which held its first meeting in 1862, has been continued to the present time. Many important inventions, as for instance the earliest forms of the Bell telephone, were first publicly exhibited at its meetings.
In outlining his plan, President Rogers showed wonderful keenness and foresight. With the added experience of the succeeding forty years, it would scarcely be possible to make a more complete statement of what experience has shown to be the best method of organization. In fact, his Scope and Plan of the School of Industrial Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may be said to be the first step toward a new order of things in education, and contains the first clear statement of the desirability of teaching physics, mining, metallurgy and other branches by the laboratory method.
The Henry L. Pierce Building and Engineering Building.
Let us now see what has been the result of the nearly forty years of development since President Rogers outlined his plan. Originally confined to one building, the growing needs of the school have led to the erection of five others, in addition to a gymnasium. The original building, completed in 1865, is now known as the Rogers Building, after the founder of the school; while the one next erected, in 1883, is named after the third president, the late General Francis A. Walker. These two buildings each measure about 90 by 150 feet, and in addition to a building occupied by the Boston Society of Natural History, occupy one entire square nearly in the heart of the city, and in close proximity to the Public Library and the Art Museum. Three other buildings, which adjoin each other and now form one structure, are situated about six hundred feet distant and form the front and part of one side of what will some day be one large quadrangle. The first of these buildings to be erected was the Engineering Building, built in 1889, measuring 52 by 148 feet on the ground, adjoining which is
