To WIT

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, Fall 2004 by Earls, Alan R

To WIT

A Century of Honesty, Energy, Economy, System, Joseph P. Clifford, Wentworth Institute, 2003; $32.95

Like so many institutions, Wentworth Institute began with a bequest. The gift, from Arioch Wentworth, the scion of a New Hampshire family that included three royal governors of the colony prior to the American Revolution, also came with terse instructions. Those instructions were embodied in a will written shortly before his death in 1903 that not only launched the school but also, according to Joseph P. Clifford, shaped its evolution and behavior over the century that followed. Indeed, the title of Clifford's book, which is drawn from the Wentworth motto, derives from the watchwords Arioch Wentworth lived by and credited for much of his success.

Telling this tale more fully than it has ever been told before, Clifford, who works as an editor at Wentworth, provides us with the biography of one of the more unique educational establishments in New England.

Although Arioch Wentworth had become one of Boston's wealthiest citizens thanks to his innovations in the manufacture of soapstone products such as sinks, laundry tubs, stoves and hearths (and his shrewd real estate investments), he felt keenly that it had taken him too many years to learn his skills and master his craft-a fate he hoped to spare others. How much more sensible and desirable it would be, he reasoned, to equip gifted and enterprising tradesmen with at least some of the more advanced skills they might ordinarily acquire only through a long apprenticeship. His will, later successfully contested by his family, left the bulk of his $5.4 million fortune for the establishment of school to "furnish education in the mechanical arts" to this sort of person.

In the end, half the money went to launch Wentworth Institute and the other half was awarded to his family. By the time Wentworth began admitting students in 1911, the endowment had grown under the wise stewardship of the trustees Arioch had selected and proved sufficient to purchase land in Boston and construct the central buildings of the familiar campus that still faces the Museum of Fine Arts across Huntington Avenue. Also thanks to the endowment, students were charged tuition of only $18 per annum-a bargain even for those times.

The super trade school that Wentworth aimed to be-in part modeled on New York's Pratt Instituteproved a successful approach and one that carried the school along for decades as it honed its offerings, expanded its campus and built its reputation. Along the way the school adapted to the needs of the nation in two world wars. In the first, more than 800 graduates served and 28 lost their lives. During World War II, the campus shut its doors to regular students so it could function as a training center exclusively for the Navy.

The modern era at Wentworth might be said to have begun with the appointment of H. Russell Beatty, a Pratt veteran, as principal in 1953. One of his first actions was to ask the board to change his title to president. After winning the day on that matter, he began the slow process of making Wentworth into an institution that granted degrees-initially associate degrees only and, as his tenure ended in the early 1970s, a bachelor's (spawning a short-lived slogan Wen-TWO-worth).

Although published by Wentworth itself and generally self-congratulatory in tone, A Century of Honesty does not shy away from the institution's less flattering side. For instance, Beatty who put his imprint on Wentworth as president from 1953 to 1971 is revealed as both innovator and autocrat (a characterization I recall hearing during my father's time on the faculty in the tumultuous 1960s). Determined to mold character no matter what happened in the world at large, Beatty brooked no disagreement and insisted that unscheduled student time be occupied with wholesome activities-a policy that was enforced through mandatory participation in groups such as a model railroad club and a glee club. His wife Alice, while regarded with warmth, also played her own role in watching over the students and ensuring they were occupied and fully prepared to sing the school's anthem on call (she herself was often the choirmaster at campus events, despite a tendency to sing off key).

Similarly, the book, which provides an unusually well-balanced and seamless blend of photographs, text, sidebars, personal anecdotes and other illustrative material, includes mementos highlighting student discontents as well as a full treatment of the landmark faculty strike of the late 1970s.

Clifford brings the story to the present with his review of the administration of Edward T. Kirkpatrick, who enlarged upon Beatty's reforms. Curiously, the college recruited Kirkpatrick in large measure based on his experience as dean of Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, which he had helped relocate to an entirely new campus. This was the time when Boston's highway builders were about to launch the "Inner Belt," a short circumferential highway that would have cut between MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, through Boston University, and then directly through Wentworth property.