The Two Towers: Main

The W.P.I., though sometimes classed with schools of manual training, is virtually an institution of college rank.
      --Carroll D. Wright, Report of Commission of Labor on institutions of technology, 1892

No other city in the United States has so great a variety as Worcester of manufactories of an important character, in proportion to its population, and these are owned and managed here.
      --City of Worcester, 1886

The public typewriter is an interesting development of this modern profession, but it has yet made little headway in Worcester. The work is precarious anyway.
      --Newspaper, 1895, speaking of the "typewriter" as a person, not the invention.

S. Parks, Elwood Haynes, Harry P. Davis, Harrison P. Eddy, and James P. Pierpont. There was William G. Thompson (Professor Thompson's son, Willie), who became one of Boston's best lawyers and Henry J. Fuller, Dr. Fuller's son, who became a noted manufacturer. Other students were later to figure prominently in Tech's own history: Ralph Earle, Arthur D. Butterfield, William S. and Robert C. Sweetser, Elmer H. Fish, Elmer P. Howe, Louis W. Rawson, William W. Bird, Joseph O. Phelon, Alton L. Smith, and Daniel F. O'Regan.

The school was growing up. It was with no small diffidence that the Institute adopted the manners expected of an institution of its status. Even the usual words came hard. For a long time they were a "group of teachers," not professors of a faculty. There was a "principal," not a president, and he was not given the privilege of signing the diplomas, a prerogative reserved for the president of the board.

There was little mention of formal departments.

This hesitancy "to act the part" was imposed originally because of the close supervision of the first board of trustees. The teachers had all been very young, not much older than the institution, whereas most of the trustees were very old. For many years the board was alphabetically divided into working committees which were given the weeks of the year and departments of the school as special assignments. In other words, Moen and Morgan made one committee, Washburn and Whitcomb another.

In 1894, when Dr. Fuller gave his farewell speech, all this had changed. The technical school had become a college of engineering. The teachers had become a faculty who met with regularity and great length in Room 19 of Boynton Hall. The principal had become a president, and the school had been recognized as something far more than a local institution.

While the Institute had been assuming its status as a college, Worcester had been similarly developing its role as a city. Worcester was a good example of the current trend toward urbanization, a subject of much discussion among economists and educators. There were many theories about the cause and effect of this sudden rush to the cities. In fact, a young professor from Wesleyan University, Woodrow Wilson, once came to Tech to lecture about "Modern Systems of Government."

These were the years when Worcester became more widely known than ever before or since for its manufacturing. Many of its companies were either the first, the best, or the biggest in the world. There were other embryonic activities which never became so well known as far as the City was concerned, but nevertheless added much color to the local scene. There were for instance the calliope, the lunch carts, and the typewriter.

Then, of course, there was Shredded Wheat, invented and manufactured by Henry Perky on Jackson Street. This business eventually moved away from Worcester to find more power, but while it was