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Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870
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48 Much enthusiasm is exhibited by the students of this department, some of whom are already engaged in making original drawings for machinery, and in learning to make patterns for the moulders. All express great interest in the progress of the shop. It is reasonably hoped that this department will be able to lend important aid to the agricultural and other departments, in altering, repairing and even inventing and manufacturing tools, machinery and teaching apparatus; and the hope will strike you as well founded, when I inform you that among our students we have several good mechanics who have left their journeymen's place and wages to come here and educate themselves for the higher and more important spheres of their callings. CarjDenters, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, carriage-makers, house-painters, coach-painters and machinists, and even one master mechanic has sold his shop and come to get the benefit of this school of mechanical science. And will not this movement increase, and hundreds of our young mechanics throughout the State, having learned their trades, come here to arm themselves with a knowledge of those great mechanical laws and forces which underlies and explains the magnificent and almost mysterious triumphs of mechanical inventions which have enriched and glorified our country and the century itself ? Prof. Robinson asks that Mr. Thomson be employed for the coming year to aid in the more complete fitting up and development of the department. Mr. T. is a skillful and rapid worker in both wood and iron, and able to save to us his wages. He is, moreover, a graduate from the Scientific Department of the Michigan University, and is an accomplished draughtsman and civil engineer. If it is found that our funds will allow, I should greatly desire that the experiment might be tried. His salary ($1,000) might be charged to the apparatus account; and Prof. Robinson seems confident that the apparatus and other articles manufactured for sale will cover very nearly, if not quite, the entire expense of the shop. Machinery can be attached, with slight cost, to the engine for grinding feed for the stock; and if, ultimately, the shops and barns can be brought into nearer neighborhood, the steam can be used here, as at the Agricultural College in England, to thresh and winnow the grain, cut straw, pump water, run grindstones, and the surplus be made available to parboil food and heat drying rooms. The Trustees will, I doubt not, give very earnest attention to the means necessary for the development of a department so vitally connected with the highest material needs and prospects of our State. The confirmation of Prof. Robinson's appointment to the chair of Mechanical Science and Engineering is cordially recommended; and I recommend, also, that the Department of Mining Engineering be temporarily intrusted to him. THE MILITARY DEPARTMENT. A military class has been taught during the year, and the entire body of students, except a few excused for cause, have been drilled in $be manual of
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