Northeastern University - Cauldron Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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Copley Square YMCA - 1908. The philosophy of Northeastern has always been to offer unique edu- cational opportunities without overly duplicating the efforts of other local institutions. In 1898, the Evening Law School was started, which in 1904 was incorporated with degree privileges. The Law School was one of the main- stays of the developing university for 55 years. The first formal program of the university, it offered working men the chance to study law at night. In 1953, the Law School was phased out for 17 years because it seemed to du- plicate unnecessarily the efforts of the many local law schools which had been established during the first half of the twentieth century . The philosophy of offering unique opportunities sprang from the fact that the Evening Institute courses were entirely dependent on communi- ty interest for their success or failure. To become just one more in a large number of institutes offering dupli- cate programs would have spread the public too thin. The Evening Institute thus offered unique opportunities, procuring the entire segment of the community interested in its particular programs. The favorable response to the law courses offered in 1897 encouraged the YMCA directors to approve Speare ' s plans for more advanced law courses to be offered beginning in 1898. This more formal program was to become the first school of North- eastern, and thus its inauguration is considered the actual start of the university. Huntington Avenue — c. 1925 . With Speare ' s perseverance and ini- tiative, the Evening Institute grew from an eraser and two sticks of chalk into a viable organization. Ear- ly successes were achieved through the teamwork of its organizers and the enthusiasm of its students . In the early years of the Evening Institute, Speare inaugurated many courses, some of which populated, others of which died for lack of inter- est. The unsuccessful course is exem- plified by one called Knots and Splices which Speare conceived simply be- cause he knew a retired sea captain available to teach it and because he thought it would be useful and intri- guing. No one shared his interest e- nough to enroll, and the course was never taught.

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Just what were they celebrating anyway? The University ' s History 1898-1974 In 1898, what was to become Northeastern University was embod- ied in a series of night courses in law sponsored by the Boston Young Men ' s Christian Association and Lowell Institute; and in the person of Frank Palmer Speare. Head of the YMCA ' s education division since 1896, it was Speare whose imagina- tion, perseverance, and work enlarged the scope of course offerings and di- rected the organizational development which culminated in the incorporation of Northeastern College in 1916. Frank Palmer Speare Speare ' s major objective was the promotion of unique educational op- portunities for young men. Beginning at the YMCA, and later as Northeast- ern ' s first president, he guided the institution through its early years of growth and experimentation. Northeastern is not an old institu- tion. Many of the men who have de- voted their lives to helping the univer- sity get off the ground are still alive. The university represents the at- tempts and failures, the strengths and weaknesses which result in any effort conceived and nurtured by a group of Carl Stephens Ell men. The ideas of men sometimes require many tests and much use be- fore they can be recognized as either successful or unsuccessful. Many of the things the university does now may prove in time to have been based on faulty reasoning. Then improve- ments will follow. No one is omniscient enough to in- stitute a program secure in the knowl- edge that it will succeed and continue to be relevant forever. In spite of occa- sional failures, in specific situations, the basic philosophy and structure of the institution as established by Speare seem to be stable. The university ' s three presidents have carried the institution through different phases. Speare ' s era was one of experimentation and formulation. Ell ' s administration was one of per- sonal rule in spite of the rapid growth of the campus and the ever- Asa Smallidge Knowles increasing size of the student body. During his tenure President Knowles has had to respond to the monumental pressures exerted by the sixties, with more students than ever, and with the impending Diamond Anniversary dawning over a cramped and suddenly inadequate campus .

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The process of experimental offer- ings and the resuhing expansion of the courses was carried on in a very informal and spontaneous fashion in the early years of the Evening Insti- tute. As the twentieth century began to assert itself in the fields of trans- portation, business administration, and engineering technology, programs became more formalized, giving the Institute substance enough to become a chartered college by 1916. In 1903, the YMCA ' s Education Division opened the world ' s first Automobile School, offering three courses: a general course in motor transport; a course for those interest- ed in the industry of automobiles; and a course in auto maintenance. In many ways, the Automobile School was a harbinger of future Northeastern phi- losophies. The establishment of the school reflected a community need: that of absorbing the new phenome- non of the automobile into existing social patterns. The school offered garage work, carried on in the Voca- tional Building (now known as the Botolph Building) which placed a val- ue on practical experience later reflect- ed in the philosophy of Cooperative 31 33 1131111 The Vocational Building — Look familiar ? Education. Some of the automotive courses were open to women, thus setting a precedent for the later adop- tion of co-education. In 1907, responding to the relative- ly new idea of academic training for businessmen, the Evening Institute formed a School of Commerce and Finance. Some of the earliest courses offered by the YMCA since the 1860 ' s had been typing and bookkeeping for the training of clerks. By the turn of the century, business had become more complex and it became desirable to educate businessmen to more mod- ern techniques of administration and to more contemporary business ethics. The School of Commerce and Fi- nance offered courses in finance, ad- ministration, business law, and lan- guages. Later more specialized courses were introduced including banking, finance and bond salesmanship, and accounting. In 1910, the School of Commerce and Finance was incorporated and in 1911, it was granted the power to con- fer bachelors and masters degrees in commercial science. The name of the school became the School of Business in the undergraduate Evening Divi- sion in 1928, with Carl D. Smith serv- ing as dean. It became the largest school in the Evening Division, with graduate work added to the program in 1950. The school most closely related to its present-day counterpart, the Co- operative Engineering School, was also started in 1909, the second insti- tute in the United States to operate on the cooperative plan. Herman Schnei- der, the originator of the plan, had begun the country ' s first co-op engi- neering courses in 1906, at the Uni- versity of Cincinnati The Evening Institute ' s Coopera- tive Engineering School opened in 1909 with an enrollment of eight. The following year, courses in civil and mechanical engineering were offered to the burgeoning enrollment of 30 students . The corner of Hemenway street and Westland Avenue — c. 1920.