The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-12
PRACTICAL WORK AT PURDUE
Dedication of the New Mechanical Hall
Attached to the University.
One Hundred Students IndustriouSly at Work
in Various Branches Of Mechanics-A
True Temple of Industry.
spocial 20 the indianapolis Journal.

Gated to the teaching of industrial sciences as
part of the educational work of the public school
system of Indiana. Said President Smart to-
day to the writer IF the Legislature of Indiana
was here to-day. and could see what has been
accomplished with the $4,000 appropriated last
winter for the building and furnishings now oc-
cupied by the school of mechanics and engineer
ing, believe they would willingly double the
sum- and regard it a capital investment for the
Etateh Certainly the new building is a beauti-
full temple of industry. It contains H. 900 feet OF
floor space, is built of brick and is an ornament
TO the campus. Yesterday, within its walls were
one hundred students, in workmen's cap and
aprons, engaged in either carpenter work. wood
or iron turning. forging making patterns for
castings, running machines or drawing plans for
various structures. Over five hundred visitors
were present from Lafayette and more distant
points-patrons of Purdue and patrons ofindustry.
AS these entered the hail. through a great plate
glass window, 6x8, they saw the beautiful Atlas
engine of forty horse power, worth nearly
thousand dollars, but furnished for merely
nominal sum by the Atlas works. Clean and
Aew on its tesselated floor, without speck or
drop of grease run by students who could have
horse power engine, drawings, patterns, castings
and all, it stands a fit introduction to the hail.
and representative of the age Of steam in
which we live. and to which modern education is
conforming. 1t furnishes power to the shops
and is itself object lesson to the students;
both worker and teacher. In the carpenter
rooms. under tutor Michael Golden. were forty
students, all making cunning devices in wood.
Many of them were at work furnishing the
building, putting in boxes, closets, cupboards
flooring and shop furnishings. In the machine
shops half as many more students of the higher
classes were at work with tools and
machines. making cupoa furnace
worth thousand dollars, from which,
hereafter, all the castings used in the
shops will receive their component streams of
molten iron. Drawings of the furnace are there
and make a book themselves; there are the forty
or more complicated wooden models which will
shape the sand into the forms for the furnace
parts. All these are made by students. In the
forge room were twelve young blacksmiths, for
the time heating irons in FORCES built by them
selves. These FORCES are of iron. with automatic
bellows and draught hoods, all complete
The work went merrily on without smoke or
dust. In the machine shop, the center of at
traction seemed to be the milling" or shaping
machine, not much larger than a sewing ma
chine, but the most ingenious and useful
mechanism ever put in shop. 1t wiz make
any tool-a hammer an auger. gmlet or
file; it will make cog and gear wheels at any
bevel or shape; in short, from it and with it
could be made any part of the machine itself
- A..
ing machine, and several others, it was
given at reduction which has saved to the
shops total of S., 900. 1t was presid ed over by
Tutor Barrison, a bright young Swede. who Is a
practical mechanic, a graduate of the Wisconsin
Industrial School, and who now has charge of
the machine department.
In the junior room was Prof. Albert W.
Stahl, assistant engineer United States Navy,
professor OF mechanical engineering graduate of
Stevenss Institute and of the naval school, and
tho designer of the boilers of the cruiser Dol
phin, of which much has been said and
written. Prof. Stahl, with his class of six, who
take the degree of mechanical engineer the COM
Ing June, was showing to room full of visitors
the giant Olsen testing machine used to prove
the physical qualities of materials of construc-
ton, such as iron, steel, brass, stone wood,
cement and brick. This machine can exert any
strain up to 30, 900 pounds and can subject the
specimen to tension, compression, or to
transverse strain, and can also determine the
amount of eongation or distortion caused by
various strains and the limit within which it is
safe to load or strain building or bridge mate
rails The professor put strap of wrought
iron foot long, an inch wide and one fourth an
inch thick between its levers and stripping
turned the crank. Ten twelve. fifteen thou
sand pounds the index marked. The plucky iron
grew warm to the touch seventeen twenty
thousand-it groaned and creaked grew visibly
thin in the mddle-at 1850 pounds it
snapped. Next, wooden beam eight inches
thick was laid on supports sixteen inches apart.
hundred people watched the weight on the
scale beam as it automatically ran up the slide
and back to it's place At 10000 pounds the
soft pine sweat and cramped; fifteen, eighteen,
and at % 300 pounds it snapped like reed This
machine will be used to test the materials
of public buildings for the State, and
samples will be tested for builders
mechanics and quarrymen for a small fee. In
the drafting room above two score students were
working at tables making plans in pencil and
ink OF anything and everyth: made or to be
made in the shops below. This work is under
the joint instruction OF Professors Thompson
and Goss. 1t is not necessary to introduce
Professor Goss to the readers of the Journal
With less than a dozen students six years ago he
took charge OF the school of mechanics and en-
cheering; he has brought it to hundred stu
dents and made it the leading department of
Purdue. His exhibit of student work at the
State fair from year to year. and his successful
conduct of tho summer school of wood work in
Indianapolis three years ago, have made him
well known to our citizens interested in indus.
trial education. He proved to our people that it
Is possible and practical to make tool work good
mental and physical discipline to boys from ten
TO eighteen, in public schools. he has
as assistants and co-workers in these branches
full professor and three tutors and his
enthusiasm is as genial and perennial as his
smile, and not exceeded by that of President
Smart himself OF the latter it may be said,
without bias or hattery that he is making Pur
due University what the government grant re-
quires. the State Of Indiana needs and its name
implies-"College of Science Agriculture and
the Mechanic Arts" His work at Purdue proves
that what our Western schools need is organ.
iZers and pushers, whether they got their train
ing in divinity schools, as with the average
college president; in schools of technology. as
did the late President Thompson; specialists,