"laboratory" was organized in 1875, the funds needed being obtained
by drawing upon loans offered by friends of the movement and by the
"Director."

It was not until the year 1878, therefore, that it became possible to
attempt the organization of the shop course; and it was then only by the
writer assuming personal responsibility for its expenses that the plan
could be entered upon. As then organized--in the autumn of 1878--a
superintendent of the workshop had general direction of the trade
department of the school. He was instructed to submit to the writer
plans, in detail, for a regular course of shop instruction, and was
given as assistants a skilled mechanic of unusual experience and
ability, whose compensation was paid from the mechanical laboratory
funds, and guaranteed by the writer personally, and another aid whose
services were paid for partly by the Institute and partly as above. The
pay of the superintendent was similarly assured. This scheme had been
barely entered upon when the illness of the writer compelled him to
temporarily give up his work, and the direction of the new organization
fell into other hands, although the department was carried on, as above,
for a year or more after this event occurred.

The plan did not fall through; the course of instruction was
incorporated into the college course, and its success was finally
assured by the growth of the school and a corresponding growth of its
income, and, especially, by the liberality of President Morton, who met
expenses to the amount of many thousands of dollars by drawing upon his
own bank account. The department was by him completely organized, with
an energetic head, and needed support was given in funds and by a force
of skilled instructors. This school is now in successful operation.
This course now also includes the systematic instruction of students in