The Two Towers: Main

each department, but afterwards there were no concluding remarks. Only when Dr. Fuller motioned quickly for the benediction did the five editors of the Aftermath realize they had received not diplomas but slips of paper complete with a set of rules for "conduct becoming a gentleman."

Worcester newspapers covered every detail of what they called the ensuing "pretty how-do-you-do." Dr. Fuller would not talk about it; he was, he said, not a member of the board. So one by one the board members were roused from bed for questioning, but they, too, refused to become embroiled in debate.

Finally, of course, the boys apologized--"for the sake of my parents," as one boy explained--and all were given their degrees. Moreover, the class profited by having their book skyrocket in demand and price. "The classrooms are now deserted. The trouble for the year is at an end. Washburn Shops have a number of mechanics who are making up time. They say nothing, but saw wood," concluded one reporter who thus ended his story.

The Alumni, which incorporated as an Association in 1891, nervously watched such proceedings, sometimes entered the fray, but usually retreated with impatience at the triviality of such schoolboy antics. The graduates of the school had become a stronger autonomy than had ever been imagined; already several branches of alumni were stretching Tech's influence across the country to the west coast. These men of Tech were becoming such a powerful segment of society that even their own- Alma Mater never ceased to be surprised.

As for the local scene, the students who had made the school were the same men who made Worcester. The names included Paul B. Morgan, H. Winfield Wyman, George I. Rockwood, John P. Coghlin, Harry R. Sinclair, Arthur C. Comins, Aldus M. Higgins, Calvin Andrews, Victor E. Edwards, R. Sanford Riley, Chester A. Reed, Harry W. Smith, Matthew P. Whittall, Albert A. Gordon, Lyman Gordon, Albert J. Gifford, Charles A. Harrington, Ralph L. Morgan, Charles Baker, John W. Higgins, E. Howard Reed, James N. Heald, Charles G. Washburn, Frank C. Harrington, Fred H. Daniels, and George C. Gordon.

More than half of the 257 students enrolled in 1894 came from Worcester County. This had become such a strain on the policy of giving "free" tuition that such largess had been announced in 1889 as applying only as far as the income of funds would stretch.

There was a surprising number of foreign students. One Thanksgiving Day boys from fourteen nations were seated around the dinner table in President Fuller's home. Mrs. Fuller regularly served Sunday supper to the boys from overseas and took care of them in her own home when they were ill. "Student receptions were almost daily affairs," noted her son, Henry J. Fuller, many years later in a reminiscent moment.

Actually the school's community was becoming as wide as the world itself. Other names became familiar: Moses B. Kaven, Robert