Leighton Wellman, Edwin Higginbottom, and M. Lawrence Price.

President Earle outlined the inevitable changes in curriculum and despaired, "We have about reached the limit unless we add a fifth year," then blurted out the real frustration: "A four-year course, or any college course, must be a compromise." The two old contentions of language and business were settled temporarily by making language an option and business a requirement. Leland L. Atwood was head of the department of Modern Lan-

The leader of tomorrow will be the master not of arts, nor of science, but of economics.
      --Jerome W. Howe