United States Military Academy West Point - Howitzer Yearbook (West Point, NY)

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The West Point engineers . . . introduced a new and scientific character into American life. Henry Adams iKir i West Point was the first technical school in the United States and for almost half a century the only effective one; Academy graduates became the medium from which the principal American universities obtained their teachers and textbooks in the physical and mathematical sciences. Of the technical schools which existed before the Civil War, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduated its first class of civil engineers in 1835. The Lawrence School ' s engineering department was opened by Professor Henry L. Eustis, USMA 1842. He was Dean of the school until his death in 1885. The Sheffield Scientific School ' s chair in civil engineering was established in 1852 and filled by Professor John Pitkin Norton, USMA 1831. He held the position for thirty-one years. In the textbook field, Joseph G. Totten, Class of 1805, published an early treatise on Mortar and Masonry. Dennis H. Mahan, Class of 1824, published a treatise on Military and Civil Engineering which was used in many parts of the world; Edward H. Courteney, Class of 1821, Mechanics and Mechanical Philosophy; W. H. Bartlett, Class of 1826, Optics; Albert E. Church, Class of 1828, Elements of Descriptive Geometry, well-known in American colleges for over eighty years — the list is endless. OGGBOIOD

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Professor Jacob Whitman Bailey (USMA 1832) assisted with the laying of the Atlantic Cable by his laboratory work at West Point. He developed many improvements in the microscope and was the author of more than fifty papers in the varied fields of Chemistry, Mineralogy, Geology, Natural His- tory and Microscopic Researches. .- 11