The Two Towers: Main

with Mr. Washburn just before nightfall, a few hours before his death. "He had had a peculiarly happy day," remembered Dr. Hill. "He had been driven out to the scientific school and spoke with especial pleasure, melting as he spoke." Mr. Washburn had longed to see the shop completed. "Oh, let me but live to see that!" he had weakly exclaimed. "How would I like to beat out the first piece of iron in that building."

It was not to be.

Stephen Salisbury stood and sadly gave the signal for his old friend, "We must now follow the procession to the funeral."

Afterwards, a special meeting of the trustees was hurriedly called to name Milton Higgins the official superintendent of the Washburn Shops.

This choice had been a foregone conclusion for several months, since the young man's graduation from Dartmouth's Chandler Scientific School the previous June. Heartily recommended by John Woodman, professor of engineering at Dartmouth, Mr. Higgins had made such a good impression in Worcester that arrangements had been made for him to work at the wire mill until the shops at the school were completed.

Being chosen for the position of superintendent was no small compliment. Mr. Washburn had specified that the selected man must have good morals, good character, and a good education. He was to be a mechanic and a teacher of mechanics. He was to manage the business of the shop, do all the purchasing, make contracts, have charge of the finances, hire and fire journeymen, accept and dismiss apprentices, teach the apprentices not only how to be workmen but also how to run businesses of their own. Moreover, he was to see that they cultivated habits of industry, conduct, discipline, and moral training. For all this, he was to receive the respectable salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year. And everything was, of course, to be accomplished "with the approval of the trustees."

In March of the following year, Mr. Washburn's estate was settled; by April the shops were completely equipped and named the Washburn Shops. There was much speculation about their role, but by 1882 the arguments had pounded out a workable pattern. Now the shop practice was not optional, but obligatory for all mechanical engineering students. It had been so soon discovered that boys could not learn how to make saleable products in the few hours available during the school year that an apprentice time of five months had been added to the original three-year course. The program was actually a revised version of apprenticeship, whereby paid workmen did the bulk of the work and apprentices the heavy learning. The main difference was that the apprentices were not paid the usual fifty-cents-a-day wage.

Periodically the space allotted to the Shops had become inadequate. The original building had sprouted out in all directions and once its space had been doubled. There was still not enough room

Goodness and mercy have followed me all of my days.
      --Ichabod Washburn, in letter to Mr. Moen, 1860