The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-05-28
CoIunbia School of Mines.

More than local or even national in- terest attaches to the celebration in New York to-day of the semi-centen- ndaI of the Columbia University of this institution was epochaI. since it marked the triumph of the ssaew education" over the old, and the ap- plication of education to the practi- cal problems of life. There were those who considered the uEiIitarian School of Mines an innovation that would blast Columbiass future. Tech nical education was then in itseinfan- cy and was bitterly opposed by those who held to the old and aristocratic notion that the mission of the col lege was to prepare the youth of the upper classes to be gentlemen = and to follow genteel pursuits, such as medicine, the law, and the church. The old educators Worshipped at the shrines of outworn idols, and prayed to their fallen gods in dead lam.
 guages. Mining was not considered
 respectable occupation. and the School of Mines was anatheTna- The predictions of the prophets were not
 realized, and the founding of the School Of Mines at Columbia. marked the beginning of new period of pro- gress for the old college, which has
 now become 9 university second to
 none in the world in the number of its
 stud ents. Sl3s {. .sssa sss E1ne oSIaD1lSnmenL OF the GOIl9E0 or
 university. practically marked the be-
 ginning of technical education in the New World. Forty years before, in 1924, Stephen Van Rensseiaer had founded a scientific school in Troy, N. Y, which had no deceased or foreign languages in it's course of instruction. and whose studies included mineral ogy, as well as chemistry, geology, zoology, botany and mathematics. In
 1926 the Rensselaer, School which
 then had twenty-five students regis-s tered, graduated nine menA with the degree of bachelor of science. In 1896 the Troy school conferred the first degree in engineering that of C. E.. civil engineering.
 The Troy institution remained al- most alone in it's field until the early sos, but gradually other technical schools were launched in various parts of the United States and Can ada, and degrees were granted in four branches Of engine eering civil. me- chanical. mining, and, latterly, eIectri- cal The Rensselaer, School was pc culiarly American, and it gave to it's successors throughout the world the invaluable Laboratory methods,' of technical instruction, by which the student himself makes experin ents,. and is not merely a spectator of the experiments made by an instructor. Most of the early technical schools. such as Rensselaer,. bartm ollth Scien-
 tific School, and Yale Scientific IsSchool, restricted their activities to scientific education without regard to utilitarian ends, but the engineering, mining and other schools were the Inatural and inevitable developmen ent
 The Columbia School of Mines, ! while it marked a new development on this side of the Atlantic, was not the first of it's kind. Thirteen years before the opening of the Columbia school the British government had established a, school of mines in Jer- rnyn street. St. James, London, but 1t was an Independent institution and in no way connected with any college In America. most of the mining schools are located in the western
 mining States. The Colorado School of Mines at Golden was established in 1874. two years before the admis- sion of the Golden State. The Uni versity of Missouri has a world fa- l nous mining school at RoIla, and there are number of other such in- stitutions. including the Michigan Col 1ege of Mines at Houghton, the Mon tana State School of Mines at Butte, and the South Dakota School of Mines at Rapid City.
 Thomas Agustine Daly.
 Poets who have no other source Of