Northeastern University - Cauldron Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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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.

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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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The Tabernacle on Huntington Field — 1916 . The 1912 Catalog of the Evening Institute delineates the rapid growth of the Cooperative Engineering School: Faculty: 18 Enrollment: 70 School expenses: (including YMCA n embership) $100 per year Rooms at the YMCA: $1.50 per week and up Board at the YMCA: $3.50 per week From 70 students in 1912, enroll- ment reached 235 by 1918, and more than doubled to 592 by 1920, when tuition had climbed to $175 per year (with $10 student activities fee). Ob- viously the Engineering School, with the added attraction of co-op employ- ment was something the public need- ed and wanted. Until 1909, the Chauncey Hall School gave day classes in the same YMCA facilities used by the Evening Institute at night, located at the corner of Boylston and Berkeley streets. When the Chauncey School relocated, leaving the YMCA vacant during the day, Speare suggested that the space be used by the Evening Institute to conduct day classes. Speare envi- sioned a new type of college prepara- tory school, providing individual su- pervision of students; programs of sports and activities; and college preparatory education at a cost be- tween that of private boarding schools and evening schools . Therefore, in 1909, the College Preparatory program which had been part of the Evening Institute since its inception, was reorganized and estab- lished as a day program. The initial enrollment of 100 in 1909, grew to 250 a year later. In 1913, this Association Day School became the Huntington School for Boys. After the incorpora- tion of Northeastern in 1916, the Huntington School became one of the group of Northeastern Schools. How- ever in 1950, the decision was made to make Northeastern strictly a college- level institution. Thus the Hunting- ton School resumed its ties with the Boston YMCA and continues its work today at 290 Huntington avenue. Until 1910, the Evening Education Division operated in the Boylston street YMCA. In that year, the build- ing burned down and for months classes were held in rooms provided by the City of Boston, the Boston YMCU, Boston University, MIT, and after that, in various buildings on Huntington and Massachusetts avenues. The YMCA decided to rebuild, not on Arlington street, as originally planned, but on Huntington avenue. The section of Huntington avenue which appealed to the YMCA direc- tors m 1910, was an open field which lay beyond Symphony Hall and had been the site of the first World Series games in 1903, when the Boston Americans had defeated the Pitts- burgh Nationals. This area was attrac- tive because of the athletic field, and because of the rapid development tak- ing place in the Back Bay area. Sym- phony Hall had been erected in 1900; The New England Conservatory had been completed in 1901; Isabella Gardner had transplanted her palace in 1902; the first section of the Mu- seum of Fine Arts had been completed in 1907; and the Boston Opera House had opened in 1908 . Ground-breaking ceremonies for the new YMCA Main Building were held in November, 1911. But the Vo- cational Building had been completed in October of that year, and was al- ready occupied by the Automobile School and the Electrical School. The Main Building was completed in 1913. The Catalog of the Evening Division for that year boasted of the facilities provided in the new building, including a fine gymnasium, bowling alleys, swimming pool, cafe, dormito- ries, shops and laboratories, library and reading room, camera club rooms, social and recreative rooms, and auditorium.