The Two Towers: Main

In the latter category I mention chiefly Francis W. Roys, dean and professor emeritus, whose unpublished manuscript of Worcester Tech's history was the nucleus from which this story emerged. Dr. Roys' comprehension of curriculum and engineering education was uniquely helpful. From his perspective of more than fifty years on Tech Hill, he gave the story an outline. This book attempts to add the personality which only someone from outside could possibly see or tell.

Neither must I forget the other two professors to whom this story owes so much--Herbert F. Taylor and Zelotes W. Coombs, the first for his published book Seventy Years of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the second for three big cartons of unpublished long-hand chapters which I found in the basement of Boynton Hall.

Without the resources of the American Antiquarian Society and the courtesy with which they were extended to me, this book in its present form would have been impossible. The Society's fund of information is legendary; in this case, it was almost inexhaustible.

There are other persons--Olive Higgins Prouty, Esther Goddard, Robert S. Parks, Mary Brown, Bernece Harkins, Jerome Howe, Leota Wadleigh, Nils Hagberg, Roger Perry, David Lloyd, M. Lawrence Price, Warren Zepp, and my husband. They will each know best what my thank-you means. And if there is a gentleness occasionally spilling over on the pages of this book it is because of Tawny, a little brown dog who gave up many hours of play to be my quiet companion during the long hours of research but died before the writing.

The number of persons to whom I am grateful is inconsequential compared to the countless number to whom Tech owes its very existence. There is something both sad and splendid when a man gives his whole life to a cause, so precious is human life, so precarious is any cause. But Tech has had many such supporters. There have been others whose brief brilliance flashed across the campus to leave a lasting sheen. There have been still others, almost unnoticed at the time, who by the faithfulness with which they turned duty into monotony, added stability to the rhythm so necessary in a school program.

To all these persons, Worcester Tech owes much. So do I.

But the real poignancy is an inability to speak with enough spirit of the most important person of all--the student--that personable, capable young man who for a hundred years has shared so intimately this history of a school.

It is to him that I give my heart and my book.

Mildred McClary Tymeson
June 30, 1964