Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 127]

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whole machines.- For example: let the student make the design, the patterns, mould them, cast them in heated metal, such as can be fused in a forge, when such materials are suitable, and finish them. Our models for illustrating parts of machinery may be made in this way. As these models must be had, I submit the suggestion, that their manufacture in our own shop will not only cost as little outlay as importation from the old world, where alone they are now made, but this manufacture would afford much of the desired practical instruction for students, and might furnish here, as it does in some European schools, a profitable application of student's labor. Thus models, not only for the Mechanical, but for all the departments, may be made. When the castings for these models are ordered or made by ourselves, as above suggested, a good number from each may be secured at the same time, and all finished together. In this manner, several duplicates of each model can be cheaply procured, and mostly offered for sale to other institutions. And, indeed, as these models are not now made in this country, their sale will probably prove profitable. As our object in imparting practical instruction will be, primarily, to teach the student, it is not altogether improbable that as much of that class of education may be secured here, in six months of diligent application, as would be if apprenticed for two or three years to an indifferent master, whose main object is to make money. The apparatus for the machine shop will itself furnish, to quite an extent, the necessary models of illustration, and at the same time be true working models, which, of course, are the best. The cylinder of the steam engine may be so made as to admit the application to it of various gears, to convert the engine at pleasure from one to another. In this way, the common slide-valve engine may be changed into a Corliss, or to a regulating cut-off engine, or any other for which we have the suitable valve-gear. Thus, one of the most important of all machines may be exhibited in its various modifications, as an actual working model, to the class. The Mechanical Department, thus equipped, will afford valuable aid to the Agricultural Department, for the repair of agricultural machinery and implements. The power at hand in the shop will undoubtedly be applied to many useful purposes, to supply a want already felt, such, for instance, as threshing grain, shelling corn, grinding grain, running the carpenter's lathe, buzz saw or other machinery, for the benefit of the Agricultural Department. Indeed, complete machines, experimental or otherwise, can be made, such as it may be desirable to try on the farm or in the shop, and which, on account of originality, cannot be found in the market. On account of these numerous advantages to the Agricultural Department, undoubtedly that department will be glad to hasten the introduction of the shop, by sharing the expenses of fitting up, in providing room for it, and procuring a boiler. As an encouragement to this fitting up of the Mechanical Department, allow me to state, that while all the Mechanical students were before me for the purpose of having explained to them the duties of the Mechanical Engineer, and what acquirements he should attain to, after stating the importance of practical culture, I